All of us crammed into a car and headed to the bowling alley right outside of the Dahieh. We split up into two teams and played each other in two competitive games. After, we went over to the arcade part of the alley and competed in air hockey. I lost, of course, to my male cousin who is my age. After a couple hours of pure fun, we headed out of the bowling alley. .
Immediately after walking out of the doors, we all looked up to the sky. All we saw was a massive cloud of dark smoke hovering directly above us. My brother and sister looked at me; I looked back with no words for them because I was too frightened to put a complete thought together. Aunt Hanan attempted to comfort us by saying, "It's nothing to worry about. " My other cousin said, "It's normal, people are probably burning trash. They do this often. " Being the oblivious kids we were, we believed them both. My siblings and I brushed off the nervous thoughts and got into the car to head back in the Dahieh. As we drove more towards the many entrances of the city, all I saw was chaos; people honking and screaming, all with one thing in common, they had fear in their eyes and all were rushing out of the Dahieh. I saw families of four on one moped speeding out of the area as quickly as possible.
Everyone in the city was outside of their apartment buildings trying to see what all the disorder was about. There was a whole bunch of unanswered questions and confusion as we were driving back to my aunt's building. I witnessed all these people screaming and crying in the streets as we drove by. It did not register in my mind that an explosion happened about a mile away until we were back at my aunt's building. We all jumped out of the car and my uncle came out of the gate crying to me and my siblings, "Where's your mother!? Where's your mother!?" At that moment, I felt my heart in my stomach. There was a huge lump in my throat and I felt like I was lost in a nightmare.