Running Away

I'd heard that life is full of surprises, but I never really gave it much thought. Now I think I should have, 'cause this was so not expected. I wrote this random story and something that I had never even dreamed of, happened.
Studying for my Physics exam, little did I know that I would receive a phone call informing me that my "random"story had got nominated for The National Writing Awards 2012. So here it is, readers and I really hope you like it. Although, I do believe I'm capable of doing a much better job but I had to stick to the word limit so yeah, this was the result =]

Running Away

 ‘The Awakening Sunrise’

There they sat, scared, as the black cast a dark shadow over the entire auditorium. And then, a beam of light was flashed, towards the empty stage. Their eyes, whining around the whole place, eager to catch, just a glimpse of the young legend. But, where was she? As the buzz in the hall increased, questions arose in the minds of those who had waited. Waited, long. I couldn’t take it anymore so I got up. I went backstage only to find all my fellow event coordinators looking for her. Was she hiding somewhere?
Was she nervous? Had she run away? Haunted by those questions and the decreasing patience of the audience, I ran towards the backdoor.
She was there. I sighed with relief, well, almost. For she was not alone. She had with her, what she called, her greatest possession and what we called, ‘drug’…
I leaned down right next to her, threw the bottle of sleeping pills far away, where she couldn’t see them anymore. I held her hand in mine and felt a mild weight on my shoulder, it was her head. She had been sobbing all this while. I was in, for giving her the longest lecture I could think of but, what I hadn’t realized, was that she had already consumed triple the prescription.
She coughed, she choked and she coughed again. This time, blood.
I raised an alarm and soon, the ambulance was there. I remember how she had held my hand all the way from the concert venue to the hospital. For the first time in my life had I felt ‘wanted’. On entering the ward, she looked at me and in her cracked up voice she said, “Don’t ask me why.”
To which I replied, “Take your time Jane, but I’ll have to.”
 She was then rushed straight ahead and with that, my sight of her, faded.
The Doctor told me to accompany him to the reception for all the required formalities. I did so immediately and also called up Jane’s mother and told her what had happened. She reached as soon as she could, to be there for her child. A surgery was to be performed. The pills had to be extracted from her system to avoid any further damage. Two hours post
the operation, we were allowed to meet Ms. “I-Like-To-Trouble-The- People-Around-Me-By-Scaring-Them” I was very angry with her. It was certain that I was going to blast off on her until I saw her hugging her mom and breaking down into tears. It melted me. But, I was still of the opinion that no reason is strong enough to end your life! So I wasn’t as harsh on her as I had thought I would be and went on to ask her the million dollar question, “Why Jane? Why?” This time she was ready with the answer and the countless explanations that were next in line. She sat up, and started off, “My dad was a successful businessman. He gave me everything I ever asked for, no questions asked. His work was going on very well and he deserved all the credit. He was an exceptionally dominant personality and you could make that out within five minutes of conversation with him. I guess that’s exactly what Delhi’s M.L.A. figured out when he came to meet Dad for a business deal. He suggested that Dad should consider politics as a career for himself as he would make a great leader. Not just that, he even promised him a ticket in his political party. Dad didn’t ignore his proposal. In fact, he came home and narrated the whole incident pretty seriously to all of us. We were quite apprehensive about the idea of him being a politician, keeping in mind the negative image we had about politicians. But dad was adamant. He disagreed. Mom tried really hard to convince him, but, in vain. He started seeing mom as an obstacle, condemning him to taste success, the way he wanted. Especially with the elections coming up, Mom was a huge problem for him. And so, he left her. I mean us, shifted to Delhi, joined the party and lived life how he wanted. From that day, newspapers were the only place where we heard of him. Elections were his biggest priority then. They happened; the results came out soon after. He had lost. He couldn’t take it. He was incapable of handling the loss and also having no family around, weakened him further. He started smoking and drinking. It was something he had never done. This continued for a while until one morning, that headline gave me the shock of my life. He was dead. D.E.A.D. Dead from alcohol overdose. I was in a state of shock for about a week. It felt like the end of the world. I had barely recovered from the trauma of my parents’ separation and then that tragic news. Mom needed me but I couldn’t see it. I was blinded by the clouds of dismay and depression. All this happened last month and today, with all those people shouting my name in the auditorium, desperately waiting to see me perform, I was supposed to win my courage back but instead, I lost faith in myself. I just couldn’t take it Sam. I had to leave. A new world awaited me…”
Tears ran down my eyes, tearing apart all the fury buried deep inside me. I hugged her, real hard. So did her mother. I promised her that I would gift her a new life. I asked her mom what she liked the most, in a low voice. Next morning, I banged open Jane’s ward room door and shouted, “GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE!” She got up at once and looked at me, beaming. I was followed by the entire crew of the concert that never happened. We all had rainbow coloured balloons in our hands and one box each, of her favorite ‘Sour Punk Stickies’ She gave us the widest grin ever. How beautiful she looked when she was happy. In my heart, I said a little prayer of gratitude. I sat right next to her, waiting for her to react and she noticed how impatient I was getting so she shouted, “OH MY GOSH! Thank you so much everyone. This means a lot to me, really.” She was then discharged. On stepping out of the hospital she insisted that I accompany her to the beach. It was her favorite place she told me. As we walked along the shoreline, hand in hand, she stared at the ocean, continuously. She said that she’d always wondered how the ocean continued to be a source of internal peace for human beings who heard it and saw its waves reaching out to the sand, despite being polluted by the same tribe of living creatures. She got me thinking too. While I was lost in figuring out an answer to what she had asked me, she let go off my hand and ran to touch the rays of the rising sun. She expressed that she was feeling much better than the previous day and had realized her mistake. She learnt the true value of life and was excited to start a new one. After all, she had a much bigger family now. She was ecstatic at that moment. I was glad that she was alive and proud that I was the reason. No matter how great the problem may be, we’re human beings and if we’re capable of creating that problem for ourselves then we’re capable of facing it. There’s nothing worse in the world than escaping life itself. There’s nothing worse, than ‘running away’