It's not real blood.

  Not yet anyway.

  The red ice was only set dressing, Guy had to remind himself of this every time he stepped onto the ice; even now in his tenth season playing for the Coaltown Mutants. He took in one final deep breath, to confirm the air didn't smell like copper, before he was shoved from behind onto the ice. He stumbled but managed to keep himself upright, but couldn't stop in time to not slam into the rusty chain-link wall that surrounded the rink.

  He smiled sheepishly at the fans on the other side, waving awkwardly before skating away and trying to find a puck to slap around.

  "Keep moving next time, freak," a big burly man wearing a necklace made of large pointed teeth growled, skating past him and grabbing a puck with his stick.

  "Awwh, leave him alone," a scrawny woman with a bright red mohawk followed behind him, also finding a puck and taking a shot at the empty net, "You know he's scared of blood."

  "I'm not-" Guy objected, but they were already moving on. He sighed. He wasn’t scared of blood. He just hated what it meant: death.

  He started his warmups like he did every game, by gazing around the rink and getting a feel for the other players.

  Unicorn, team captain by merit of being the longest surviving member of the team, was standing in front of the net swatting pucks in one by one. The metal horn welded to the top of his helmet was glistening in the bright lights of the arena. Guy recalled watching him polish it all morning so it would shine like the sun.

  Right up until he used it to stab someone.

  If they won their game the blood would stay until it dried and hardened to be polished off right before the next, if they lost he would polish it that night and store it under a tattered blanket in his locker as "punishment."

  Rottie, the woman with the mohawk, was busy skating laps around the rink, ducking, dodging, and sometimes jumping over the other players as they warmed up. The bayonet blade on the end of her stick also gleamed in the light, but she wasn't as precious about her weapon as Unicorn was, and often replaced it when it got dull rather then polishing it and sharping it. Guy had started the same season as her, but the two of them had never been close. She had been immediately accepted into the team's fold and Guy... not so much.

  Sparky was proof enough of that. He was their newest team member and goalie. Goalies didn't always have a weapon, per say, often opting to make some form of shield that could be used offensively. Sparky, however, had embedded tasers into his glove that he used if someone from the other team got too close to his crease. Their last goalie had been killed only a month earlier after lasting a season and a half. Guy had liked him and knew he'd miss him for a while, but he had already forgotten his name. He really didn't like Sparky. He was loud and mean and snored hard enough to shake his bed.

  The air was suddenly forced out of his lungs as he flew backwards on the ice. Of course he had zoned out again and ran into someone, he always did this, but when he looked up to give an apology he was instead met with the somehow smiling skull of a six foot tall skeleton in a tattered rode.

  "Get out of my way, Bones," he spat on the ice and swerved around him.

  "Awwh what? I'm your biggest fan, why don't you give me a puck or something, huh?" Bones asked, skating beside him easily without skates. "I bet you'd even sign it for me." As they passed other players on the ice he phased right through them rather then dodge or weave. If Guy stopped to watch each of them would shiver as a chill ran down their spine.

  "What would you even do with it?" Guy asked, finding a puck to hit around for a bit while he tried to avoid the skeleton in the room. "You can't touch anything."

  "I can touch you!" Bones replied, giddy as a ghoul, as he placed one of his bony hands on Guy's shoulder.

  "I wish you wouldn't," Guy shrugged his ice cold hand away to take a shot towards a goal, missing terribly. He cursed and blamed the skeleton for distracting him.

  "You're no fun!!!!" Bones pouted, if skeletons even could pout, "You're the only guy at this party that I know!"

  "You'd freak these other guys out if they saw you," Guy said. "They wouldn't wanna talk to you either."

  "You cried the first time you saw me and now we're best friends!" Bones replied, still keeping unnatural pace with the hockey player, "You also peed your pants."

  "I did not!" Guy growled, finding a corner of the ice to do some stretching. "And so what if I did I was seven. So... its excusable."

  Bones slid to a halt right next to Guy and leaned casually against the boards. "Whatever you say," Bones chuckled, his empty sockets glancing over the two teams. "Which one of these knuckle heads do you think I'm taking with me tonight?"

  "If I had to guess," Guy replied, scanning the members of the other team, the Steal Teeth. "You see the chick with the Taxidermy wolf head on her helmet?"

  "Tacky," Bones replied.

  "Well, she took a stick to the knee during the Teeth's game against the Death Valley Dinos the other night, she was out for their game against the Snowrock Danger Wolves last night, and she's been favoring that other leg since warmups began."

  "You think she's gonna fall and not get back up?" Bones asked.

  "Maybe," Guy replied, changing his stretching position slightly to glance towards another member of his own team. "Bolt lost his lucky arrow head last night, he's been a mess. Last time that happened he got sliced open real bad and almost didn't make it, so he's gonna be distractable."

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "And your buddy Unicorn?" Bones asked in a tone of voice that suggested if he had eyebrows he'd be raising them.

  "Fit and healthy," Guy replied.

  "Isn't he like a million years old? What if dementia sets in halfway through the game and he forgets what a hockey even is?" the skeleton teased.

  Guy shot him a glance. Unicorn was not only the longest lived player on the team, he was longest lived in the league. He was forty five and had thirty two seasons under his belt. "He's gonna outlive me," Guy said firmly.

  "Whatever you say, hot shot," Bones said. "See this is why I fuck with you, Guy, you love to gossip."

  "I hate death," Guy replied.

  "And yet you play a sport known for killing people, wanna unpack that for me?" Bones asked sarcastically.

  "I like hockey and hate mining coal," Guy replied simply. "I'd do anything to not die underground."

  "Like your poor flat mother," Bones snickered.

  Guy skated away and this time Bones didn't follow, the teams were being called back to their boxes for the face off. He nearly fell trying to climb over the side of the box and dropped his stick as he blindly tried to keep himself from eating shit. A hand stopped him and he looked up to see Digit smiling back at him.

  "Almost ate it, huh bud?" he asked.

  "Yeah, thanks," Guy took a seat on the bench with Digit on one side of him and Buckle on the other.

  "Oh, your stick!" Digit exclaimed, leaning down to grab the thing. He wrapped one hand around the handle but it quickly dropped back to the ground in surprise. "Holy fuck. I knew your stick was heavy but what the hell?!"

  "That's why it's called Guy's Hammer," Buckle chimed in as Guy reached down to grab it instead. "He's the only one who can pick it up."

  "A heavy stick to the back of the knees is a good way to get someone on the ground," Guy said simply.

  "But how do you kill them?" Digit asked, completely ignoring the pre-show and the anthem.

  "He doesn't!" Buckle sent a elbow sharply into Guy's side just below his padding. "Guy hasn't killed anyone since he came up to the Lethals."

  "You have to kill someone to get in, right?" Digit asked.

  "Oh yeah, you gotta kill someone to get in, isn't that right, buddy?" The voice was coming from right behind him, against a wall where nobody could have reasonably fit, alas he felt the cold familiar feeling of hands on his shoulders anyway.

  "Shut the fuck up," Guy snapped, pointedly at the voice just behind him, but hoped Digit would drop it as well.

  "I wonder if you'd be a killer if you didn't see ghosts. You know, and had to deal with the consequences of your actions. " Bones was far from the only entity that followed Guy around, and he often saw others anywhere he went. Ghosts, ghouls, entities who could only be described as the pure embodiment of children's fear of the dark. This one was forever bound to him specifically, but he didn't like to give him the time of day.

  "I told you to stop," Guy nearly chewed through his mouth guard.

  "I dropped it, chill," Digit replied, shooting him an offended look.

  "It's not you," Guy assured him. "It's one of my ghosts."

  "... You're a weird guy, Guy," Digit said simply, turning his attention back to the rink as the puck hit the ice and the two teams started their violent frenzy.

  Guy was used to people not believing him, that's why he didn't really care who he told. Sometimes people would tease him by asking what their dead relatives had to say about them, but the type of ghost who clung to living relatives didn't have anything nice to say most of the time. Once or twice someone had actually believed him by his word alone and he got so excited he scared them off by venting about how frustrating and scary it was.

  Guy dared to look up at the rink, the players were blood thirsty today, it was the last game of the month and that meant the winning team would be invited to the massive feast the following week. Food had been hard to come by lately, even winning teams were on half rations so everyone was hungry. Guy thought it was weird to still hold the beginning of the month feast for the owners when the players weren't being fed, but he didn't get fed to think. He got fed to play hockey and not die.

  Digit was sent out on the ice after a few minutes and the familiar dread entered Guy's chest as the reality set in that he might not come back. He took a deep breath and tried not to think about it, he hardly knew Digit. He knew his stage name, or stagie as it was called, came from the necklace of fingers he kept around his neck, trophies from his kills strung on a thin chain. He only had four but he dreamed of one day having many many more. Guy wondered if whoever killed Digit would take his necklace as their prize, or if his family might be able to bury it with him.

  "Get on the ice, Number Seven," the coach barked.

  Guy shot up and over the wall as Blast returned to the bench and took her place next to Buckle.

  The puck was on the Teeth's side of the field, there was a big pile up right in front of their goalie and the puck had slide away as a skirmish between a few of the players broke out. He could hear Rottie and another woman yelling and bickering, while the rest of the players had seemed to pair off, surrounding them and leaving them to their own fight while leaving the puck free to wander.

  This was Guy's chance. He found the puck with his stick, sliding past a couple of the Teeth suddenly pulled away from the fight and came after them, the Mutants players they were grappling following closly after.

  One of the players almost caught up to him, but he was suddenly crushed into the boards by Unicorn, who also grabbed the second player as he attempted to continue pursuit. Digit skated past the three of them, calling for a pass. Guy responded by shooting the puck towards him, giving himself time to get into a good spot.

  The puck came back to him when Digit had to duck around a rival player trying to swipe at him with a hockeystick shaped scythe. Guy grabbed it just in time, swearving to one side to avoid one of the Teeth's defensemen. De ducked, taking it around the back of the goal and sliding it in in the instant before the goalie noticed he was there.

  He was nearly bowled over by Digit and Rottie skating over to hook an arm around his neck and congratulate him.

  "THAT'S OUR BOY!!!" Rottie screamed, pumping her fist in the air.

  Goals were what Guy was good at, especially when there was a pile up. He was the fastest skater on the Mutants and had no issue ignoring conflict to get the puck where it needed to go and Coach knew it was best to wait for a skirmish or a death to send him in.

  Speaking of death, Bones came skating up to center ice as a confused player watched her own body be carted off the ice.

  He placed an understanding hand on her shoulder as she stare down at the body being loaded onto the stretcher with long metal hooks. Her face was nearly unreadable, like she was waiting for someone to explain the joke. There was a gaping wound in the side of her neck spilling blood onto the ice where it nearly disappeared into the red ice. Glancing at Rottie's stick he knew his teammate, the one who was cheering his first goal with him, had been the one to kill her.

  Guy looked the other way. It was the one with the wolf helmet, like he had predicted. He glanced over at Bolt as he went back to the line for the reset. He hated how often he was right about who was gonna die and why. He didn't know if it was because he could see ghosts or if he was just observant, but he got it right pretty frequently.

  After the body was carted off the ice and Bones had lead the ghost off to- well Guy didn't know where they went, the game continued.

  Almost as if it never happened.