02

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Walking through the flooded streets, flooded with people at least, of New York City on a Tuesday morning at 8:15 A.M. was agitating to say the absolute least.

Doing so, headed to work for 8:30, after an argument with my fianceé is upsetting.

I just wanted to get to work and call her in a quiet place.

I walked through the streets of southern Manhatten to join my coworkers in the south tower of the WTC, the only difference to this morning and every other Tuesday morning, being that argument weighing heavily on my conscious.

I wish I hadn't said so many hurtful things, I know I'm wrong and I'm being supremely selfish, I just..... I love her and after three years I don't know as much about her as I should. She doesn't know as much about me as she should.

I just want to know the woman I'm marrying before we say I do.

I don't want her to quit her job, but as she put the thought in my head, I hesitated and it was a mistake. I never want to ask that of her.

I reach the entrance of the building at 8:27, before heading up to the 64th floor.

I exited the elevator, heading to my section of the office.

I spotted Maria at her desk working. She smiled and waved at me before going back to filing documents.

I nodded my head in greeting before going to the time clock and punching in my time at Just as I sat in my desk, I heard the door to our office open.

I turned and saw my best friend, and coworker, Micheal.

He smirked, which is his way of smiling, at me before clocking in. I returned it with a weak smile. He came over to me and had a concerned glint in his eyes.

"What's up, Jas? You don't seem near as peppy as usual today," he asked, concerned that I didn't have my usual morning person, bubbly personality.

"Just dealing with some stuff at home," I explained, not wanting to go into detail.

"Oh, trouble in paradise, eh? What happened, brother?" He asked, understanding what I meant, and his Canadian heritage showing.

"I was just being an arse over something small because I'm an idiot," I explained, my accent showing a tiny bit.

"Well then call her and apologize," He said like it was that simple.

"She's at work, and I don't want to catch her at a bad time, even though she did tell me to call her," I mumble the last part, worrying about being a burden or bothering her.

"Bud, I know you have an inferiority complex, but this is kind of a conversation that could save your soon-to-be marriage, you should make it," he said, shaking his head at me.

"I just, I don't know, " I answer, still thinking about how I shouldn't bother her, and that me calling would only get in the way of her day.

"Fine, man, you do whatever you want to do, but I really think it would be in your best interest to call her right now," he said, backing off knowing that I'm stubborn as hell.

He walks over to sit at his own desk and I get this morning's work from my inbox for paperwork, setting it on my desk, grabbing one piece of paper and a pen.

As I go to place the pen on the paper, and start filling it out, a loud air-like noise sounds. We all look up in alarm, looking to each other, before standing and filing over to the window.

We move the blinds back, but before we can see anything the ground seems to shake and we all have to catch ourselves to not fall.

As we look back out of the window, all we see in a giant explosion, and debris starts falling, fire and smoke pouring out of the upper floors and windows of the other tower.

The tower seems to have just combusted but that's obviously impossible.

We all look to each other in extreme concern.

Maria's eyes seem to widen in realization before tears spring to her eyes.

"Kyle," she utters, trying to push the tears back.

Micheal and I look at each other, the realization hitting us like a sack of bricks.

Kyle is in the North tower!

Kyle is Maria's husband and another of Micheal and I's friends, we all met working here, but after a promotion, Kyle was transferred to the North tower offices.

My vision blurs as tears rise into my tear ducts, ready to fall as I realize that it's possible that my friend, my friend's husband, may have just died.

She holds back the tears and we all enter the elevator, heading downstairs.The time it takes for the elevator to reach to lobby feels like an eternity. The agonizing thought that whose been one of my best friends for a long time. He was there when I met Robin, he helped me propose, I helped him propose, I was one of his groomsmen.

I blink back the tears not wanting to accept the fact until it was certain.

As soon as the doors open, Maria's petite body immediately finds it's way out of the door, shortly followed by Micheal and myself. We rushed out of the doors at a brisk pace, seeing many of our coworkers standing on the sidewalk as well, staring up at the flaming tower, pouring smoke from its sides.

The smoke seems to be pouring out of all sides, but most prominently it seems to be coming from the north-facing side.

I allow a tear to trickle down my cheek as we stare at the building, paper floating to the ground slowly all over. The impact seems to have taken out at least twenty floors, and it seems to be somewhere around the 100th or so floor and above. Kyle worked on the 115th and 110th floors.

Another tear falls, followed by another, until I'm silently crying. Maria is sobbing, and heaving, panicked. Micheal stands next to me in a similar trance that I'm in, tears just sliding down his face.

Debris falls in a steady rain, just barely missing where we stand. Many people seem shaky, and ready to run. Plenty of women have taken their heels off, including Maria, ready to run at any moment. I can hear car alarms going off, people shouting. It's overwhelming beyond belief.

I glance down at my wrist, seeing that its 8:58. Someone working inside calls to us, they have the news feed from CNN on the screen of the TV.

We hear and watch as a witness reports a plane crashing into the tower. A very low flying plane flies straight into the side of the tower, that's what they had seen.

I hear a loud hiss of air fill the room as do the others, I glance at the newsfeed, it's 9:02.

I run out the doors of the lobby and see a very low flying plane. Headed straight for the South Tower.

Everyone that went to stand beside me seems panicked and confused. I quickly piece the thought of what's happening together and turn them rushedly.

"Get inside! Go!" I usher with a shout, motioning my arms wildly. They quickly sprint inside.

"Get as far away from windows as possible!" I shout as we all hurry to the reception desk.

"Get on the floor and brace!" I shout hurriedly, pulling the people around me down to the floor. Everyone either sits or lays down, whatever was fastest for them, covering their ears, eyes, and heads. Almost as soon as e get down, the shaking returns, only much much stronger.

It shakes the ground like an earthquake as debris falls, breaking windows, hurting people, falling on cars, and flames seem to billow around the outside. Heat travels from the stairs and elevators.

We all slowly find our bearings when the shaking stops, jarred. We stand, looking out the window to see debris falling in a steady....rain.

We wait for it to become less severe and to not be as constant, before running as fast as possible out of the door to get out of the debris radius.

It's just like the other tower. Holes and bent metal on the south face of the tower, and the northeast corner, debris and paper steadily falling. Smoke and fire billow from the impact points.

Planes did this.

And it looked like a commercial jet as well.

A Commercial Airliner crashed into the sides of both twin towers. Within twenty minutes of each other. We all start sprinting, some of us even taking off our business shoes to run faster. We run until we see a road marker. We're on 6th Avenue. That is about a twenty-minute drive from Times Square, the only place we could think of for news coverage as soon as possible.

We all begin sprinting, running solely on adrenaline, not once caring about energy. We all know our lives are at stake here.

We have to keep an eye out for debris to avoid hurting ourselves as most of us are without shoes at this point. We keep running as fast as we all can stand to be. After a while, we've made considerable progress and when we all stop or a moment, it is 9:39.

We wait for a moment, seeing many, many firefighters, and EMT crews running in our opposite direction.

A few people stop running near us, calling out to see if we're okay. Someone in the front says that we ran from the towers after the second plane hit.

They pass out about twenty water bottles and they are being passed around to about eighty of us.

We look back and surprisingly have a clear view of our tower.

Now that there is no need to panic, we begin jogging, sometime around 9:48.

Within another ten minutes of running we hear shrieks of horror around us.

We turn and see people, sticking their heads out of the tower just beneath the impact point, in our tower. And then we see something.

Something falling. Two somethings.

But so much faster than paper.

People were jumping.

We all cover our mouths, tears streaming. Our coworkers, people who worked with us all were jumping from just beneath the impact point.

And then we see a volley of sparks and flames as the ground begins to shake once more.

And then, what seems like all at once, the tower seems to disappear from our vision. And a very rapidly moving cloud of smoke, dust, some plume of dark grey looming very quickly towards us all.

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