9/11: A Short Story

It was a cold January morning. The smell of fire was strong throughout the air and smoke filled the room. There was a strong, loud beeping sound throughout the house. It wasn’t just coming from one place, it was coming from multiple. My family hurries to find our animals as we call 911. I can’t be dreaming, is this real life?

Meanwhile, Hulga lay in the loft of the barn, and due to the lack of vision correction, she struggled to discern the amount of fingers she was raising an arm's length away. Her optical deficiency was beginning to give her a throbbing pain just behind her eyes. The paralyzing ache gave rise to such agony that Hulga had no choice but to shut her eyes and get some rest.

Nothing I did worked. His skin, so close, so warm against my own, did it distract me? Was that it? I had done my best to free myself from the darkness he had encompassed around me, but my efforts did next to nothing in getting him away. He evaded it all. I was floundering amidst my own failure, but he was still there, still overshadowing me.

As kids, we were all warned about the basics. Call 911 for emergencies, tell an adult if someone touches you or even tell the teacher when someone says a bad word. But what happens when something happens to the last person you’d think it would happen to.. Yourself. Who could you actually turn to, and when the time struck, how would the words flow out to confess the crime done to you. Or even worse, would the words come out at all? “Can you tell me what happened exactly?” “It's okay to talk to us, we’re here to help you, not hurt you.” The words kept ringing in my head. But was it okay to talk to them? Speak of the unspeakable with people... people I didn't know, nor trust? Being so young I had no idea what was going on. As my heart was racing,

BEEP! BEEP! “Already,” James moaned. “I thought I had the snooze set for thirty minutes.” James thought to himself. Before he could even get out of bed, James's mother swung open the door so hard that he could have sworn she made a dent in the wall. “JAMES! YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL AGAIN! THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK, AND IT IS ONLY WEDNESDAY!” James quickly sprang up from his bed and began to apologize until he was interrupted as she continued to give him a lecture. She calmed down but then proceed to sass with, “Not only are you late, but your room has also seemed to be hit with a tornado. I want this cleaned up after you come home from school or else I’ll be sure you can’t feel your behind after I am done with you.” James

Red light, bright as the midday sun, flared into existence. It began to flicker and waver. Small tongues of flame spread their reach, jumping from the floor onto the nearby curtains. It began to pick up the pace as it consumed more and more like a starving creature. In seconds, it had spread to all the curtains that spanned across the room-length window. Smoke filled the air, giving the walls a fine layer of ash and soot. In the bed opposite the window, a girl rested her head. Her eyes flashed open as she breathed in the heavy tang.

All I wanted was moments with my mom when I was nine; I did not get it. What about age ten, eleven, and twelve? My whole childhood was snatched out from under me, and I had to grow up way to fast. Don’t worry, I did not blame you. I blamed myself until I was fifteen. It was my fault my mother tried to drown my sisters and me. I saw signs and clues. I could tell she was not acting herself, but I said nothing. I didn’t go and ask another grownup for help. I put my sisters’ lives in danger, because I didn’t protect them.

"This is 911, what is your emergency?" A desperate eleven year old girl tried to answer the operator's question, but all I could manage were sobs.

Claire Alistar shifts in her seat to cross her right ankle primly over her left and readjusts her large, black sunglasses so that they sit farther down on her nose so that she looks even more unimpressed. "Beck got caught during a job in cicily? Really? Cicily?"

She had given this up. All of it. The path of the witches, she had decided, was not hers to take. Wielders of the gift were meant to maintain balance in a world of evil. But those same protectors had fallen prey to greed, pride and an overbearing lust for power. Bethany was raised on the stories of covens going to war and even siding with the monsters they had sworn to destroy. Beth had promised never to choose a side. And to fulfill her promise, she rid herself of her powers. So why was she here, staring at the tattered notebook that contained not only her history of witchcraft but also her magic? Pale, slender fingers flipped through the makeshift grimoire. The nightmares hadn’t stopped. They wouldn’t. Bethany was normally conscious enough to dream lucidly, but the dreams were spiraling out of control. She was aware of the old phrase, “if you die in your dreams you die for real”. That’s what frightened her. Every night she died. Her lack of magic made her vulnerable to attack. The identity of the attacker was unknown. But not

Now far enough away from the night club opening, Jessie could hear the distinct sound of a woman screaming. The heart wrenching sound made her stop mid step. Cold terror washed over her as she neared the corner of the alley and peered around it. There were distinct shapes - someone on the ground writhing in pain, one cowering against the wall, and three that approached her. She heard the poor woman crying out for help and saw one of the advancing shadows reach a hand up to strike her across the face. Nausea broiled in the put of her stomach and Jessie took a cautious step in. For a moment she weighed her options - trying to decide what to do. Did she fight or did she fly? Whatever - or rather whoever she thought she saw obviously wasn't real. There was no Superman. But this woman still needed help. Jessie clung to her phone as though it was a bludgeoning weapon and dialed 911. She took a step forward - about to call out to the attackers - when another shadow landed in front of her.

Thunderous roar reverberates in the sky, hole after another fill the world, from within, lay another roar which makes us shudder in fear.

“Hello” I shout. “Anybody there” I yell into the darkness. My voice echoes far into the darkness of the world beyond. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know who I am. Each day I sit here calling out into the dark hoping to see the light. I am trapped. I travel each and every hour searching for light or a means to escape this perilous abyss. I wait for the light to reappear each day, small slivers of light at first. But, eventually the bright gleaming rays of light pierce the abyss.

For two weeks, I didn’t see my father at all. I woke up, every day, hoping that he would be in the dining room helping Dusty out with the making of breakfast. Instead, for the past two weeks, I woke up to the usual: breakfast on the table, Dusty and Vinyl calling me down to join them with still no sign of my father. No longer, for those two weeks, did I wake up to the smell of water vapour from Jazzmere’s smoking pipe. No longer, for those two weeks, did I wake up to Jazzmere singing old Equestrian songs about the Princesses and how they formed the kingdom. No longer, for those two weeks, did I wake up to the hissing sound of the iron Jazzmere used to iron the clothes I wore to school.

Suena was walking home and she felt like she was being followed, but she thought it was because of the horror movie she watched the night before. It was about a twenty minute walk for Surena to get home and she often enjoyed but that day she didn’t enjoy it. When she got home there was a note on her fridge from her mother saying she’ll be back in a couple of hours and that there was leftovers in the fridge. She still had that icky feeling that someone was watching her, she kept saying in her head that it was just the horror movie scaring her. Her dog Belle was eating the couch again, when her mom got home she’d be mad. Surena went up stairs to her bedroom and forgot to lock the door that day, when her mother warned her many times before to