Friday came faster than Megha
expected. Before she knew it, Gabe was
telling her about how he finally got the guts to call Rilla, and how he was
going to the dance with her. Mandy and
her other friend Laura were actually giving up on the movie, Newsies, which
they never stopped talking about, to talk about who was going to the party with
who. Ann, another friend of Megha's,
was miserable because she didn't have a guy to go with, until Megha suggested
that they go as a group with Mandy and Laura. Hope was worried about what to wear, and Max was trying to make sure
everyone was going to be there. And in
the middle of this, there were people who had to be there, who didn't have
someone to go with, and people weren't coming who were supposed to, and it was
a state of confusion. Somehow, in the
end, Gabe was going with Rilla and Danielle was going with Christian. Megha didn't really have too many of her
very good friends coming, but even so, the party was going to be a huge,
blowout event.
Friday night, Gabe came by to pick
her up, although it was only walking distance, and so Megha got full detail of Gibe's
phone call from Rilla. Both of them were
extremely giggly, which made Gabe extremely annoyed. But he didn't stay that way for long, no one could. As soon as they got there, Ann came rushing
up to her with all the complaints she could find. The food wasn't gourmet, all the good guys were taken, there were
too many people, and there were too few people were just a few of Ann's many
complaints. Soon after, the two of them
were joined by Mandy and Laura, and Gabe and Rilla went off to dance. It was as good as assumed.
"What're we supposed to do?"
screamed Laura over the loud music.
"Beats me, what do you wanna
do? I mean," started Mandy, until she
was cut off by Megha.
"We dance!" she yelled and pulled
the two of them along with Ann and started dancing. IT took awhile for all of them to get in with the music, but they
were having so much fun, that they hardly noticed the time. It had already been an hour since they
started dancing, and all four of the girls were thirsty, not to mention hungry.
"Why don't we get something to eat?"
asked Ann. The other three agreed, and
they went off in search of the food. They found the table crowed by a bunch of strange-looking people.
"Who are they?" Laura whispered.
"I don't know, they don't look
invited," replied Ann uncomfortably.
"I don't like the look of this,"
chipped in Mandy.
"Well," started Megha with
confidence, "we'll never know until we take a chance. C'mon," she said, and walked towards the shady bunch. The other three looked at each other, but
decided to follow her in case she needed backing up, for whatever reason.
"Excuse me," said Megha politely to
the crowd, "Do you mind?" She motioned
towards the refreshments. Her friends
looked on nervously.
"Yeah, waddya wan'? Ya wanna drink?" said one of the Goths, as
he held up a bottle with something inside that looked suspiciously like beer. Suddenly, Megha realized how dangerous this
could get. Everyone at the party was
underage, and she knew Max and Hope better than to think they invited these
people to bring alcohol.
"Um, actually, we just wanted some,
uh, some of the punch! Yeah, that's it! Just something normal," interrupted Ann. The Goths gave no reply, except to make a
strange face and proceed to take another drink, and pour the girls some punch. Ann, Laura, and Mandy wanted nothing more,
but to leave the company of these strange people, but Megha was thinking other
things.
"How did you get here?" she asked
suddenly.
"Who? Us? We drove here, an' we're
drivin' back, why?" one replied, slurring his words.
"You really shouldn't be driving,
you know, because you're drinking. And
you shouldn't even be drinking at all," lectured Megha. She didn't mean to lecture, and she
certainly didn't think that she was worried about these people, after all, they
chose to ruin themselves. She was
worried about other people, other people who might be driving home when these
people were on the road. In fact, Megha
used to have an older sister, Malika. Malika was Megha's biggest role model, she was a responsible driver, she
was good in school, she was good at art and music, and she never did anything
wrong. But when Megha was thirteen,
Malika died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. The worst part was, the drunk driver survived, whereas Malika
didn't, and Megha still had nightmares over the death of her sister.
"Yeah, well whaddya wanna do bout it?" retorted the Goths. They thought the whole idea was funny, but before they could say another word, Megha had a flashback.
"Well whaddya wanna do bout it?" said a person wearing
black, all black, with green hair and many body piercings. The policeman ordered him to turn around,
and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his hands, mumbling something about taking
him into custody for DUI, and in the background, an ambulance was taking a body
on a stretcher, covered with a white sheet.
"It's people like you who killed
Mika!" She screamed. Mika was her nickname for her sister. "You know why she died? Because of freaks like you, idiots like you,
who don't know anything, who think they're everything, but they're not! You know why so many people die? Because of crazy people like you who drink!"
"Megha, it's okay," said Laura
softly, "you don't need to remind us."
"Yes, but these people obviously
need reminding," Megha retorted. Then
the four of the girls went back to the main flow of the party, but the fun had
been lost, and there was nothing they could do about it. They tried, but they couldn't seem to forget
the people who were drinking. They
couldn't even drink their own punch because they were afraid the punch had been
spiked. Finally, Megha decided to go
home. She couldn't stand it any longer,
she wanted to go home, so she found Max and Hope and told them so. When she was about to leave, Gabe and Rilla
came up to her, and offered her a ride home, but she declined. Megha need sometime to think on her own.
As she was walking down the dark
street, she didn't realize that Gabe and Rilla were also leaving, and she
certainly didn't realize that the drinkers were out for more drinks. All she was thinking was about the
night. The shadowy ally made the scene
look like a scene from that movie, Newsies, that Laura and Mandy liked so
much. All though she hadn't seen the
whole movie, she had seen parts of it, and parts of it were good enough for
her. Right now, her mind was focused on
those parts of the movie, because she was deliberately taking her mind off the
party.
But before she knew it, she heard
brakes screeching, and the sound of a car out of control. The horrible clang of metal upon metal stung
her ears as she froze in her steps. And
she knew that there were people in trouble, and not only that, she knew that it
was her friends that were in trouble. But as she turned around to scream their names, to call for help, to do
something, Megha was somehow sucked into a vortex that appeared from
nowhere. Her body was spinning, and
although she was going upwards, she was falling. Endless falling as scenes from the fictional past and future
flashed before her eyes, when suddenly, she stopped.
