We sat there, listening to the screaming people jumping from the burning towers. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of my peers sobbing in one another's arms as they prayed their parents got out safely. .
The next day the school was empty. Parents wanted their children to stay home. I guess they felt safer knowing where their babies were. However, the word safe had no meaning anymore. There was no such thing as safe. If a person could get past security with a knife, hijack a plane, and kill so many innocent people, what is safe if all these things could happen? Adults were petrified to work the next day. They feared they might never return home. As children, we look up to adults, our parents, we expect them to stay strong and make us feel safe. When you look at your mother, and your teachers, and you see the anguish on their faces, you no longer feel that sense of security that you once felt. You become more scared when the people you rely on to stay strong show you their scared inner child. The little child that's scared of the dark, and needs to sleep with a nightlight so the monsters wont get them. .
The city was changed forever. It no longer held the excitement that made it worthwhile to visit. It no longer had the smell of hotdogs and exhaust from cars. The smell that most people complain about was being yearned for. All you could smell was smoke and all you inhaled was ash. The smell of burning flesh lasted months. The relief worked so hard, day by day, to try and find more people under the jagged slabs of cement and metal. Hundreds of people, dead. Firemen, dead. An entire department gone. I"ll never forget the day when they found my friend's father. He was a fireman. They found him crushed under stairs, holding the hands of the people he could not save. The funerals of the individuals who died lasted until February. Candle-lighting services were held every night for families, in hope that their loved ones would be found.