Eric Pettersson

"Good session, boys," Coach Berglund announces with a wide grin. "Keep that up and we’ll definitely beat those suckers from Ekerö in two weeks."

His words are met with general cheers and grunts of agreement from the players around Eric as they all walk off the field and grab their water bottles. As always, the coach has been working them hard and relentlessly throughout the practice session and every muscle in Eric’s body is sore from the workout.
As Eric moves to follow the rest of the team into the showers and changing room, he is stopped by the coach’s voice: "Hey, Petterson, can I talk to you for a second?"

There would be no point in arguing, of course, so Eric just breaks out of the crowd and walks over to the coach, who looks at him with a serious expression. "That performance from you today wasn’t bad," he says. "But it also didn’t blow me away. You do still want to go pro, don’t you?"

"Yeah..." Eric looks towards his feet. He knows he could do better, there's always room for improvement. "Yeah, I do. I really do!" He kneels down and starts untying his skates, doing his best not to look his coach in the eye. "I guess I need to work on my passes. Be more of a team player. I'll be better in Ekerö. I just wanted to work on myself. Shooting and speed are important too, aren't they?"

Realising his shoes are both untied, Eric removes them, wiggling his toes slightly now they've been removed from their stiff confines. He stands up and looks around. His eyes follow the rest of his team as they finish entering the changing room. He knows what Berglund is really implying; speed, passing, shooting; sure, they could all be worked on, but they're definitely not the way to blow Bergson away. Coach might be right though, he might never go pro if that's all he does.

"That's it right? See you next session!"

Eric turns and tries to walk away.

As he tries to leave the conversation, the coach clears his throat. He waits calmly for Eric to turn his attention back to him, then he begins: "You're still..." Suddenly, the coach stops mid-sentence. He looks irritated for a moment and sniffs the air. "Do you smell that? Smells like blood.", he asks. There's a sudden expression of disgust on his face. Eric doesn't smell anything.
"Anyway, you're still taking your... vitamins, aren't you, Eric? Because if you are, I'm getting the impression, you might need something a bit more potent."

Eric makes eye contact with his coach for a second or two. He's unsure, the coach has looked after him for years, both on the ice as well as off it. He's helped out when Eric was having trouble at school, helped out when his family had little to live on. Heck, the man has almost been a father to him over ever since his dad started working away. Maybe he had been a bit hasty to judge, the coach has always looked our for Eric's best interests in the past, why would that change now?

But then, things have changed recently. It seems to Eric like people have become more desperate. The coach certainly wanted more than anything to make Eric a success, no matter how he did it, and Eric wasn't sure he wanted to go down that route. The vitamins already made Eric feel like a fraud, anything more potent would be a lot worse.

He pulls his eyes away from the coach, unsure what to make of him for now. "Yeah, sure. Some information, that never hurt anybody right? Lets see how things are after Ekerö. I'll do you proud!" Eric turns and starts walking away, before turning his head back "Oh, blood?" He sniffs the air, "Nah, I don't smell anything."

Eric makes his way to the changing rooms. He makes it to the closest bench as his knees sag beneath him. He takes several deep breaths before visibly shaking off any concerns he has. Eric stands and calmly walks to the showers.

END Part 1

Waking up from strange dreams of blood and wombs, Eric heads to the bathroom and then slowly descends down the stairs towards the kitchen where he can already hear the cheery music his mother likes to listen to on the weekends. She must be preparing breakfast, he thinks. Excited, he smells the air to try and find out what she might be making, but instead of delicious baking or sweet sugariness, what he smells is something burning.
He quickens his steps and runs to the kitchen. There are buns in the oven, already turned black and inedible, the cause of the smell. Sitting right next to the oven, her arms on the kitchen table and her head resting on them, Eric sees his mother, seemingly asleep, though shifting uneasily as he watches her.
Falling asleep while making breakfast does not seem like her at all.

"Mum! Mum!" Eric frantically tries to wake his mother, shaking her, gently at first. Memories of the evening prior, and his more recent dreams, rush back to him, visions of red, scents of iron. Is the same thing happening to his mother? Or is she just tired, she's been working extra hard recently, he should try to do more to help out.

As Eric continues trying to wake his mother, he turns to the oven, turning it off before there's any serious damage.

Eric tries to shake his mother awake but she barely reacts to his presence. With the oven turned off, at least the immediate danger is over, though the breakfast is ruined.
Eric's mother continues to shift uneasily as if stuck in a nightmare, but for a long while, he is unable to wake her up. Eventually, however, she opens her eyes and looks at him. Her eyes are unfocused for a moment, then she blinks and asks: "Eric? Where am I?" She looks down at herself and runs her hands along the sides of her body as if reassuring herself that it is real. "I was... I must have been dreaming. But it was so vivid."

"You saw red, right? And smelt blood, felt warm, was it like you were being born again?"

Eric doesn't need to hear his mother's answer to know that's what she dreamt of. She's been working a lot recently, but she never falls asleep like this, in the middle of the kitchen while cooking.

"Maybe you should take some time off? My friends and I, we're going to fix this. I think... We think we know who's doing it, some doctor from near where Mark lived, it's a long story, I'll tell you later. We're going to sort it out this afternoon, up in the marshes."

Eric looks again at his mother, checking again that she's okay. He looks through the kitchen cupboards to see if there's anything else he could quickly make for breakfast to spare his mum the work. Axel would also be looking for breakfast soon.

"You just sit there, I'll sort breakfast out! Don't worry!" Eric gives his mum the biggest smile he can muster under the circumstances. "We don't happen to have any frozen peas, or an ice pack or anything? I hurt my hand last night." Eric holds up his swollen hand.

"Something like that," Eric's mother confirms. She takes a sharp breath, then shakes her head and rights herself. "It was... creepy. Thank you for taking care of breakfast, I might still need a moment."

She watches Eric as he works his way through the kitchen. She doesn't quite understand his explanations of what's going on and how he's planning to fix it so she just nods. There's bread, eggs, some cereal. Definitely everything he might need to still make a proper breakfast happen.
When he mentions his hand, Eric's mother's eyes widen. "Oh no, my poor boy!", she says. "Here, let me take care of this!" She gets up from her chair and heads to the freezer from which she retrieves an ice pack. She wraps it into a kitchen towel, then comes over to him and inspects his wrist. "That doesn't look good," she says. "This coach, he's being too hard on you." She seems to assume you got the injury during your practice. "I'll have to have a serious word with him."

Eric finds everything he needs for eggs and soldiers, he thinks it's Axel's favourite. Whether it is or not Axel likes it, it's definitely Eric's favourite.

While the eggs boil he shows his hand to his mother letting her wrap it in the ice. It feels nice, the ice but also the attention. Very often these days their interactions involve either him or her in a rush to leave the house.

"Oh no mum, it wasn't... It's okay, I'll be fine. It's just a bit of a sprain, should be fine." Eric watches his mums reaction to see if she believes him.
"Maybe best you don't talk to the coach, he's quite anxious about the match that's coming up. I don't want to put him off at all, he thinks there might be some scouts there, they might take me on, into the big leagues."

"Cool this for a while," Eric's mom says. "I'll put a bandage over it to keep it stable in an hour." She looks her son up and down and then says: "Okay, I won't. But if you get hurt during training or a game again, then you won't be able to stop me from talking to him."
She smiles and pats your shoulder. "I'm sorry for messing up breakfast. Thank you for taking care of it!"