AAOOOSC! Wheatie Bits!

E. 10. "Beware of Green" (1/10)

September 2017
A week later...

Endless rows of videos are being scrolled down, each of them having a common theme: Nolan Patrick.

And the living legend himself, Nolan Patrick, is smirking at them with pride. He is lying on his stomach on his bed in the darkness of his room, swiping his thumb against the screen of his smartphone to see all the videos of him on the Philadelphia Flyers.

Although he just completely preseason in the major leagues, a couple handfuls of videos are already available about him on his NHL team, from interviews to analyses to a fight.

There it is. My fight.

Nolan's smug smile grows even more as he taps on the footage of his grand fight against the Boston Bruin veteran, David Krejčí.

Delight sparkles in his eyes as he witnesses himself standing up against the renowned Bruin. The vigour, the strength, the resolve...

"That was amazing," he murmurs.

He then swipes his finger up to scroll down, spotting more related videos. He continues running through the recommended videos before pulling up the comment section following.

He scans through the comments with the haughty anticipation of the viewers praising him of his valiant efforts. Yet the results causes his face to scrunch up in distaste and shock.

He brings his phone up to his face as he scrolls down the row of comments with furrowed eyebrows:

This kid's a clown.

Show some respect, Nolan Nobody.

Patrick wasn't trying to win, he was trying not to lose.

Nolan Patrick? More like Nolan BUSTrick.

Boo Patrick!

Instantly, Nolan's heart stops as he feels himself freeze up at the harsh words. A stinging pain slices through his heart, deflating his pride. His eyes zoom through the comments again, analyzing them deeper.

The virtual words stare back at him in an taunting manner.

He then feels a flood of fury bubbling up from inside him. His eyes narrow with a cold look as his eyebrows furrow above them.

"You know what?" he mutters bitterly. "You know what? I disabled my comments to avoid this. And you guys don't stop." Allowing his anger to cloud up his judgement, his thumbs flies to the home button and presses it, pulling back into his home pagem. "I'll MAKE you guys stop." He smacks on the camera application, opening it up. "With a message from myself."

With that, he slides his thumb to the video feature and hits the recording button:

"Listen up, haters, you don't like me? Your problem. I like myself, I like what I do, so it has nothing to do with me. You sore losers can go complain somewhere else because as far as I know, I can't hear you over all my amazing achievements. Try getting into the NHL—wait—major juniors, then NHL, being one of the top three picks of the draft, then making it to the starting roster of the NHL and then go ahead and bash on me for being a nobody.

"In actuality, you're the nobody. I don't know your names, I don't even know who you are and I don't care. I really don't. I just group all you pathetic low lives as haters because that's what you do: hate. Go ahead, throw insults at me, but you can't bring me down. At least I won't have to see your ugly no-name faces on the ice. Goodbye, good day, it sucks to be you."

He then jabs his finger at the stop button. He double clicks on the home button to jump to his social media app. He taps on the option to create a new post and inserts his video onto the draft, ready to put the video out into the world and end this hate once and for all.

His thumb immediately halts above the post button. In deep contemplation, his eyes get lost in the pixels of the post button.

Nolan takes a deep breath and peers up, feeling his outrage dissolve into calmness. He then lets out a sigh, relaxing his facial expression.

"Maybe I shouldn't." He then moves his thumbs way from the screen and presses the power button.

The screen immediately turns dark.

Nolan tosses his phone onto his pillow then rolls out of his bed and rises to his feet. He ambles away from his bed, toward the door of his bedroom, and out of his room.

The phone stays lonely, snuggled on the fluffed pillow with its dark screen facing upward. Suddenly, the darkened screen gradually glows a vivid, green light, lightening the dim room into a green hue.

The glow continues to intensify, engulfing the entire screen as it emits soft embers of green energy into the air. Then the glow dims, returning the screen to its natural state of dormancy.

With its black colour and shiny screen, the reflection of a familiar face is seen: steel eyes, matted hair, light freckles, shaded lips.

A smirk plays on Carter Hart's red lips as he observes his own smartphone in his own bright bedroom.