Fantasy- MaAn shots

| The Storm| - Shot 3

(The show is such a downer these days! Hoping that you will enjoy the update though)

It had all transpired so quickly.

She had wrapped up her survey of the two prospective sites and had been enjoying her tea as the rain played its symphony and the breathtaking sight of valley pleased her eyes. She had been missing him in that moment, wondering if she should have allowed him to accompany her.

But before she could rebuke herself for entertaining such thoughts,she had heard a loud noise which was soon followed by a cacophony of shrieks. Body twisting instantly, Anupama watched in horror as a large chunk of mountain came down, few meters away from her. Even before the shock had sunk in, she witnessed a volley of weathered rocks rolling down the slope, and fall on.....people!

Gasping, she took off from her position, in the direction of mayhem. People were running in the opposite direction while Anupama found herself running towards the chaos, her heart hammering in her rib cage as the rain lashed heavily against her.

People rushed past her- slipping, falling, clawing and screaming. She continued forward nonetheless, she had seen people get trapped under the falling mass of land. She could help. She should help.

But the trance broke when she felt a pebble roll under her shoes and freezing mid step, she looked up to find the two storey building on her right, crumbling down.

Eyes widening, she turned on reflex and jumped, as the stone pillar of the building shattered right behind her.

She dared not to look over her shoulders, just picked herself quickly and started running away, for this close brush with death had reminded her of what she had. Of what she stood to lost. Her dreams. Her dream life, with him. Anuj.

Only when it looked like that catastrophe had let up, did the huddled people step out of their safe spots. Mr. Malik, the property agent who had rushed back home to check on his wife, had come back by then and offered to take her to his house while he helped around with the local relief group that had showed up by now.

She, however declined him and offered to help too. She had been scared then, she was scared still but how would she ever face herself if she ran away again? She prided herself on her humanity; she wasn't going to let it dissolve in the face of calamity,especially when there were others willing to help.

And so, accompanied by Mr. Malik she joined the volunteers and worked around the scene, helping people look for their kin or escorting them to the temporary shelter, where other locals were providing safe space against the weather and hysteria.

The NDRF, police force and media showed up soon after andthe relief efforts picked their pace as personnel took to speakers, trying to calm down people, tending to the wounded and such.

But life had been lost. She, who was escorting an old uncle to the relief camp, stopped as she saw police pull out a body from under the rubble while the MT on standby, checked his vitals and nodded in negative.There were more bodies, covered in white, being ferried on stretcher. It was a gruesome scene.

'Thank god, Anuj yahan nahi aaye'

It was despicable of her to think like that, but it was what it was. Nothing compared to his life. Love had made her selfish, and she accepted it wholeheartedly.

It was when the situation had been brought in control more or less, did she realize that she should inform him about her situation. The news would have reached him already and he would have been panicking.

Anupama instantly looked for her phone in the raincoat pocket, thankful that she didn't place it in the purse, which she had misplaced during the fiasco.