I know that 9/11 has passed for this year, but I still felt the need to write this story. I was only 5 years old when this happened, so I don't really remember it, so you'll have to forgive me if it doesn't read very well or if I get a few things wrong. And I have never been to New York and I don't know anyone who lived in New York at that time, so I don't know how it looked to the people in Manhattan. Even so, in honor of ten years since the 9/11 attacks, I'm writing this story, and I pray that nothing like what happened that day ever happens again.
Summery: On September 11th, 2001, the Twin Towers were attacked by terrorists. Millions of people died that day. This is what the mother of our favorite demigod hero was doing on that tragic day. These are her thoughts.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson series. All the characters belong to Rick Riordan. I'm just playing with them.
Sally Jackson was heading for the candy shop she worked at on September 11th, 2001. She checked her watch to make sure she wasn't late. It was almost 8:00 am.
As she passed the World Trade Center, she suddenly got a creepy chill, like she would when a monster was stalking her eight-year-old son, Percy. Percy was a demigod, and monsters followed him around a lot. If she was with her Percy when a monster showed up, she would get this chill, like she knew danger was coming.
And she was experiencing that chill now.
She looked up at the Twin Towers. They stood towering above her, the sun glinting off the windows. She sensed that something was wrong, although she didn't know what.
Shaking it off, she continued to walk to work.
She got to the candy shop at 8:30 am. As she tied an apron around her waist, she heard the unmistakable noise of a low-flying plane overhead.
The candy shop Sally worked at was only a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. It had a perfect view of the Twin Towers. She glanced out the window and saw the low-flying plane. It was heading towards the World Trade Center. She knew it would have to fly up in a moment, because if it didn't, then it might hit one of the skyscrapers. New York City was full of skyscrapers, and it was dangerous for a plane to be flying that low.
She walked behind the counter and smiled at the teenaged boy standing there. He was about fifteen years old. His eyes were blue-bright blue. He had sandy blonde hair. "May I help you?" she asked, as the clock switched to 8:32. She didn't know why, but she got the feeling that something bad was going to happen any moment now. She watched the clock from out of the corner of her eye.
"Can I have a bag of jelly beans?" he asked.
"Sure," she said. "That'll be a dollar and six cents."
He pulled the money out of his jeans pocket, and for the first time, Sally noticed the shirt he was wearing. It was bright orange, and said CAMP HALF-BLOOD.
She gasped, staring at the shirt. The boy looked up at her. "Is something wrong, ma'am?" he asked politely.
"You're a demigod?" she asked, lowering her voice.
The clock now read 8:35.
"Yeah," the boy said, surprised. "How did you know?"
"My son is a demigod," she replied.
"Who's your son? Maybe I know him."
"He doesn't go to Camp Half-Blood. I don't want to send him."
"My mom was the same way," the boy said. "She didn't want me to leave." His blue eyes were sad as he said this.
"Why aren't you at camp now?" Sally asked.
The clock turned to 8:38.
"I'm on a quest," he replied. "I just left this morning. I thought I'd stop and get some candy to eat on the way."
She nodded. "Well, here's your jelly beans," she said, pushing the bag towards him.
She could still hear the plane flying overhead. If she didn't know any better, she would have said that it was lower than before.
"Thanks," the boy said. "And here's your money." He shoved it across the counter to her. Sally took it with a smile and put it the cash register.
The clock now said 8:40.
"Well, good luck on your quest," Sally told him.
"Thanks," the boy said. "I hope one day I can meet your son. I have a feeling we could be good friends."
"I hope so," Sally said. "I want to send Percy to Camp Half-Blood, but I'm just not ready to let go of him yet."
He nodded. "Well, I'll be waiting to welcome him into camp when you are ready to send him."
The clock switched to 8:44.
The plane was flying closer and closer to the North Tower, and it wasn't flying up.
"That'd be nice," Sally said. "I'd probably feel a whole lot better sending Percy to camp if I knew he'd have friends there."
"Well, I'd definitely be willing to try and make friends with him," the boy said. "Me and my best friend, Annabeth. We would make sure he got lots of friends at camp."
"That's good," Sally said, as the clock turned to 8:46. "Because-"
BOOM!
Sally and the boy both jumped. "What just happened?" the boy exclaimed.
Sally's eyes traveled past the boy, looking out the window of the candy shop. "Oh, my gosh," she gasped.
The plane that had been flying low had crashed into the North Tower.
The boy looked over his shoulder. "What happened?" he exclaimed, staring at the North Tower in horror.
"A plane crashed into it," Sally gasped.
Sally's manager came out from the back then. "What was that noise?" he demanded. Then he saw the North Tower, which had smoke billowing from it, and his eyes widen. "What happened?" he gasped.
"A-a plane..." Sally stuttered. "It crashed into the tower...oh, my gosh..." She was frozen with horror.
The manager ran outside. Sally and the boy looked at each other. "How could this have happened?" The boy asked.
Sally just shook her head. She untied her apron and threw it on the counter. "Stay here," she told the boy. "I'm going to see what I can do to help."
She ran out of the candy shop.
She stared at the North Tower. The plane had crashed somewhere near the top. Smoke and flames were billowing out from the windows.
"Oh, my gosh," she gasped. "All those people..."
"What's happening?" came the boy's voice from behind her.
She turned around. "I told you to stay in the candy shop!" she said.
"Look, I'm a hyperactive ADHD demigod," the boy said. "I can't just stay in a candy shop while that's going on."
Sally sighed, but didn't object any farther. "What can we do?" she wondered. She saw people running out of the North Tower, and people coming from the South Tower to come and help.
The boy just shook his head. "I hate this," he said. "I hate wanting to be able to do something, and not being able to do a damn thing. It's just not right."
Sally nodded her head in agreement. "Although you'd be able to do more than me. I'm just a mortal who can see through the Mist."
The boy laughed. "Hardly. My dad's Hermes. I don't have any special or cool powers other than being a thief, and I doubt that's going to help right now."
Sally hated to admit it, but he had a point.
Sirens started wailing in the distance. Firefighters, she thought numbly.
Another plane flew low overhead. It almost looked like it was heading for the South Tower.
She started to pray. Oh, Poseidon, please, please do anything that is within your power, anything at all. Save all those innocent people...Please, please, please...
Beside her, she could hear the boy murmurring a prayer to Hermes. "Dad, please, don't let this happen. Please, save those people. You're only miles away from the tower, please do something, anything. Please, please..."
Their prayers were said in vain.
Sally suddenly found herself worried about Percy. Even though she knew he was miles away from the World Trade Center, at the boarding school she had sent him to, she couldn't help worrying about his safety. It was part of being the mother of a demigod. Or any kind of mother. When something like this happened, you started worrying about your children.
Firetrucks pulled up by the World Trade Center. Sally didn't see how they were going to put out a fire in a skyscraper, but she supposed they must have been trained for situations like this. Plus, she was panicked and couldn't think clearly.
Vans from news stations had pulled up. A newscaster was speaking into a video camera, and Sally had a funny feeling that if she was watching TV right now, she would be seeing the exact same thing she was looking at right now.
"Come on," the boy said. He pushed through the crowd, trying to get closer to the World Trade Center.
Sally hesitated, and then followed him.
They were about a block away when things went from bad to worst.
The other plane Sally had seen, that had looked like it was flying for the South Tower, hit the South Tower.
Another jaw-rattling boom shook the earth.
"Oh, my gosh!" Sally exclaimed, as she watched, horror-struck, as the South Tower also exploded into flames.
The boy, who seemed so cool and put-together minutes earlier, was now clinging to Sally's arm like Percy would when he got scared. "What is happening?" he gasped.
Sally was too shook up for words.
The boy's lips moved in silent prayer as the Twin Towers burst into flames. Even from this distance, Sally could hear the screams of the poor, innocent souls trapped in the World Trade Center. The people who were slowly dying.
She burst into tears. Poseidon, save them! she thought with all her might, hoping with all her soul that he would hear her prayers and do something.
She could the newscaster speaking. "...Officials do not know at this moment if the crash was an accident or a terrorist attack...What?" The cameraman had said something. Her eyes widen. "Um, I have just been informed that the South Tower, as well, has had a plane crash into it. This seems to me as solid evidence of a terrorist attack, as the odds of both Twin Towers being crashed into on the same day are very slim..."
"Oh, my gosh," Sally sobbed. "Did you hear that? They think terrorists did it! Oh, my gosh!" She cried even harder.
The boy shook his head. "What kind of sick, twisted person would do something like this?" he wondered.
"Do me a favor," Sally whispered. "Be my son for the day."
The boy looked at her. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Please," Sally begged. "Just for the day...be my temporary son." Tears glistened in her eyes.
The boy almost smiled. "Alright," he said. "Alright, Mrs..."
"Jackson," Sally said. "Sally Jackson."
"Alright, Mrs. Jackson," the boy said. "Consider me your temporary son for the day. I'm Luke Castellan, by the way."
Sally hugged Luke tight to her, imagining that it was Percy that she was holding.
"Hey," Luke said. "The mayor's here."
She looked up. The limousine of the mayor of New York City had arrived.
"Oh, that's good," she said.
Then the newscaster said something she couldn't believe. "The FBI has just reported that there are reports of planes being hijacked. These reports are under investigation as we speak..."
"Oh, my gosh," Sally said. "Hijacked planes...So it really is a terrorist attack." She hugged Luke even tighter, sobbing. "This is terrible..." she sobbed.
For the next twenty minutes or so, Sally and Luke stood there and listened to the reports. "...all nonmilitary planes are to be grounded and all flights in the U.S.A. to be canceled..." "...as of this moment, casualities are of at least six people dead and over a thousand injured..." "All financial markets in the United States to be closed..."
Sally and Luke watched, horror-struck, as people began jumping out of the towers, sealing their own fate. Sally closed her eyes as millions of people jumped out of the towers.
"This cannot be happening," she moaned.
"I have just recieved word," the newscaster said, "that the Pentagon, in Arlingtton, Virginia, has also been attacked. American Airlines Flight 77, coming from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., has crashed into the Pentagon. There were at least 64 people on board this plane. The nerve center of the U.S. military has erupted into flames..."
"Oh, my gods," Luke said. "It's not just the Twin Towers. They went after the military, too." He shook his head. "This is horrible."
Just then Sally heard a strange, sucking noise. She looked up-and saw the South Tower collasping into itself.
"Oh, gods," she gasped. She grabbed Luke's arm and jerked him back several steps.
"Hit the dirt!" someone yelled from behind her.
She pulled Luke to the ground as the South Tower collapsed.
She felt a surge of air as the 110 floors of the South Tower fell kept her face pressed against the ground as dirt, debris and smoke clouded from the building.
Hesitantly, she looked up.
The South Tower had collapsed. Where hours earlier had stood a 110-story building was nothing but debris and ashes. Even from a block away, the ground was covered with dirt, and the city air was filled with smoke.
Luke coughed. "Gods, that's a lot of smoke," he stated bluntly.
If the situation had not been so tragic, she might have laughed.
The newscaster coughed. "The South Tower has collapsed. The odds of the North Tower collapsing are great..."
Sally shook her head. "What is this world coming to?"
Luke's eyes were full of pain. "I've never seen anything so horrible," he said. "Why aren't the gods doing anything?"
Sally sighed. "They're gods, not psychics. They couldn't have known that this was going to happen, although I agree that Zeus probably should have blasted those planes right out of the sky the moment they were hijacked...He probably didn't because of those innocent people on there."
"So he decided to let thousands of people die like...like this?" Luke said. He shook his head. "It's just not right."
"That's life," Sally sighed.
"Yeah," Luke said, and his eyes turned sad. "Life..."
His expression was so sad it made her wonder what he was thinking about. But this was not the time nor place to ask something like that.
The newscaster was still talking, despite the tragic events going on behind her. "...emergency dispatcher in Pennsylvania has recieved a call from a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark. The passsenger says that their plane has been hijacked and has changed its direction. Flight 93 was headed towards San Francisco, but has changed direction and is now flying over Pennsylvania. The direction the hijackers are headed is unclear, but the passenger thinks they may be headed for Washington D.C..."
Luke looked like it was taking everything he had not to start crying, like he thought he had to keep it together, for Sally's sake.
Sally sobbed. "This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen."
"Can things get much worst?" Luke asked rhetorically.
The newscaster chose that moment to say, "We've just recieved word that United Airlines Flight 93 has crashed into a Pennsylvania field, 80 miles southeast of Pittsburg. It is unclear at this moment why it crashed there instead of its intended destination, but officials in Pennsylvania are checking into it at this very moment..."
"Apparently yes," Sally whispered, closing her eyes in horror.
Luke frowned. "I bet the passengers tried to get control of the plane!" he told Sally.
"Really? You think so?"
"Yeah. I had this dream last night of a bunch of people on airplane bursting into the cockpit and fighting off these men weilding knives! Then the pain started spiraling towards some field." Sally's eyes widen. "Demigod dreams almost always come true! The passengers took a stand against the hijackers!"
"They were heroes," Sally said.
He nodded. "Heroes," he agreed.
Sally suddenly heard that sucking noise again. "Oh, no," she whispered, hardly daring to look up. "Please don't tell me..."
"The North Tower is collasping," Luke said.
Sally grabbed Luke's arm and pulled him to the ground again, along with herself, just as the North Tower collapsed in a fury of smoke and flames.
Sally coughed and looked up. She could hardly believe what she was seeing.
"Oh, gosh," she gasped.
The North Tower was gone. Just like the South Tower, it had collapsed into itself.
She closed her eyes at the unspeakable horror.
Both Twin Towers, gone, in one day. In one morning, the Twin Towers had both collapsed. Destroyed by evil. Millions killed. And all because of terrorists.
This was injustice.
She stood up shakily, pulling Luke up with her. Luke's eyes, once bright blue and full of childlike innocent, were now dully burning and full of horror as he stared at where the World Trade Center had once stood.
She hugged him tight, and they stood there together, as they watched the tragedy unfold. They stood there for hours on end, staring at what used to be the Twin Towers, listening as the newscaster continued speaking as what was left of the firemen ran around the scene of the diaster, looking for bodies. They stood there in horror as the least of deaths grew and grew, heading into the thousands. They watched as medics hauled multiple dead bodies away from the scene.
Neither of them knew that, while this was an attack to take away America's freedom, it was also a sign of what was to come. Neither of them knew that, miles and miles under their feet, in the darkest part of the Underworld, the Titan lord Kronos was slowly gaining strength. Neither of them knew that, in just two years, the Titan would corrupt one of them and convince them to steal two of the most powerful things in existence. Neither of them knew that, in the late summer of 2009, one of them would remember this day in their dying moments, as they lay on the floor of Olympus, apologizing for what they'd done. Neither of them knew that, in the years to come, they would grow to hate the person they were clinging to on this tragic day. Neither of them knew that, as the U.S. military headed off to war, another war was slowly but surely brewing. Neither of them knew that, in the days that would follow, one of them would blame the gods for this day, and their already existing anger would only increase. Neither of them knew that this wasn't only an attack on America, but an attack on the gods. Neither of them knew that one of their futures would end almost as tragicly as the people who died that. Neither of them knew that this was a sign of the Great Prophecy coming true. Neither of them knew that this was a sign of the war to come.
Neither of them knew any of that at the time. But they would always remember that September.