What the hell was happening to him? Had he already done damage to himself with the pain pills? Was his grasp on reality slipping?

He started to run, then. No destination in mind. All he knew was he needed to keep going, needed to break free from whatever was invading his mind.

He was terrified.

He ran along the sidewalk ahead of him but that suddenly twisted down an alley and when he tried to stop, he couldn’t. His feet propelled him ahead and he shot all the way down, slamming into total darkness.

‘You’re a failure,’ came a voice – cold, dark, relentless. ‘You’re nothing. Your new fans will soon find out that you’re weak and insignificant. You’ll never be one of the great ones – and that means you’ll soon be forgotten. It’ll be as if you’d never existed.’

Something grabbed him, then. Something cold and filled with a hatred so powerful that Ward cried out in terror – before snapping awake in bed.

Nightmares were common when weaning from painkillers, Shelley had told him. The brain did all kinds of weird stuff.

‘Sometimes the dreams are so bad that people would rather take the drugs instead of dealing with whatever boogeymen their minds conjure up. You got to be on your guard all the time, Ward – because you might find yourself backsliding without even knowing it’s happening.’

He got out of bed, went into the bathroom and flicked on the light, staring at his reflection in the mirror for a moment. Then he splashed cold water on his face and towelled off, trying to gather his wits about him.

As he climbed back into bed, he thought again about what the voice had said and a wave of fear went through him.

They’ll soon find out that you’re weak and insignificant. You’ll never be one of the greats . . .

Ward burrowed beneath the covers, wishing he wasn’t so certain the voice was speaking the truth.

After he’d woken from the nightmare, he hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. He’d tried to distract himself by watching a middle-of-the-night marathon rerun session of Murder She Wrote on the TV situated above his bed, but even J.B. Fletcher’s sharp-witted shenanigans hadn’t been enough to distract him from the memory of the dream.

You’ll never be one of the greats . . .

It was true, of course – Ward McKenzie would never be known as a truly great hockey player. He was a solid centre and a battler, for sure, but he’d always wanted to be more. In truth, his entire life was spent in pursuit of being better – more athletic, more popular, having more girlfriends. From his first week of college, all the way through his professional career, he’d made a point of trying to do what he thought people expected him to do. Be better.