Escape
Bang! There’s suddenly a resounding boom as if a bomb was just set off. People are looking around wondering what that was. All of a sudden smoke is at the windows. You can hear screams cry out. The temperature increases immensely. It is as if we just entered a sauna. I can hear someone crying out who seems to be trapped. “Help help I’m over here” I rush to his voice to try and find him. It’s darker than night. Completely black. Turns out it’s my friend Bobby. I immediately help remove the debris from his body. His leg is clearly broken. There is no way he can walk. I know for a fact that we have to get out of the building if we want to live. I’m just puzzled as to how I am going to help him out of here without him walking. He is a little bit of a heavy fellow so I cannot move him on my own. I try to listen for other people who may need help or can help me. I can feel the air getting harder and harder to breathe. At this point I feel I am just breathing in smoke. I think how could something like this happen. I knew I had to find a way out. I mange to get bobby on his feet. It is time for us to try and exit this building.
We mange to find the elevator shaft but it isn’t working. It seems that all the electricity in the building has been lost. We are walking around for what seems like hours looking searching for a way out. We were just walking with our hands on the walls (well Bobby was limping) trying to feel around for a door. Even though we work here everyday it is still tough to navigate through the darkness. Then we see it. The flashing red EXIT sign that we could only see through the extreme smoke because we were literally right under it. We open it to see it is one of the stairwells on our floor. I have actually never even seen these stairs because I always take the elevator. We are still wondering what happened to cause the smoke but we don’t have time to discuss that. The stairwell is still smoky but not pitch black. It is like we were underwater and entering the stairwell was finally getting your head above water after holding it for so long. The air is one hundred times for clear. We feel safe for the moment. There are tons of other people on the stairwell all scrambling to get out. It is like we are stuck in rush hour traffic except we are walking rather than driving. We work on the 45th floor so we have a long way to get down and out. We keep hearing rumbling from above us. Everyone in the stairwell is talking about what they think happened. “I heard it was a bomb”. “No I heard it was a plane”. To be honest at this point I don’t care what it was I just want to get out to safety.
Everyone in the stairwell is surprisingly somewhat calm. No one is in extreme panic mode which is very good for the situation we are in. Me and Bobby seem to be the back of line on the stairs. It seems no one in the floors above us was able to make it out. I have to slow down a lot for Bobby because it is tough for him with his leg. We are now at the 18th floor. I know I could be out by now if I wasn’t helping Bobby. He says his pain is getting worse and he doesn’t think he can go on. He sits on the stairs for a minute and says “Go on without me. Save yourself, I can’t do this anymore”. I immediately respond with “No I am not going to leave you here by yourself”. But then we hear a shout. “Hello is anyone still on the stairs”. I scream back “Yes up here near the 16th floor entrance”. It is a firefighter he finally reaches our place on the stairs. He tells me to get out now while I still can and that he will help Bobby. When he says that I am caught off guard. I think to myself, does he mean its still not safe? Is there another bomb? I am completely clueless of what he meant. My heart kind of sunk a little when he said that not going to lie.
I make it out of the building only a few minutes later and what I see is an absolute crapshoot. There are police and firefighters everywhere. I feel safe but I sit there looking and hoping I can see Bobby once he gets out. I look up at the building and it is just a cloud of smoke towards the top of the building. The police guide me to an ambulance so I can get checked out to be sure my lungs are working okay and that I don’t need to go to the hospital.
Only about five minutes after I am out safe and sound I hear an even louder noise than I did originally. I look at the building. The worst is happening. The building completely crumbles. Smoke everywhere. Screams cry out. I am laying on the ground trying to protect my body from falling debris. Eventually the smoke clears up a little bit. There is no more noise. Everyone is just silent looking at what happened. Everyone is in shock. I am just thinking about the loss of life in this tragic event. I immediately grow with sadness and guilt of how I left Bobby behind.
It turns out he did not make it out that tragic day. I will forever remember him as a coworker, someone who always made me laugh but most of all a good friend.
