Disclaimer:
I don't own Sophie,
Peter, etc. I'm not using this for
money. Yatsa, Yatsa, and Yatsa.
Claimer:
I own Xan and Nick.
ETC:
May we never forget
September 11th, 2001.
-*-*-
These, our final moments.
-*-*-
Nick and I
had agreed to go on the trip. Big
mistake. Something had told me to tell
Peter I would stay behind, but Nick had convinced me that we should go. We'd wanted to go back to NYC for so long, I
guess that's why I gave in so quickly.
When the
plane touched down on the tenth, I knew I shouldn't have agreed. I begged Peter to just take us back, change
the tickets. But as usual, our fearless
leader told me I could just stay at the Marriot. That's when I knew we were doomed.
For the
first time in years, I didn't sleep soundly through the night. At some point J.D., Sophie and Peter's now
seven-year old son and my younger brother by adoption; woke up and crawled into
bed with me. And before I knew it,
Caylie, my sister, was in bed with Shelby.
When we got
up that morning, Peter tried a couple of tactics to figure out what was wrong
with me, but I couldn't tell him, I couldn't even find the words.
We left at 8:30 am and our journey to the
towers was short, as we only had to walk a few yards. I fell back with J.D. clinging to me – He knew. So did Caylie, who's fear turned to crying.
We were in
the south tower, and when the rattling came, Peter said it was just the
wind. We reached the 103rd
floor, where Peter disembarked the elevator.
He told us we'd see him later, and the elevator continued to the 109th
floor, where we got off.
By then, we
could all see the fire engulfing the upper part of the north tower.
Sophie
turned white and rushed us back to the elevator, but it had returned to the
first floor. Her next place to go was
the stairs, but as we ran past the sign saying we had reached floor
one-hundred, we felt the second plane.
Cay cried,
J.D. screamed, and we all knew what was going to happen. We could hear Peter yelling from above us,
and he was soon seated beside us on the abandoned stairs.
He looked
to me and knew what all my whining had been about, just by the look in my eyes.
We held
hands, we talked, we could feel the heat of the fire below. And we prayed. I've never prayed. Not
like I did.
Then it hit
me that in these moments, we were what we all wanted – a family. These, our final moments.
-*-*-
For A.V.P. For J. A-E. B. For D.R.
Never forget.
*v* Cassie Jamie *v*
noahXfiles@aol.com
These, our final moments
By: Cassie Jamie