This is a little late- But it's a 9/11 story. I lived in New York when it happend, and was actually in the city at the time. Those dramatic videos of people walking through the ash left from the fallen buildings? That was me. And my mom.
All of these P.O.V.s are real (to an extent)- they're from people that I knew during 9/11. Kendall's story is at my old house but with my cousins, Logan's is mine, James's is my best friend's brother, and Carlos's is my uncle.
So anyway-
Enjoy(;
"Kendall, go wake up your sister." My mom said, standing in my doorway. I blinked awake, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
"Whats wrong?" I groaned. I was home visiting from collage, I deserved to sleep in.
"Something's up with the twin towers, sweety. It's probably nothing, but Matt just...he made it sound very serious." She said, slowly backing out of my room. I could hear commercials from the other room. She was obviously watching the Today show, the only news show she ever watched in the morning.
I sighed, rolling out of bed and walking down our short hallway. It was another beautiful morning in Stony Point, New York. I could see the sun glistening from the Hudson river, visible from my bedroom window. It was the kind of weather New York wasn't known for.
What could possibly be wrong on such a nice, normal Tuesday? God only knows if Matt made the news sound serious, something must be up. I mean, he is only a professional news caster and all. Being serious totally isn't in the job description.
"Kates, Mom wants us in the living room," I said, leaning against her door frame. She rolled over, facing me.
"Whats wrong?"
I shrugged. "Who knows. She said something about the World Trade Centers. I dont know,"
She sighed, stretching her feet to the floor. "It's a good thing you're in kindergarden, kid. You dont have to go to school until what, twelve?"
She grunted, pushing past me and dragging her feet out to the living room. "Mom," She complained, "It's 8:45, you know I dont get up until at least 10:30-"
She stopped dead in her tracks. My mom was standing, staring at the television with her hand over her mouth in shock. She was shaking.
"Mom?" I asked, walking towards the tv. She wouldn't look at me, just at the screen. I turned, watching what was on the screen.
"A plane hit one of the World Trade Centers just moment ago," The woman on the news said solmly. That wasn't what caught my attention though. What caught my attention was the image on the screen.
Smoke was billowing out of the North Building, pouring into the bright blue sky.
"Oh my God."
"Oh God, I'm late- I'm so late- I'm late!" I chanted to myself under my breath as I ran across a busy New York street. "There goes my new job. God damnit!" I continued, running towards the two biggest buildings in the world. Last week, I was offered an internship at one of the many businesses within the South Tower's walls. You might as well just kiss it goodbye, Logan!
I turned the corner, buildings in view. My tie blew behind me in the wind, my suit jacket flapping uncontrollablly. I glanced down at my watch. 8:45! I was supposed to be there at 8:30! Could I blame traffic? Maybe I could-
"Holy shit!" A guy next to me yelled, hand gripping a video camera. A loud explosion filled the air.
My head shot up. Debris was raining from the sky as fire and ash devowered side of the North Tower.
I swallowed harshly, eyes wide with fear. "I guess that's my excuse, then."
"Mom, most college students are, I don't know, in college right now?" I complained, arms crossed across my chest.
"James, don't do that, you'll wrinkle your suit." My mom said, pulling my arms apart.
I sighed, walking over to the window. "As much as I'd love to be the CEO of your company, I'd like to live out my youth." My forehead pressed against the glass. The best part about being in my moms office was the view it had. Being on the 110th floor of a Twin Tower had its benefits.
"James, Darling, you're an adult now. You dont need to act like a child." I ignored her, knowing arguing with her would just end badly.
The floor shook below us.
"Mom?" I asked after a moment, turning to face her.
She looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, don't tell me you're scared of a little wind? You know these towers sway."
I glanced back out the window, watching the people below the building scramble like ants. "That wasn't wind, Mom."
"Really, James, be reasonable. Nothing happened."
"Mom, remember the bombing of '93? What if something bad happened?"
She narrowed her eyes at me. "We have an important meeting to attent to discuss the future of Brooke Diamond Cosmetics." She motioned around herself. "No wind is going to stop me from going, and it wont stop you either."
I ignored her again, something I picked up over the years of living under the same roof with her. My hand gripped the door handle of her office, pushing it down and pulling the door open.
Beyond the sound proof barriers of my mother's office, I could hear screams. Screams of terror, agony, and distress. A man ran passed the door, heading towards the stairs.
"Sir!" I called after him, grabbing his arm, desperate to know what was happening.
He looked up at me, fear in his wide eyes. "You have to let me go! That plane wont keep me away from my family! I have kids!" He shouted, pulling from my grasp and running down the stairs.
My eyebrows came together as I jogged down the hallway. Plane? What plane?
I glanced out of a window as I ran past it, doing a double take to absorb what I was seeing. My heart stopped.
Black ash covered most of the window, but I could make out orange flames shooting up from a hole in the side of the building. People were rushing around on the ground in a panic. Oh, I thought to myself, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. That plane.
"Oh my God, it looks like a second plane has hit the South Tower!" The man on the television exclaimed, cutting off another reporter. The video was live, showing flames and smoke and ash rise in clouds next to the second building.
My mom, who was previously sitting on the couch, jumped to her feet. Katie was hiding under the coffee table, an ottoman pulled in front of it so she could see but was still consealed. I put both of my hands behind my neck, pacing across the room.
"I have to call your aunt." My mom said after a moment, tears streaking down her face. She darted out of the room, getting the phone.
"What's going on?" Katie whimpered from her spot under the table.
I crouched next to the ottoman, reaching my hand into her fort to hold hers.
"The world is changing, Kates. And it will never be the same."
I stood surrounded by a croud of people at the base of the South Tower. This was...unreal. How could a plane crash into one of the towers? How?
"Oh my God, he's jumping." The man from before said, training his camera on an object falling from the building.
"What?" I asked, leaning over to watch what his camera was capturing. The 'object' had arms and legs. It was a person.
My hand covered my mouth as tears streaked down my face. I had the urge to throw up on the spot, but somehow kept it in.
Was it really that bad? That people had to throw themselves out of windows?
"Jesus Christ!" Someone called out, pointing at the sky. Another one was falling, arms and legs flailing before they hit the ground.
I heaved again, nothing coming out. People were dying. People who had spouces, children, a life. They didn't deserve this. No one did.
I kept chanting those lines in my head, nausea rolling through me.
My eyes focused on something in the distance. A bird? A helecopter?
The concrete below me was painted in puke as a second explosion rang through the air. No, it wasn't a bird. It wasn't a helecopter. No, it was much worse. It was a plane.
A plane that definitely was not there by coinsidence.
My watch glowed in the darkness, illuminating the time. 9:05. "Mom, what do we do?" I cried out as we and every other Goddamned person in the building pushed our way through the crowed stairwell. People were shouting and screaming, crying out in complete panic. My mom, though, looked calm.
"We wait until everyone evacuates the building, then we come back when they say it's safe," She said, pulling her phone to her ear.
I sighed, turning back to pushing through the crouds. There were no windows in the stairwell we were using. I pushed myself through a doorway, leading to one of the many hallways like the one my mothers office was in.
The window I found was caked in ash. I slid it open, sticking my head out the building.
A body flew past me.
I stumbled away from the window, hand clasped over my heart. A woman ran over to me, helping me to my feet. "We have to get out of here, keep moving!"
"T-they're jumping!" I exclaimed, pointing back towards the window. "That man! H-he jumped!"
She stopped pulling me. "What?"
We both ran back to the window, looking down at the splatter on the ground.
"Oh my God," She whispered. I couldn't hear her, though, through the sound of the second tower exploding.
"America is under attack." I whispered to myself, walking through the hallways of the Pentagon. I just found out about the second plane hitting the South Tower. People were whispering about other hijacked planes in the air, but I didn't know what to believe.
That is, until the ground around me shook so severely I fell to the ground.
"Garcia!" A voice called down the hallway. "Are you okay?"
Stunned, I nodded as my fellow agent helped me to my feet. "We have to get everyone out of here,"
He nodded, dragging me behind him as he ran down the hallway. "My idea exaclty. Do you know what happened?"
I shook my head, stumbling after him. "Was it a bomb? It could've been on the helipad. Easily accessable."
"Maybe," he said as we turned a corner running. "Or maybe it was another plane. That's how they got the towers." I swallowed harshly, absorbing everything.
America was under attack.
"Mom!" I shouted, calling her back into the room. "Mom!"
"What?" she panted, running back towards the television. She'd been talking on the phone with my aunt Loretta for a while, missing what the people on the news were saying.
"They got the Pentagon."
My mom fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face. "What's happening to us?"
The screams never stopped. One minute they were screaming about the plane hitting the tower, the next, about a bomb at the Pentagon.
It was like the apocolypse was starting. World War III. What else would be destroyed today?
We were moved from out previous spot below the buildings. It was too dangerous. We now stood about two blocks away, watching the smoke from the two towers mix together in the sky.
I'd never seen anything so depressing.
"Shit," the guy with the camera said, shaking it in his hand. "I need more batteries. Here, you take it." He handed it to me. "I'll go get some more. Keep your eyes on the prize, okay?" He motioned to the towers in front of us.
I nodded, pointing the camera at the broken twins.
The man jogged away. A loud crashing noise filled the air. I put my eye against the camera, watching the South Tower collapse through the lense.
The next second, we were blinded by ash.
The building shook, harder than before. "What's happening?" I asked out loud, voicing what everyone was thinking. People started pushing and shoving eachother more aggressively screaming.
I pushed myself through another door into another hallway. I ran the short distance to the closest window, sliding it open.
I did another double take. I was so sure I was on the right side. The South Tower should've been standing there. Instead, there was just clouds of smoke and ash.
My feet carried me across the hallway to another window. The South Tower wasn't there, either.
"Any more jumpers?" The woman from before asked, gazing up at the sky. We didn't make it that far down yet, but I still didn't have the urge to jump. We'll make it. I know we will.
I shook my head no, not seeing any myself. She sighed, shoulders sagging. "What about on the South Tower?"
I slowly made my way back to the first window I looked through, the one overlooking the clouds of ash.
"There is no South Tower anymore."
"It was a plane."
I growled, punching the wall next to me. "What's going on?"
"Calm down, Garcia. It's okay."
"But it's not okay!" I shouted, throwing my hands up in frustration. "We are at war now, do you understand? And there are more hijacked planes! What are we going to do? When will all this bad stuff end?"
My friend put his hand on my shoulder. "We get through it. Okay? We'll get through it."
"Oh my God." My mom whispered, hugging a pillow on the couch. I sat down next to her for the first time that morning, slinging my arm around her. "It's okay to cry." I mumbled, tears falling down my face.
"The Tower is going to fall now, theres no doubt," The lady on the news stated as if she was talking about something as simple as the weather. "All we can do now is hope and pray that our loved ones survive."
I sighed, watching videos of people covered in ash running away from the fallen tower. I could see the smoke from the window, a small speck in the vast blue sky.
Something told me the sky over New York wouldn't be blue again for quite some time.
Ash covered every inch of my body as we ran. There was no doubt that if the first building fell, the second one would too.
The strangers camera still sat in my hand, video still rolling. I didn't know if I would ever see him again, but I wanted to keep it going. Just like he wanted.
Fire fighters made their way through the barely visible landscape or New York, attempting to save lives. But how do you save people from the tallest buildings- now building- in the world?
Tears streaked through the thick layer of ash covering my face as we heard another crashing noise.
The last tower was undoubtedly gone. Along with the lives of the men and women working there, destroying the vivions of America's freedom.
"We're not going to make it." I gasped out, looking out yet another window. We somehow made it about halfway down before the building started to creak and groan beneath all of us.
The woman I'd been walking with, Camille, looked solmly at me. "James...I'm going to jump."
Tears fell from my eyes. "Camille dont-"
"Why shouldn't I? So I can get crushed by this stupid building? I hated working here, but I won't let my job kill me." She joked.
I smiled through my tears. "If you want to, then go ahead. Who am I to stop you?"
She hugged me, wet face dampening my jacket. "You can always come with me, James."
I pulled away from her hug. "My mom's still in that stairwell somewhere. She was trying to make me CEO of her company. It would've happened if it wasn't for those...terrorists," I sighed before continuing. "A captain always goes down with his ship. So this CEO is going down with his company."
She smiled, taking a step away from me towards the window. "I wish I met you before all of this. I feel like we could've been amazing friends."
I laughed, tears still flowing rapidly. "Bye, Camille."
She waved, one leg behind the glass. "Bye, James."
A shuddering sob escaped me as she fell. I couldn't stand watching it, so I sat against the wall closest to me.
Everything suddenly became so real to me. I never got the chance to live a normal life, the kind of life I dreamed about. No, I lived the life most adults dreamed about. I was just eighteen, barely old enough to drive a car through the city, and was being forced to live the life my mother wanted for me.
I don't know if this was God's way of taking me out of my misery, or if it was just a twist of fate, but I felt relaxed. I embrased the fact that I was going to die. I'm ready.
The building shook around me, the sound of crushing metal filling my ears, and I realized that I'd never been happier.
Darkness settles over me, a smile on my face.
This was depressing to write...
Every year, we sorta lock ourselves in our house and watch all the news on 9/11. It's scary to relive it, but...It's American history. My history. So...
I dont really know what to say, other than thanks. It was really skippy and stuff, but I wanted to include all the guys for this one.
Sorry if it sucked:/
But anyway- you should review(: so REVIEW!