Seeing Red

//Alexander Semin’s POV//

“Ovi!” The man who had been standing next to me looked over to the glass door that was standing open. Dmitry Chesnokov and Ian Oland both stood with grim looks on their faces as they motioned my friend over. Boudreau was behind them whispering to McPhee, but made no motion to stop the two men from being where they were. It hadn’t been a hard day of practice, mostly optional, and a way to start getting back into the groove of things. Our preseason would start in less than two weeks, but it still felt like we had some time.

Sasha raised an eyebrow at me in which I shrugged in return as he skated to meet them. There were hushed whispers and the sound of a stick clacking down onto the ice. He quickly turned to my direction and skated hard before grabbing my jersey in his hands and yanking me over.

“We have some bad news to break to the both of you. There’s been an accident.” Dmitry looked over at Ian who still looked expressionless while speaking, before turning his attention back to us. His hair wasn’t combed as usual, looking extremely rustled as if he had just gotten out of bed. Sasha covered his hands with his face, but wouldn’t look anywhere else. “I told Ovi here that there had been an accident over in Russia, but we feel it’s best to tell you both at once.”

Chesnokov rested his hand on Ian’s shoulder, before sighing heavily. “The plane carrying the Lokomotiv team crashed, just after takeoff. The entire roster, four members of the junior team, coaching staff, and crew are being retrieved from the Volga River as we speak.”

Everything Dmitry said after that, I mentally didn’t take in. His mouth kept moving, Ovechkin nodding but I could see his body shaking. He shouted for Vokoun, but it was like a whisper in my ear. Leaning on the boards, I slid to the ice, absentmindedly shrugged my gloves off and undid my helmet. My chest felt heavy, and I felt so angry. How could this have happened? We already lost players over the summer; what else was next? He said the entire roster..

“Anna.” My voice came out choked, Ovi immediately allowed Dmitry onto the ice where he kneeled in front of me. “Where is she, Dima?”

“We don’t know much. There was an announcement in the middle of the game this morning, and it was postponed. We don’t know much except what we were told. The entire roster and crew were on the plane, and we are waiting for the full list. Sasha,” The look on his face was enough to send any man into cardiac arrest. His eyes were swollen and red, no doubt having cried upon hearing the news himself. “I called her phone the second we got wind, but it’s off. I don’t have much to tell you. All we can do is hope and wait.”

“What happened to Trovato?” Vokoun skated up next to me, tapping my leg lightly with his stick. We had signed Tomas during the off-season, but he wasn’t a half-bad guy. Hopefully, he’d carry us far and keep us in for the cup. Unfortunately for Vokoun, however, he wasn’t on my mind at the moment and I couldn’t have cared less.

“Tomas, there’s been an accident involving the Lokomotiv team.”

Boudreau shouted for practice’s end a few minutes ago, but now we knew the real reason. My eyes felt heavy, but I didn’t want to cry. I had to be strong; there was still hope. She could still be alive. The team could still be alive. Maybe it was just a fake tweet sent out again by some idiot pretending to be something he wasn’t. Maybe it was all just a bad dream and I’d wake up plastered inside of Sasha’s house back in Moscow.

She had been surprised to see me, but part of me just wanted to kiss her and keep her in Krasnoyarsk with me for the rest of the summer. Convince her to come back to even Tampa so she’d be in the same country with me. In the car on the way to the airport, so she could go back to Yaroslavl, there were so many things I wanted to say to her. So many things that I’d never be able to tell her.

Using my phone to book the next flight to Moscow, I called my mother seconds before I got into the shower to clean up. She said that it was on the news, but no one knew anything besides what team it was and possible players who had NHL ties. Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Brad McCrimmon; all familiar names, all names I didn’t want to hear. These guys shouldn’t be dead; they should be on the way to Belarus to play hockey. Within a few minutes, I dried off and pulled on whatever I grabbed. Jeans and a t-shirt would have to do. Grabbing the keys to my car and phone, I took the back entrance to escape the fans that waited for us. Any other day but today, guys.

When I got home, my mother had packed a small bag of stuff. Clothes, phone charger, computer, my wallet, papers I would need; it was all in there. Kissing her cheek, she promised to take care of my sister and the house, and that I had better call her when I land. Assuring her I would, it had taken ten minutes to get into Washington-Dulles International when going over eighty, but luck had to have been in my favour. Rubbing my eyes with the sleeve of the jacket I had found in the backseat, I didn’t want to cry. I couldn’t. That sliver of hope that she was okay. Why didn’t anyone know already?

Parking in the overnight parking, I slipped my card in for a week and set it on my dash so they wouldn’t tow my car again. Last time that happened, I didn’t see it for two weeks. Grabbing the bag, I mentally thanked my mother even more. If Anna survived, no, when Anna survives, the first thing I do is to have her meet my mother. That might have to be second thing, because I don’t plan on letting this woman slide through my fingers and out of my sight again.

The woman at the desk smacked her gum, obviously not realizing the crucial importance of my flying to Moscow, and then to Yaroslavl. She typed in the information into her computer, looking several times at the driver’s license and visa papers I had provided her. My fingers twitched in anticipation; the anger I had felt was gone. I just wanted to break down, but I had to be strong for Anna. I have to be.

“Here are your papers, sir, along with both tickets. Terminal 18 will depart for Moscow Domodedovo Terminal F in half an hour, and your ticket for the flight from Domodedovo to Tunoshna out of Terminal A is currently scheduled for 45 minutes after you land. Will that be plenty of time, or would you like to book a later flight?” My mouth dropped open at her words, but I realized that it was probably rude. She had no idea what was going on in my head, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on her. Confirming that I wanted the soonest flight to Yaroslavl, she typed it in and printed my tickets. “Here you are, please keep your ID out at all times during the boarding process and head down the hall to your left for the security check. Enjoy your flight!”

Grabbing my bag, I had to bite back a laugh at how pathetic I was acting. This was so far out of my usual behavior that I was surprised Sasha hadn’t said anything. I don’t fly across the world for random girls.

By the time I got through security, there was hardly anyone in the line to board, meaning I could be one of the first ones on. Yes, just because I was on quicker than everyone else didn’t mean that I’d get there sooner, but it was a mental check. I felt like I was getting there sooner. They let us board pretty quick, since it was a small craft and an even smaller population riding, and I found myself picking the very front row against the window.

Turning on my phone’s screen, I quickly went to Google and typed in the team’s name and hundreds of articles popped up already. Kocharov, Sasha, and Chesnokov had tweeted, but I was sure there was much more out there. Clicking on Dima’s, I deadpanned in my seat. Maybe it was a good thing I said near the restroom.

@dchesnokov
Lokomotiv official: “At first we didn’t want to believe it. But right now there is no hope. The team is gone.”

“Sir, is everything alright?” One of the stewards had stopped in front of me, obviously in the middle of doing a head count. Nodding at him, he narrowed his eyes before grabbing a water bottle off of the shelf and handed it to me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. If you need anything, let me know.”

Taking it gratefully, I moved out of Twitter and to the actual news articles. Life.ru had put out a small bit from Sasha's mother who was still in Moscow visiting friends, but I still couldn't wrap my head around it. “I've just been told about it, this is a horror! I still can't believe it! I don't know the teams' roster, exactly who flew there, but I know a lot of players on that team and some were very close with my son, his friends, and I. Sashka [AO] is already in America, I don't even know if he is aware of it or not. How could this happen! Sorry, but I can't speak anymore," said Tatiana, not holding back her tears.”

There were only a few players that Sasha’s mother was good friends with, and that thought alone was enough to send a stream of water down my face. Quickly rubbing it away, I continued to the next article. I needed something during this long flight to keep my mind at rest.

The crash occurred at 4 p.m. Moscow time (noon GMT). According to a report, the team was headed to Minsk for the Lokomotiv's opening game. The aircraft, a Yak-42, never gained altitude, traveling about 500 meters until it crashed and burst into flames. A source told the ITAR-Tass News Agency the plane may have hit a tree.

The KHL team had a lot of NHL ties. Several of the players had been drafted by NHL squads and a number of them had NHL playing experience. The Yak-42 has been in service since 1980. The plane that crashed was newer than that, having been built in 1993. It belonged to a small Yak service company. The passenger list, provided by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations:

Passengers
Vitaly Anikeyenko
Yury Bakhvalov
Aleksandr Belyayev
Mikhail Balandin
Aleksandr Vasyunov
Josef Vasicek
Aleksandr Vyukhin
Aleksandr Galimov
Robert Dietrich
Pavol Demitra
Andrei Zimin
Marat Kalimulin
Aleksandr Karpovtsev
Aleksandr Kalyanin
Andrei Kiryukhin
Nikita Klyukin
Igor Korolyov
Nikolai Krivonosov
Yevgeny Kunnov
Vyacheslav Kuznetsov
Stefan Liv
Jan Marek
Brad McCrimmon
Sergey Ostapchuk
Vladimir Piskunov
Karel Rachunek
Evgeny Sidorov
Karlis Skrastins
Ruslan Salei
Pavel Snurnitsyn
Daniil Sobchenko
Ivan Tkachenko
Pavel Trakhanov
Anastasia Trovato
Igor Urychev
Gennady Churilov
Maksim Shuvalov
Artyom Yarchuk

Crew
Andrey Solontsev
Igor Zhevelov
Sergei Zhuravlev
Vladimir Matyushkin
Aleksandr Sizov
Yelena Sarmatova
Nadezhda Maksumova
Yelena Shavina

A tree. All of this, all of these good people, died because of a tree. Closing the window so none of the light could come in, the cabin lights were turned off so we were in mostly darkness. Save for the little cracks of light and small lights for the crew, I wanted to think that she was safe. Maybe it was a minour crash and it was being blown out of proportion.

“The entire roster, four members of the junior team, coaching staff, and crew are being retrieved from the Volga River as we speak.” They could have just been badly injured. The plane sped up after we had been taxied. Leaning back against the seat, I took a slow sip of water as we lifted up off of the runway. It was going to be a long 11 hours.

The team is gone.

I hadn’t been looking forward to the flight from Moscow to Yaroslavl anyways, but the airport had been shut down. Luckily enough, the airport was nice enough to have a train ticket ready, but no sooner had they given me the ticket were they shoving me on the last flight to Yaroslavl for the day. Counting my lucky stars that one of the region’s “important” contractor and the only reason for the flight being continued on, I decided it was better than the 2 hour train ride. Within twenty minutes, we had touched the runway at Tunoshna and were waiting to get off. Throwing my seventh water bottle in the trash can, I was a bundle of nerves. I had flown out here on an impulse, but did I really want to be here?

Would I be able to handle seeing her like that?

“You are Alex, right?” Looking up to see the same steward who had spoken to me a few times during the flight, I nodded at him. He smiled softly before patting my shoulder. “There’s a lady out here who says she spoke with your mother, and she’s expecting you.”

Frowning, I grabbed my bag and followed him down the steps. There was a black Porsche parked freely next to the building and a woman standing in the door frame of the driver’s seat. When she saw me looking, she waved lowly before walking around and in my direction. Walking towards her, she was definitely not from around her. Her dark brown hair was mixed with a light blonde, but it was good-looking when mixed with the curls she had thrown back into a hair tie. The woman’s skin was dark, a deep bronze tan, and green eyes that didn’t remind me of anyone. She looked completely unfamiliar.

We were a few feet away when she stuck her hand out. There were laugh lines on her face, but there was not a smile on her face when she waited for me to return the gesture. There was a jacket pulled tight around her as the night air had sunk in. It was close to midnight, but there was no doubt in my mind that the city of Yaroslavl was sleeping. Not after today. “My name is Adelina and I got a phone call earlier today from a man named Alexander Ovechkin? I spoke with him and his mother, who gave me the number to your mother. She gave me your flight information and asked that I pick you up when your flight landed, but you were much earlier. I take it they got you out on the last flight before they shut down the airway this way?”

Her accent was thick, definitely Italian as it all clicked in my head. “Yes ma’am, they did. I’m Alex Semin, a friend of Anna. I’m sorry for this inconvenience. You are Anna’s mother?”

I didn’t really know what to say to her. My English was slow, but I had found the words on the first try and she didn’t even bat an eye at my poor attempt. She knew what had happened and her eyes showed it. They were puffy and it looked like she had been crying for hours. “If that’s what you want to call it, then yes, I am her mother. It’s good to meet you. She’s talked about you a lot, but it’s nice to finally meet you in person. Don’t worry about it, it’s definitely the least I can do. If you don’t mind me asking, would you drive? I don’t want to get in an accident and her car is hard to drive.”

“Of course.” I looked at her, not sure by what she meant about the mother statement, but let it drop. It had to have been tough on her to lose a child this way. She handed me the keys as I opened the passenger door and let her climb in. Closing it, I pulled the seat forward and set my bag in the back before returning it to normal. Closing my own door and starting the ignition, at least it wasn’t an unfamiliar car. Adjusting the Porsche’s seat to fit me, we slowly pulled out onto the exit ramp to get onto the main road that would lead us into Yaroslavl. “Where are we heading?”

She somberly gazed ahead before mumbling something about an apartment. Handing me a slip of paper, I realized it was an address. Typing it into the GPS of my phone, it began to direct me to one of the nicer parts in the center of the city.

Thirty minutes later, I was opening the door of the apartment and stepped back into the hall to allow Adelina to go first. Locking the door behind us, she instantly went and turned on the TV in what I assumed was Anna’s living room. Taking my shoes off, I set them next to the entry way. Looking around, there was an empty equipment bag next to the hallway, and two or three stick bags inside of it, along with a pair of gloves. All of them had the Lokomotiv logo on them, and there were also two red jerseys and one white one. Grasping one of the red ones, I pulled it out of the bag. There was an ‘A’ on the right, and Anna’s name on the back.

Most KHL teams kept extra and even gave the players options to have their own personal extras. No doubt Adelina had pulled them out from wherever they had been. Folding it back as neatly as I could, I reached for the gloves. Her number was on the neck and a few inches down read Trovato. Putting them back in, I bit my lip before heading into the room where the KHL-TV channel was playing. “Can you tell me what they are saying? I have no idea what is going on when that green English news channel isn’t working?”

The name of the channel escaped me, but I sat next to the woman and assured her that I would tell her what was going on. The commercials for the KHL came back on, doing small spoofs on teams in one minute. Avangard was first, and they had a small shoot on Anna’s goal from last season, before she came to Tampa. Her mother laughed next to me before hitting mute on the remote and handing it to me. “I regret never seeing her play in Omsk. She always talked highly of the city; I wish I would have gone to see what made her so happy.”

“Anna will be okay.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them. The woman next to me started crying, her make-up, or what was left of it, streaked down her face as I pulled her into a hug. Unmuting the TV as the news came back, pictures of the crash immediately hit the screen.

"Around four this afternoon, the KHL suffered a mighty blow as the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey club was involved in a fatal crash. It is not known whether it was due to pilot error or technical error, but authorities are heavily investigating the area and in conjunction with the FHR in Moscow. Volunteers and members of the nearby military spent several hours today, pulling bodies from the wreckage and helping in the identifying process.

As of this afternoon, Alexander Sizov, one of the crew members, and Alexander Galimov, one of the longtime forwards of the hockey club Lokomotiv, were recovered. Two hours ago, the body of Anna Trovato-..”

Anna’s mother heard her daughter’s name and began to full-fledge cry, but I tried to quiet her. Something had happened, and if it was good, then we needed to know. Hitting the rewind button, I was happy that Anna had invested in it, for this sole reason. “Two hours ago, the body of Anna Trovato was recovered meters from Galimov’s. The Finnish player, who was currently preparing for a meeting with the FHR during this road according to rumours, was pronounced dead at the scene. However, upon further diagnostics, Trovato’s heart was beating and she has been transported to the same facility as Sizov and Galimov, per Tretiak of the FHR.”

Turning the TV off, I tossed the remote on the couch before wrapping her mother in a hug. I couldn’t stop the tears that were coming. They were warm down my face, even salty when they fell onto my mouth. Her touch was soft, so much like Anna’s as she hugged me. Choking on the lump in my throat, I slowly told her what was said, and by the end, she was crying just as hard as I was.

The last time I had cried, Anna was there to pick up the pieces.

My phone rang in my pocket, and I pulled away long enough to turn it so I could see it. Dmitry Chesnokov was calling me, and while it seemed Anna was alive, I hoped the news was still good. “Hello?”

“English? Ovi said Anna’s mother might be with you?” He rattled off in rapid Russian, making me blink. “Anyways, Anna and Sasha are supposedly in the Yaroslavl hospital with Sizov. Neither one of them are looking too good, but Sizov should escape with minimal damage. I called the hospital, and they said that if you and Adelina want to come, then you can.”

Thanking him in few words, I hung up and quickly pulled the lady up. Handing her the shoes she kicked off, I left her side only to grab my own. Turning back to her, she stood in the same spot. “Can you go for me? I just can’t right now. I can’t see her like that.”

Shaking my head at her, I pulled my shoes on and stuffed the phone and keys in my pocket. She sat on the couch and pulled her shoes on, before following me out. Locking the door behind us, it took mere seconds to get down the hallway and down two flights of stairs and into the car. Starting her up, I handed Adelina my phone and she typed in the directions to the hospital.

The better part of 5 minutes away, it was faster than walking as I parked across the street from the ER entrance. There was a nurse on duty, but as soon as she looked up, she pulled out a slip of paper. “Mr. Semin and Mrs. Trovato? They are on the top floor in the Burn unit. They’ve put Anna and Sasha in room 9.”

I knew her mother didn’t understand, so I quickly translated as she thanked the nurse and pushed the button on the far wall. The elevator came quickly since it was the dead of the night, but the top floor was anything but. It looked like a media scrum, but only with nurses and doctors running everywhere. It was quiet, but busy-looking. Walking down the hallway, Adelina wrapped her arm around mine and sniffed. There was a small waiting room area we passed with a television and computer, and I quickly detoured into there. “Stay here. I will see if we can see her.”

The woman sat in a chair, smiling sadly before gluing her eyes to the screen. Leaving the room, I headed back down the hall and came to a corner. I had just passed room seven, and eight through ten were around the corner. It was dismal-looking, this branch of the hall, and there was hardly any activity. Trying to be as quiet as I could, I stopped in front of the door that read #9. Turning the handle, I opened the door carefully so it wouldn’t squeak and could instantly hear the heart monitors beeping lowly. Coming in and closing the door behind me, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.