I swing my arm back, hand wrapped tightly around the stone's handle, then forward in the controlled arc necessary to throw a curling rock and not tear a ligament in your shoulder.

It's two a.m. and throwing rocks is the last thing I should be doing considering I haven't slept in two days.

But nothing calms me like feeling my muscles strain from the motion of swinging the rock, feeling it cut through the air and then smoothly connect with the ice as I bring it down, bending my front knee, back leg trailing, so I am stretched out as I slide forward along the ice with the rock. I feel alive from the tingles my hand gets that radiate up through the handle as the bottom of the rock runs over the slight imperfections in the ice's surface, the imperfections that really make or break a good shot.

The imperfections that a sweeper tries to make work to our advantage with their broom.

My heart constricts in grief. This is why I'm really here. I've been holding it together for the team since our bus got hit by a drunk driver and Jorge got hurt, but now I need time alone to let it go. To let him go.

I watch the rock glide down the ice to where Jorge had always been waiting since we started curling as kids. Best damn sweeper I've ever seen.

I can even hear distinctive swish-swish of a broom rapidly sweeping the ice to make my rock go slightly faster. It lands right on the button.

Beside the rock stands Jorge.

"I thought you were dead." It's a stupid thing to say since I held his hand when he took his last breath not two hours ago. I'm too tired to figure out how my best friend could be here, or even be afraid.

"I need a favour." Broom propped up on his shoulder, hand balanced on the end, he saunters down to me.

"Thing is, Max, I'm not ready to leave. But the guy I spoke to said I have to send someone in my place. It has to be a sacrifice for me. A hard sacrifice. They wanted Sally, but I can't send her with the baby on the way and all. But you're all alone except for me. And they'll take you, because I'm going to miss you, man!"

I open my mouth to ask what the heck he's talking about, but he flicks two fingers and a rock flies to connect with my head. Hard.

As my lifeless body falls to the hard ice and my soul is snatched from my body, I hear Jorge scream out, "No! He can't be dead!"

He always did suck at throwing rocks.

Word count: 500