The Nightmare

by: Becky Donoghue-Rick   

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When Jaya opened her eyes, she saw her best friend Sonia Patel standing in the doorway with a hurried expression on her face. Confused by the look on Sonia's face, Jaya sat upright in bed and asked her friend what was up. Sonia replied "Don't you remember? Today's the big concert! Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit together at the Georgetown University auditorium!"

Jaya could not recall having heard of any such concert, but she jumped up anyway, pulled a Salman Khan tee shirt and jeans over her pjs, and followed her friend out the door.

When they arrived at the auditorium, Sonia gave Jaya her ticket and told her to go sit down. Jaya was very surprised at this command; usually she and Sonia were always together at concerts and other functions, such as school plays. However, upon seeing the look on Sonia's face, she obediently went inside and found her seat. She had no way of knowing that Sonia was making her way to another part of the auditorium, nor that Sonia had a weapon with her.

By the time the concert started, Jaya was very worried because Sonia had not come to sit down with her as usual. However, her worries all flew away the moment Salman appeared on the stage. Forgetting all about Sonia, she jumped to her feet and started yelling, along with all the other members of the audience. She was so caught up in the excitement and the noise that she did not see Sonia creep out onto the stage from the back. Suddenly, as Salman was finishing a song, Sonia leapt out from behind the curtain, pointed a gun at Salman, and yelled "The last time I was at one of your concerts you totally ignored me when I tried to touch you; now you will pay for that yaar!" Then, she fired three shots, all of which hit their mark perfectly; Salman fell to the floor like a heavy bag of rocks.

At that moment, the whole audience became dead silent. That is, except for Jaya, who let out a bloodcurdling scream and bolted from her seat. She ran up onto the stage and threw herself on Salman, holding him as he took his last breaths. Then, once he had taken his final gasp of air, she turned to Sonia. Upon seeing that Sonia now had the gun pointed directly at her, she screamed, ducked, and closed her eyes.

Boom! The sound of something falling over in her little brother's room shocked Jaya out of her dream. Upon opening her eyes, she noticed that her cheeks and pillow were wet, and she was holding her picture of Salman tightly to her chest. She breathed a sigh of relief and went to put the picture back on the nightstand. When she did, she saw something that scared her all over again; a solitary flower, identical to the one somebody had tossed onto the stage right before Sonia shot Salman in her dream, was lying on the nighstand where the picture had been.