The Attack

    The smoke was so thick, it was hard to see, let alone breathe. I knew this event would change my whole life. I don't know what happened, but the whole building shook and there was the sound of an explosion. I knew there would probably be fire, so I got out of the elevator and bolted down the stairs. The stairs were as full of smoke as the elevator, but the lower I went, the thinner the smoke was. It was hot. I just kept running down the stairs. I had to get out. Fast.

    I ran into people at the 50th floor. There was no system of evacuation, people were just saying "Go! Go! Go! Get out! Now!" and we were all just running. Some people were pushing others ahead. 10 minutes later, we were approaching the lobby and there was paper everywhere. "What happened? What's going on?" I asked a fireman who was heading toward the stairs. "A plane hit the tower. Please, run to safety. We don't want you to be in any further danger." he said. What? A plane did what? I was so numb, I couldn't move if I wanted to.

Melanie grabbed me by the arm and pulled me ahead, toward the door. She's my best friend. We lived next door to each other when we were children and we never ended up growing apart. "ASHLEY!" she screamed, hugging me once we got outside. I hugged her back, then we ran away, fast.
"I thought the president said we took care of the plane crashing problem 20 years ago." I said to Mel as we ran. "It's 9/11 all over again." she said darkly. "You don't think..." I gasped. But then there were military planes flying in the distance, from over the sea. "MELANIE! Those wouldn't be OUR military planes, would they?!" I tried to not scream. I grabbed Melanie's arm and dragged her into a building. We were both trying to not panic.

The building we ran into was a 7- Eleven gas station. The store clerk and manager led us and a few others into the back of the building and Melanie and I took shelter in a freezer.We listened to the sounds of the bombs coming closer and closer. We felt the ground shake. The sound of glass shattering seemed to come from everywhere around us, and then... nothing. Nothing was to be seen or heard except blackness and the sound of people breathing and whispering. It was pitch black and extremely eerie. "Do you think it's safe?" Melanie and I asked each other at the same time. "I don't know..." we answered simultaneously. I reached out and opened the freezer door, afraid of what we might find. There was a lot of dust that made everything look pale- gray. It was hard to see, but I could tell that the dust was starting to clear.