This is a very sensitive subject, and I had some concerns about posting this. If you feel you are ok with reading a fictional experience based upon a very real tragedy, I encourage you to continue. However, please do not read if only to review negatively. I do mean the best in posting this.
They stood leaning on the barrier, their fingers absentmindedly tracing the names engraved in the metal. Their minds went back to that day in 2001. Elliot and Olivia had never brought up the subject after it had happened. They both were torn out of present time and thrown into a backwards spin.
2001
She wasn't called in. No one was. Everyone just knew to respond. In jeans and a T-shirt, she left her apartment at incredible speed. She sped off in her own car, fully aware that no taxi driver would even get close to the tower that was now smoldering.
As she drove, people passed her windows as a blur, all running in the opposite direction. Olivia tried to see if the smoke was visible. It wasn't - yet. And then the building she drove behind ended. There it was: the World Trade Center.
Black smoke billowed from a gaping hole in the side of the building near the very top. The morning air of New York City was suddenly cold. Olivia shivered involuntarily, goosebumps covering her entire body. It was unreal. An awful accident that caused this much damage was going to result in too many fatalities to count. She needed to be there to help, so she stepped on the gas, weaving through minimal traffic.
Everyone was stopped. When the vehicles blocked her path, she honked frantically, rolling down her window to push her badge into the air. New York City had sirens going off all the time - that was just an everyday thing in the city. But as Olivia was exposed to the outside air, she could hardly breathe.
Never in her life had she heard the sounds of panic and terror so prominent. People's screams were sporadic and yet somehow constant. The sirens nearly deafened her as fire departments deployed everything they had, police doing the same. The cars moved slowly, but she got through.
The building had grown taller and the gaping hole grew bigger as she neared the scene. Three blocks from the blockade police were trying to put up, Olivia was stuck again. She didn't bother to honk. She climbed out of her car and ran the rest of the way.
He had been preparing for work, almost in his vehicle when his wife appeared on the front step, fear in her eyes. Elliot immediately turned back toward her as her eyes filled with tears and her hand covered her mouth.
"What? What's wrong?" He held her shoulders as she shook.
"The tower. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center." Her voice shook as she spit it out of her mouth.
Elliot felt his feet go numb, the feeling spreading through his entire body. He stood motionless, trying to process.
"Kathy, I'm going to head down and see what happened, ok?"
She shook her head. "No - no it's too dang-"
He cut her off, his tone firm as his panic showed.
"This is my job. I'm a police officer, and I have to get down there and help." He heard his voice shake as Kathy put her forehead to his.
They both closed their eyes in a moment of serenity as the sirens grew louder. Then he was moving toward his vehicle.
"I'll see you later." He promised.
She watched him go, standing in shocked disbelief before turning to go back inside.
He drove faster than he should have through the streets of Manhattan. The tower was not visible to him, still giving the illusion that it was all a lie, a hoax. Then it came into his view. It was no lie.
When traffic became too thick, Elliot jogged the rest of the way to where police personnel were standing, trying to look like they knew what was going on. When he flashed his badge, one of the older men permitted him to head in. He jogged up next to a man who pointed toward the base of the building, debris littered around the officers working around there.
"We need people in the base of the south tower to help direct people out. We don't want them in there if this building explodes or - whatever happens." Elliot took the note and headed toward the building at a sprint.
Olivia stood in the base of the north tower, holding a radio in her shaking hand. The sounds of debris falling and hitting the ground outside was deafening and unnerving as she communicated with the firefighter teams headed up the stairs toward the impact zone.
"We've got people coming down the main stairwell. Be ready to direct them to EMS."
Her radio crackled to life as other firefighters stood around her and the other officers. She handed the receiver to a firefighter and stepped toward where the people would be exiting. When the door opened, a group of six or seven people came out, panting. One woman had a trickle of blood coming down from a cut in her forehead.
"We're going to get you across the way to paramedics, ok?" Olivia took the hand of the injured woman who was frantically crying.
"You're going to be ok."
She delivered group after group to others outside the building. She stood outside, holding a young woman who had just made it out of the tower, when a sound made her stomach turn as her head tilted back. Another aircraft was flying too low, so it sounded. Time stopped in the streets as people gaped with mouths wide open at the explosion as it happened.
The sound was deafening, and Olivia wrapped her arms around the woman, one protecting her head as they both heard debris crashing down. The ground shook, nearly throwing them off their feet. When the raining of debris was over, Olivia looked back up with an open mouth. That was when the awful feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.
This was no accident.
Elliot stood among other officers amidst the panic of the South World Trade Center's lobby. People filed down through the staircases, large groups on the multiple elevators. Some workers were hysterical while others seemed to be in complete shock of what was happening.
He helped direct them out of the building quickly, a lump in his throat as he watched the helpless people scramble to safety. It was after he had directed a group from the second elevator out the door that the building screamed and trembled.
Everyone in the lobby was thrown to the ground as the explosion rocked the building. The sounds exploded powerfully inside Elliot's ears. When he peeled himself off the floor, he was in a vacuum. He spun around as if in slow motion, trying to make sense of what he had just heard and felt. Had the building next to them exploded?
His legs carried his numb body over the threshold of the tower's entrance and he walked to the other side of the street before looking up. A chill coiled down his spine and settled in his stomach. Both buildings were on fire.
Not an accident at all.
He swallowed, unable to move. And then he found himself in the lobby again. The elevators opened, the occupants lying on one another in death, their bodies calm and motionless.
"We need to get up there." One of the firefighters already had his radio on, speaking to another brigade.
Elliot was amazed at the bravery these men had. The people in the elevator were lying dead in front of them, and still these men were willing to head into the air and towards the fire.
Now the people that exited the stairways were in full-fledged panic. They ran to the officers and firefighters, looking for something that made sense, someone who could tell them calmly what was going on and how they were going to fix it. Elliot took them outside with other officers, sending them down the sidewalk.
It was no longer safe to be on the streets, as life after life was extinguished by the pavement. Elliot paused outside, breathing hard, covering his mouth and leaning over to support himself, hands on his knees.
He was unable to vomit, unable to breathe.
2013
"I remember the chill I got when I realized we couldn't do anything. That's our job." Elliot reminisced.
"We keep level heads so other people can do their best to do the same."
Olivia nodded, knowing the feeling, experiencing it again as they spoke. The water fell from beneath the names on which they leaned, creating a peacefully eerie sound. The sounds of that morning were quieted by the steady sound of the waterfalls cascading down into the footprint of the towers they were once in.
Even in the humidity of late summer, both detectives felt chilled to the bone.
"We were getting people out." She heard her voice, sounding unfamiliar to her ears.
"And then the towers were gone."
Silence erupted between them again, their minds heading back, twelve years before.
2001
The creaking made everyone in the base of the building look up. The building was groaning as the fire ate away at its core. Elliot's heart sped up, beating now in his throat. People outside ran away from the building, representing the last of the people in that building the officers could save. The groaning was replaced with a hugged crack and then the last sound they heard before turning to run.
Elliot imagined it was what you'd hear if a tsunami were about to take your life and your home as you sat there watching the monster form. The building began its decent, turning itself into dust. Elliot and the others ran out the doors, across the street, and then down the sidewalk as fast as they could.
It was unreal as the building came toward the ground, showering the streets with large chunks of debris and fine dust. The last thing he saw before he ducked into a building was the dust cloud beginning to swallow the entire span of lower Manhattan.
It raced down the street toward him like some sort of living being. He ran as fast as he could. He could feel the impending darkness behind him, and took himself out of its sights as he wrenched a door of a bistro shop open and pulled it shut behind him.
Olivia stood amidst officers and firefighters, awaiting word from their troops climbing the stairs. An explosive force shook the ground on which they stood, sending their eyes to the sky. This time, it didn't stop. Falling steel crashed to the streets below as officers outside ran for their lives.
"Oh my god." Her lips moved on their own as she saw every person on the street racing away from the towers.
"Get down!" A firefighter screamed as the rumbling and cracking increased in volume.
They each covered their heads as they got to their knees and waited in agony. Olivia could feel her heart pounded against her chest. If she hadn't been holding it in with her knees, she was sure it would have burst right through her sternum.
Their teeth chattered as the shake in the ground became an earthquake, the sound deafening. It felt like the ground was about to open beneath the two buildings, and the earth would swallow both towers whole. The noise peaked with a deafening explosion, and then left their ears as soon as it had entered them.
Everyone took time to stand up on their shaky legs, like Bambi attempted to do when he stepped on the ice for the first time. Their legs wobbled beneath their bodies even more violently when the cloud entered through the broken window, reaching for the souls within. Beyond the windows was an abyss of nothingness. The giant cloud had spread itself over the glass that remained in tact as it swallowed the city.
Olivia breathed through her shirt sleeve as the fingers of the monster infiltrated her eyes. When the cloud at long last moved on, the building that once stood tall alongside her sister was a pile of rubble, only three walls remaining upright, bent outward severely. If that one had come down, she realized in a moment of terror, the other would too, the one she was standing beneath.
She picked up a radio and pushed the button, hoping the firefighters climbing the stairs had seen what had happened and were on their way down.
"Abort. Abort. Tower 2 just collapsed. Leave the gear, get down here as soon as you can!" She croaked, her eyes still burning.
Elliot stood up in the building, looking out into the dense fog. It was one of the only traces of the tower that had been standing only moments before. The other people in the building huddled, unable to even react at that point. A few other officers that had darted into the building by chance stood with Elliot near the large window.
The light began to penetrate the darkness after a short time, and Elliot knew it was his job to go out and help who he could. But he also could feel the tiny voice inside him growing, shouting at him that it was not safe. He wanted to just sit in the small shop and pretend none of it was happening.
He couldn't.
As the light grew, Elliot pushed the doors open and walked back to where paramedics were in need of their own medical knowledge. Heavy dust laid atop everything his eyes came across. And when he looked up, he knew it wasn't over. It was clear what his job was now. He had to get everyone out before the other tower came down with crushing force on everyone who was sitting in a daze in the aftermath of the first's collapse.
The first people he came to were coughing violently. He put a hand on one of their shoulders and spoke slowly and firmly.
"Get as far away as you can. Tell everyone you meet the same. That tower is going down too."
They nodded in their state of panic and began running to safety. He repeated those same words to whoever he came to, eventually reaching a group of fellow officers and firefighters.
"We need to get people away from here. That tower is going down - soon."
One of them said as Elliot reached them. They did what the man had said and began rushing people out. Elliot looked up to take in the sight of the burning tower one last time. He had never be so scared in his life.
The men Olivia had radioed to were on their way down, running as fast as they could. There was nothing they could do but wait for them to come out of the doors. Olivia bit her nail nervously, knowing that in a matter of minutes, seconds, the tower beneath which she stood would be coming down.
But she refused to leave those men behind. It was the oath they took, to protect and defend, even if it meant giving their lives to the job. They stood in their anxiety, biting lips, nails, thumbs, anything as they waited for the door to come open.
"Floor 83." An update came.
Olivia shook her head, "You have to pick it up."
"Copy."
She could now hear the terror in his voice. There was no way they were going to get out, and he knew it. He had accepted that he was about to die.
One remaining firefighter approached them. "We need to get out of here, now." He frantically said.
Olivia retaliated. "We are not leaving those men up there."
"If this building goes down, it's taking us with it." The young officer was collapsing under the stress. He yelled loudly.
"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Olivia heard one of her other men speak.
She nodded. "Me too."
She waited with the others for what seemed like hours. The fire fighters were unable to respond with the loss of radio function.
The awful groan of the building was screaming to their ears as the building bent. Olivia swallowed, looking up. They were too far up. Maybe. Maybe they could ride it down. The crashing began. The wave came again.
"Get out!" The fire chief yelled as loud as he could.
Olivia felt her legs kick into motion, carrying her out one of the broken windows and across the street, still partially engulfed with the ashes of the first building. Debris was already smashing cars as the dust rained down again. Olivia ran as fast as she ever had down the street, her left hand still gripping the Walkie.
It was like life slowed down. Her feet were too heavy for her legs to lift. She'd cleared a block and a half when the building hit the ground. She dove into the door of some business place and covered her mouth and nose with her shirt, closing her eyes.
2013
They were in silence as they walked to the base of the north tower. It was chilling, having been there in the panic, knowing people had died where they stepped. The place was eerily quiet, as it always was, but today it was different.
Women, men, children sobbed silently at the place their loved one's name was inscribed in the falls. A huge American flag swung in the gentle breeze above the towers as a proud reminder of how the country had come together to survive the attack.
Olivia's arm found Elliot's, snaking into it as she sought comfort. They stopped at the edge of the other falls, leaning as they had before on the side.
"I knew the firefighters weren't going to make it out of there before it came down. I wanted them safe, but I couldn't help." She spoke to herself.
"You did. You're the last person they heard - they were lucky that way." Elliot put an arm around her.
She leaned into him, her head resting comfortably in the crook of his shoulder as he held her.
2001
The sun shone again, finding both Elliot and Olivia and their crews back out on the streets, climbing in the rubble of what was left of the World Trade Center. Almost three blocks away from her partner, Olivia yelled for survivors.
Officers climbed all over the wreckage as firefighters worked to put out what fires still burned. They looked like ants as they tried to find tiny beings in the hundreds of floors of wreckage. The steel bars jutted dangerously out around them as they stepped carefully over crushed office chairs and desks, computers and copy machines.
They found living beings amongst the rubble, only they used to be living. Now they lay quietly, death having claimed them as its own. They worked tirelessly, searching for their lost crew and anyone else they could find. Olivia had tried her radio.
"Copy. Does anyone read me?" She spoke urgently, walking dizzily as if in a dream.
Her words were strangled with the sobs she was holding in. There was no reply. She knew there never would be. She tried again.
Nothing.
Again, no answer.
The crew had already gone to work, digging with their hands through the mountains of rubble atop people who still were in need of saving. Her tears refused to leave her. Detective mode suddenly kicked in again, and she went to work to help a group of firefighters and officers as they rushed to free a man who was stuck in the rubble.
The dust had settled upon them and every other building in the city, lifting to reveal the scarred skyline. She couldn't think further than what would happen after they freed the first man. There was no point in trying. No one knew what was going to happen after the sun went down on the city. It wasn't even noon yet, and it felt like she'd lived through a year-long nightmare.
Elliot and the other remaining officers had found themselves running away again only moments later as the tower above their heads thundered to the ground. He took refuge in a different shop as the second cloud claimed Lower Manhattan.
And then the towers were gone.
No one knew for sure what lay beneath the billowing dust cloud, but they knew in their hearts, their scrambling minds. They were gone forever, taking thousands of people with them. The thunder stopped as the building disintegrated.
The light was away longer that time. He stood and watched it outside the window. When the light finally broke through the thickness, he headed back out again. Elliot worked alongside a crew of firefighters and officers attempting to locate any survivors.
With the way the towers looked, he felt there was no way anyone inside could have even had a chance. But they'd soon freed two, three, four people from the rubble. His mind was working so fast that it hurt. He could only concentrate on one thing: saving lives.
That was what he did. Even when he didn't know what had happened to put those lives in need of saving. Everything was a mess in his mind. He couldn't think about what his family might be thinking, what his coworkers might be doing. He could only think about what he thought had happened.
Fire trucks came on site to put out more remaining fires that burned the building's skeleton. It was like the world had fallen down and needed cleaning up. The task was that big, and felt even bigger. Now over a hundred stories that used to rise high into the air were scattered around the ground.
And they weren't going to clean themselves up.
Darkness began to fall on the buildings as the crews worked tirelessly to free everyone they could. So many were too far away and gone by the time rescues could reach them.
Olivia and those she worked with eventually were digging with bloody hands, but not painful ones. The numbness of the day still hadn't been shaken from their bodies, which paid off as they sliced themselves on protruding pieces of razor sharp metal and crumbling slabs of concrete.
The darkness made them aware at what the day had entailed. Every one of them was still running without exhaustion of any kind, however. Their adrenaline kept their bodies going without fail. They worked tirelessly thorough the night, until the sun touched the horizon again.
By the time the air was growing hotter again, the exhaustion had taken over, the adrenaline nearly gone. Elliot could finally think of more than one thing at a time. It didn't matter; his mind had latched onto a new thought, a single one that now occupied his mind.
His team.
His partner.
He knew they would have been on scene in a heartbeat, and he knew they would each be willing to give their lives in such a situation.
Oh God. Had they?
He climbed out of the rubble, standing on a huge slab of concrete as he looked around for his colleagues, his friends, and his partner.
An awful feeling took over again.
Olivia had been walking since the large group of refreshed officers had told them to go home, get rest. She walked unsteadily over the concrete slabs, the sharp metal, the twisted wires as her mind became occupied with the ones she was worried most about.
Her team was out there, her partner, somewhere in the rubble, helping, or being helped. She hoped it was the latter. When she reached the outer edge of the buildings' reach, she caught a glimpse of familiarity and relief.
She couldn't have been more sure.
There he stood, a man in a dusty navy blue shirt and blue jeans, looking anxiously out on the rubble. Through the many law enforcement and fire department personnel, she saw him.
His actions.
Her partner.
Olivia felt her legs taking her as quickly as they could across the rubble, through the people. Her throat was too dry to call out loudly, but she tried. He heard it when she was still three-hundred feet from him.
He couldn't breathe when he heard his name. Without even turning around, he knew it was her. He turned off his concrete slab to find her, jeans and shirt torn, dirtied, and caked with blood.
But she was alive.
Thank God she was alive.
He walked in a daze toward her, seeing his expression reflected in her own eyes as she met him. She threw her arms around him and closed her eyes. He grabbed her tightly but gently, holding her as his eyes shut out the horrible scene before them.
"Thank God." He heard her breathy whisper.
They held each other for what seemed an eternity. He rocked her slowly, still unable to grasp that she was ok.
2013
"I remember when I caught that glimpse of you through those people." Olivia was speaking as she leaned heavily on the metal plate, absentmindedly tracing one of the names engraved in it.
"I thought you were buried somewhere in that rubble." She finished.
Elliot smiled only a little. "That's where I thought you were. Out of the two of us, you'd be the one to have given too much that day. For a while, I thought you had."
It pained him to say it as he remembered the relief he'd gotten when he held her safely in his arms.
The waterfalls filled the air with the only sound to be heard. Elliot stood up straight, Olivia following his lead. Without a worded exchange, both walked into the other's arms, hugging each other the same way they had that fateful day.
Olivia closed her eyes just as she had.
Elliot did the same.
"It doesn't seem like it happened twelve years ago." She shook her head in reply to his comment.
"Feels like it's happening again." She replied.
And it did. It felt the same way it had when she'd walked on that scene twelve years ago to the day. She felt so vulnerable, as did he.
"But it's not. It won't happen again." Elliot assured her as he rocked his partner of thirteen short years.
"Alright. Let's get out of here. This is too much right now." Olivia pulled back and sighed.
"Coffee break?" Elliot suggested.
"Absolutely." Olivia walked alongside him, their feet in step as their legs carried them over the cobble stoned silence back into the city of lights and dreams.
What had happened had been awful; everyone in New York City that day and then some can attest to that. But it made them stronger, everyone who came before, everyone who was there while it happened, and everyone who experienced it through television, stories, and videos.
The ashes were gone from the street, but the fires remained, if only a tiny flame in the hearts of everyone who stood there at the falls. That small wick of fire powered them each on in painful, but joyful remembrance, celebrations of the lives that had been lived by all who perished that day.
The pain would never stop, but the lives would always continue, whether the people still walked alongside those on the streets every day, or if it was their spirits that kept each other company.
Gone but not forgotten.
Attacked but not held down.
New York City's scars, the ones that were created when the ashes ceased their rain, are now as reminders in the heart of the city.
Never to be forgotten, that day remains in the minds of every citizen across America. Let us never forget.
Thank you for reading.