Dedicated to 9/11. Nothing more than that.
A oneshot involving our favorite Bleach blondie and how he died. It's hard to imagine him in New Jersey, but deal with it.
A part of the ANGST-RIDDEN series.
It had started out as a special day for him. The date was September 11, 2001. Today was his 17th birthday.
His friends had woken him up at 12:01 in the morning, just to wish him a happy birthday. That in itself was overjoying. His parents, of course, weren't crazy enough to wake him up at 12:01 in the morning to wish him a happy birthday, and his little sister was far too young to wake up in the middle of the night to wish her big brother a happy 21st, but that was okay. He knew they'd remember.
And they had. Like they had done every year in the past, they had woken up, made him waffles, and then blindfolded him and taken him to somewhere he had interest in.
This year it was to the World Trade Center in New York City. The drive wasn't too far from where they lived, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Okay, now he knew that any other teenager probably wouldn't want to go to the WTC for his birthday, but he wasn't exactly a part of the hip crowd. He didn't get money to blow at Abercrombie and Fitch, he didn't get some really cool fancy high-tech electronic device. Nah. His parents weren't rich and couldn't exactly afford the classiest things. They had a station wagon, for crying out loud!
So, every year consisted of a trip that he considered special. Every year it was always a surprise. And every year it turned out just as grand as the last.
Finding a parking spot was the only real issue they had, and then fishing out quarters to feed the parking meter. But other than that, the trip was nothing short of fascinating for him.
He was taking AP U.S. History that year in school (he was a junior), and the WTC had been one of the locations mentioned in his textbook. He'd seen the picture, and, well, it was practically love at first sight. There was also the plus of window shopping at Manhattan's Largest Mall, which also happened to be located at the WTC. Of course, it wasn't to buy anything. No. It was just to look, just to see, to pretend that they could actually afford that stuff but didn't approve or like it. In reality, however, they would be lucky if they could buy even the cheapest pair of jeans that they were displaying at Abercrombie and Fitch.
The hours seemed to fly by, as they always had on his birthday. And yet, when he glanced at his watch, it was still morning. A beautiful morning, to be exact. A morning that he would always remember for the rest of his life.
He and his little sister were looking longingly at some of the sweet treats behind the window at a candy store in the mall. Their parents were sitting down, resting their feet. He could understand that. They were getting on in years, and weren't exactly as agile as they were before. His little sister peeled away from him, claiming that she was going back to Mom and Dad to sit down for a while and that he should take his time and look at whatever he wanted. Turning his head a bit, he watched her skip back to the bench in the middle of the crowded mall where their parents were sitting.
It happened in an instant. There was no way of predicting it, and there was certainly no way of stopping it: A huge piece of ceiling fell down and shattered on the spot where she had been just seconds before. It was dead silent for a few moments, and then someone screamed. And then more and more people were screaming. And there was panic in the air.
His little sister clung to their parents, scared for her life. He was frozen there, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to reach out and tell them a lie, tell them that everything would be okay, that maybe that part of ceiling just wasn't stable or something.
As he watched, as though through someone else's eyes, he saw small pieces of plaster rain down on his parents and sister. And, almost inevitably, he knew what was going to happen.
His parents knew, too, and hurled themselves out of the bench, pushing his sister in front of them. He stood there, glued to the spot in front of the sweet shop, and watched, as if in slow motion, as his mother tripped, her blonde hair splaying out on the pieces of ceiling in front of her. His father pushed his sister further and told her to run, told her that she had to "go to big brother, NOW", and then turned back and reached for his mother's hand. Barely able to breathe, he watched as the next huge chunk of ceiling fell down, watched as it crushed his parents, watched as his sister flew out toward him from the impact. Glass from the chandeliers overhead shattered on the ground and embedded shards in his hands and legs, but he didn't care. He didn't feel it.
He didn't hear the screams, didn't hear the rubble sliding on the marble floor as the other customers started to run, running for safety. Like he should be doing. Like he wanted to do. Like he couldn't.
And then, amidst all the panic that was flying around him, he heard someone crying. Turning his head to the right, he saw his sister there, sobbing her heart out on the marble floor. She had some cuts on her face and on her legs, but other than that, she seemed to be okay. Grasping her shoulder, he gently set her upright and said, "Listen, Big Brother's got to stay here and help Mom and Dad. You need to go to somewhere where it's safe."
Grabbing the arm of a fleeing woman, he asked, "Please, take my sister and make sure she's safe. Please." The woman did not refuse, and reached out her hand for his sister's arm. She flinched away, hiding behind his legs, but he pushed her out into the open again.
"No," he said quietly. "You need to go with this nice lady. You need to be safe."
"But," her blue eyes, so much like his own, had tears in them, "what'll happen to you?"
"Nothing's going to happen to me," he said quietly, trying to reassure her. "Nothing's going to happen. But for right now, you need to go outside with the nice lady and you need to be safe. Okay? You have to be strong for me." His hand reached out and quietly stroked her soft blonde hair. "Please."
Looking at him one more time, she reached up her arms. He bent down and gently pulled her into a hug. "Be safe," he whispered in her ear. "Then when I come out, then we can go somewhere and we can buy you some chocolate milk and cookies. Okay?"
She nodded against his shoulder, whispered three words that sounded like "I love you" but he couldn't be sure, and then turned, holding the hand of the woman, and ran. Ran for the door. He watched them go, watched the sunshine falling across the rubble through the glass windows.
He knew they were dead. He didn't have to check. Anybody would be dead after that. But he needed to know. He needed to check. He needed to be absolutely sure that it was true, that it was real.
Running to the pile of debris that covered his parents, he started ripping it away, chunk by chunk. Glass splinters embedded themselves in his hands, and the blood stained the pieces of ceiling, painting them red. But he continued. He kept digging, kept trying to rid himself of that image, the image of his parents being crushed under a chunk of ceiling.
He was vaguely aware of rubble falling down on him from above, and somewhere in his heart he knew that he was going to die. Somewhere in his mind, he pleaded with his body to get up, to get up and just run, run like mad, to take care of his sister. But his heart won. He knelt there, sobs racking his body as his bloody hands clawed at the debris. He didn't hear the other chunks of ceiling falling down around him. He did not hear the screams that infiltrated the building from the outside.
He did not feel it when the entire building collapsed it on itself and crushed him, enveloping him in darkness.
Kaori watched as the building collapsed. She screamed, and started to run toward it, as if by doing this her brother would come out and tell her that everything was okay, that it was just a joke. The woman held her wrist firmly, preventing her from running off, no matter how hard she struggled.
But, somewhere in the back of her mind, somewhere at the bottom of her heart, she knew that she wouldn't ever get to see her big brother again.
She was on TV. Her friends all crowded around their TVs at home, and her big brother's friends crowded around their TVs at their homes. She'd always wanted to be on TV, but never like this, not with crying people all around her, not with a collapsed building in the background.
"Who did you lose today?" the reporter yelled at her, jamming his microphone into her face.
It seemed as though the screaming quieted, as though the whole crowd had turned to look at her, this one little girl who had lost, perhaps, the most in a few hours. The loneliest little girl in the world.
"Today was my big brother's seventeenth birthday," she said clearly, and even though she was crying, her voice held no hint of it. "Today, my mommy, my daddy, and my big brother all died. Big Brother tried to save them. He told me that he'd buy me chocolate milk and cookies. But...but I don't think Big Brother will be coming out." And she broke down, crying and sobbing on the ground.
She said it as though she couldn't believe it. And none of the others at home believed her, either.
But that was before they called his cell phone and realized just how true his voice message was, "Yo, you've reached me! If you're one of my friends, you'll know that I almost always pick up my phone, and if I'm not picking up, I guess I just don't recognize the number or I'm dead! But leave me a message. I'll call you anyway."
'I'm dead. But leave me a message. I'll call you anyway.'
Dedicated to the victims of 9/11. A very angsty story, I know.
Thanks for reading.
And just so you know, this is Kira we're talking about.