A/N- I loved your reviews. This may be a little sad, you've been warned. Btw, they're all the same age as they are in the books, just so you know.
Disclaimer- I don't own like… anything.
No one had seen it coming that day. It was bright and sunny, a nice breeze coursing through the air and sending the tips of peoples' hair flowing across their necks. All in all, it was a perfect day. And yet, it happened anyway. The weather had nothing to do with the oncoming event
7:30 AM
I was giddy with happiness that morning. My father had accepted me after I told him I was gay and it was bring your son to work day. My younger brother, Max, and my adopted brother Jace were all going to the North Tower in the city to help him with work. It would've been the best day ever.
The four of us got off the train in the morning and took the elevator to the 88th floor. I wasn't sure how many floors total were in that building, but there were hundreds of thousands of people in the building at one time. I was surprised it didn't collapse under the weight of all those people. Ironically enough, my first thought as I arrived on the 88th floor was, This place could survive anything thrown at it.
"Now, boys," my dad said, stopping us outside the door to his office. "Things may not be very exciting today, but I will still have work to do. If you three get separated without my knowledge, go to this exact place again, understand?"
The four of us nodded.
"It's a big place," he said, opening the door to his office. "I don't want my sons getting lost."
7:45 AM
"Dad," I whined again. "This is gonna be so boring, do I have to go?"
"Yes, Magnus," he said. "I'm getting you out of school today, you could at least be thankful."
I sighed and followed him into the elevator that went to the 88th floor. It was bring your son to work day, but I would've rather been in school talking to Camille and Ragnor about whatever the latest gossip was, not sitting in a huge building all day with my dad.
"Will you please just lighten up a little?" he asked softly. "I want you here today, you can help me help the world."
"Alright, fine," I agreed, trudging into the office he worked in.
8:41 AM
"Alexander," my dad said in my ear. "Mr. Bane and I have to go across to the South Tower. Will you keep an eye on Jace?"
"Sure," I muttered. "What about Max?"
"We're going to take him with us," my dad explained quickly. "He wants to see what it looks like. We'll be back in an hour or two. Why don't you talk to Mr. Bane's son until we get back?"
"Uhm, okay, sure," I stuttered.
I watched silently as my little brother and dad walked out with a tan skinned man to head to the other equally huge building.
Socially awkward and now alone to make sure Jace didn't get killed, I stood in the corner of the medium sized room with a cup of black coffee. There sure were a lot of boys in the room and they all looked busy… except for one. He was really tall, taller than me, with the same color skin as Mr. Bane and the same dark hair. He seemed very bright and colorful, like a human rainbow.
Without realizing what I was doing, I walked over to him and he smiled at me. "Hello there," he greeted me kindly.
"Hi," I said meekly. "Are you Mr. Bane's son?"
He nodded and his ebony hair fell into one of his green eyes. "You're a Lightwood, right?"
"Yeah." I stuck my hand out. "I'm Alec."
I didn't catch his name after that, I was too busy looking out the window behind him. There was a plane nearby, flying much too close to the building. When the boy's hand slipped out of mine from our brief handshake, I figured out what was going to happen a second too late. Right as I was about to open up my mouth and say something the building shook, sending waves of tremors traveling through the floor. People were tumbling over each other and the electricity was instantly shut off. We all would've been in pitch black darkness, had it not been the morning.
There was a moment when there was nothing but complete silence. It was almost as if every living thing had held their breath for a second, just to try and process what had happened. Then screams that seemed to seep out of the walls to fill the empty spaces of the room sounded and everyone was hysterical. My first instinct was that there had been an earthquake of some sort, but even I didn't believe myself. That plane had purposely flown into the North Tower and I was standing in the aftermath.
8:50 AM
"We've just gotten word that a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. There is no clear news as to why this has happened, some think the plane had gone out of control, others believe it may be the work of terrorists. 911 dispatchers have already called emergency vehicles to arrive immediately."
Someone with their head on straight had managed to find a wireless radio we could use to figure out what was going on. I was scared out of my mind. Jace was nowhere to be found and Max and my father were in the other tower.
Mr. Bane's son started telling people to get out of the tower, and that things weren't going to get any better if we all just stood there. Everyone started pushing and flooding towards the door. Imagine our shock when we found half of the hallway on fire. There was no way to get out. We were trapped.
9:15 AM
The walkie-talkie on the Bane kid's belt buzzed with static but the words "South Tower" and "been hit" came through. We had barely managed to get out of the room on the 88th floor and down a few floors. Everyone else had found an unblocked stairwell and ran down it to safety on the ground, yet I knew we weren't out of the danger zone yet.
Me and the boy were walking around the floors below us to help anyone who couldn't get out after finding that all of the levels above us were destroyed or on fire. The plane had flown into one of the 90th floors and no one above that level could get out; all of the emergency stairwells were blocked by debris and fire.
"Hello?" the boy called into the hallway, shining his flashlight into a room or two. After getting no answer, he took my wrist and dragged me away from a crack in the ceiling. Our thoughts were that the entire building was in no way structurally sound, but there was no way we were going to leave if someone needed help.
"I can't believe both the towers were hit," the boy muttered to me, shock evident in his eyes. "This wasn't a coincidence."
"What do you think happened?" I asked quietly, following him to the staircase and down another flight. The farther down we went, the easier it was to see and breathe. That much told me that we were getting farther away from destruction and closer to safety.
"I don't know," he muttered. "But things like this don't just happen. There has to be a reason of some sort."
10:10 AM
In the hour or two that we had been searching, we found out that the Pentagon had been hit as well. I felt like we should have been panicking, that we should have been running around and getting out of the building instead of walking about trying to help people. I wasn't frantic until I found out the South Tower had completely collapsed.
As soon as the words hit my ears, I was darting across the hallway and down two stairs at a time, desperate to find my family. My sister and mom were at home or school, so I knew they would be alright. Unless someone flew a plane into the school, too. My mind was whipping around too many thoughts at a time and I couldn't breathe until the nice boy steadied me by putting his hands on my shoulders. I took a minute to breath and we carried on down the stairs at a safer pace.
"You go," he said. "I'll keep looking for people."
"But," I stuttered. "You're dad…"
"If he survived, tell him I'm fine and that I love him," he said quietly. "There are still people in this building and you need to find your family. Go."
"I really think you should come with me," I insisted. "It's not your job to get everyone out."
"It's not my job but I feel like I need to. Please, just go."
In an act of pure gratefulness, I pulled him into a hug and squeezed his waist tightly. "Thank you," I said as I pulled back. He gave me a grim smile and pushed me towards the stairs.
"Wait!" I called to him before he was out of sight. "What's your name?"
"There's no time for that!" he called. "Get to safety!"
He was right, there was no time to argue, so I nodded and took one final glance at him before taking off down the stairs.
10:23 AM
The scene outside was chaotic. Ambulances and fire trucks and police cars took up the entirety of the street surrounding the building and I was rushed away from the structures once I set foot on the ground. Debris still filled the air from what I assumed was the collapse of the South Tower and the North Tower was still on fire, right near the top.
I wasn't hurt, besides being a little shaken up and I quickly walked over to a firefighter, noticing something on the ground.
"Sir," I said. "There's a body here." I pointed my index finger down to the right of myself, gesturing to the mangled body of a man.
A sort of numbness took me over when he looked at me like I had grown two extra heads. I glanced around and saw that bodies were literally everywhere. The emergency people were stepping over corpses like they were used to it by that point. My stomach tumbled around and I felt my brain go dizzy.
I turned my head to look at the burning North Tower and felt my heart drop into my stomach then shoot up into my throat. There were people on the 90th floors jumping out of the building. Now it makes sense to me that they were getting out the only way possible. It was either jump or burn to death. But at that moment I was confused and scared for my own life, along with my families'. The thing that really made me ache for my family was seeing a pregnant women jump from one of the top floors. I wish I hadn't been that close to the building when she did so because the contorted shape of her body as she hit the asphalt is an image I can't get out of my brain.
The smoldering rubble of the South Tower left no hope in my body, not one bit. I couldn't help but think that there was absolutely no way my father and brother had made it out of there alive. It was a horrible feeling to know that half of your family was probably dead and there was nothing you could do about it.
An impossibly loud sound shook me to my core and I whipped around to see the North Tower collapsing in on itself. It looked like some had taken their foot and stepped on the roof, causing it to spiral downward. The sound of a building breaking like that was so loud that it was quiet. It was just white noise after a few seconds and I stayed put, almost as if I was glued to the ground. It took both the determined firefighter and the gigantic dust and debris cloud coming from the tower to make me move.
I ran faster than I'd run in my life. Me, along with countless other shocked people, ran down the street at top speed and took cover underneath cars and ducked into buildings. I crawled underneath a truck and took on the fetal position for I don't even know how long until the white noise was replaced with screams of despair and grief.
A large crowd was moving towards a brick building on the side of the street and I followed suit, blending in with the mass of bodies. Everyone was covered in white dust, like it had been painted onto their skin. I was thankful to be mildly safe inside a bank.
The nonexistent hope soared back into my body when someone frantically called my name. I turned in their general direction and saw Jace barreling towards me. I caught him in a brotherly embrace and asked him where Max and Dad were.
His frown scared me. "I thought they were with you," he said.
My father and little brother never made it out of the South Tower. People say they were trying to help evacuate the ones who really needed to get out and I'm proud of them. There was an entire group of people dedicated to making sure Max got out okay but the tower collapsed before they had a chance.
The boy didn't survive either. It makes me feel awful, knowing that he got me out and had his life cruelly taken from him. Maybe if I had pushed him into come with me more or stayed with him or something he would have been alive still… My mother said it's survivors guilt.
To this day, I still tell my story of how I got out of the North Tower and of the kind-hearted boy who pretty much saved my life. Whenever someone asks what his name was I say the same thing-
"I wish I knew."
A/N- First and foremost, this was not meant to offend ANYONE OR ANYTHING! I swear on my life, I was in no way trying to offend anyone. Please, if you are offended, PM me or something to let me know so I can apologize personally. Did anyone cry while reading this? I tried to make it dramatic. Will you review so I know how I did? I don't know much about what happened on that day because I was like… four years old, but I looked it up and tried my best. That deserves reviews, right?
-Ella, who hopes no one hates her for killing Magnus.
