9/11 ~ A Story of Three Sisters - by Danicia

It was September 11, at approximately 8:30 a.m in Manhattan, New York. I heard my alarm clock go off. I had to wake up. "Ahh!!" I sighed with a tired voice. "It is a beautiful day." I looked outside the window to find a sunny, bright morning. It just looked beautiful; the sky was clear, and birds were singing and flying free in the sky. Despite the beauty all around, I had a strange, nagging feeling in my stomach. I shook it off and went about my morning.

All my neighbors were getting ready to go to work like they do everyday. What could I say about the Twin Towers? They were beautiful, tall, standing next to each other, and busy like always. I knew that because I went there almost everyday since one of my sisters worked there

I went to the kitchen so I could eat some breakfast and drink a cup of coffee. I started to make the grocery store list, that's what I was going to do later that day. I was on a vacation. I was excited to be on vacation, but I could never have known how lucky I would be.

All of the sudden, I heard a tremendously loud noise outside my house. I was really scared. Right when I heard that sound, I remembered the feeling that I had earlier that morning. I suddenly knew that something was going to happen to my family or even to New York City, but I had no idea what.

I looked outside my window again, but this time I saw smoke pouring from one of the Twin Towers. It looked really different from what I had seen when I first looked out at the window. Before it was sunny, with bright, clean air, but now it looked like it was midnight. It was dark and smoke covered the sun.


I ran to the tv to watch the news and try to figure out what had happened. I learned that an airplane had hit one of the towers. The news broadcasters seemed as confused as me. A lot of questions hung in the air like the smoke from the towers. How did this happen? Who is doing this? Where were these airplanes from? Why was this happening?


Suddenly, my house phone was ringing. The caller ID said it was Sandra's number. I could almost hear the phone beg me to answer. "Hello?" I said.

"Did you heard that loud noise?" asked Sandra.

"Yeah, it was really scary!" I proclaimed.

"My boss just called me to get to the World Trade Center, so I could help get people out of there," her voice sounded terrified. She is one of my older sisters, and I love her a lot. When I was a child, she took care of me when my mom couldn't. So I was pretty nervous. If something happened to her it would be like losing my mother all over again. Since I'm the youngest of my two sisters, they have always taken care of me. I had never thought about Sandra being a firefighter before, but suddenly I wanted her to be anything else but that.

"Please be really careful out there. I wish you didn't have to go. Just remember that I love you, and I look up to you as my mother. I appreciate that you have always taken great care of me. I don't know what I would do if something happens to you," I was surprised at my emotion.


Sandra laughed at me. She was always so good in bad situations. "I will be fine. It will be already. I love you too! Try to call Susan and make sure she is alright! OK?"

"I will. Bye," I replied with a scared and nervous voice. I thought about my sister Susan. She worked on the tenth floor. I had not heard from her yet. A lot of questions came to my mind, Is she OK? Where is she right now? Is she evacuating? I was terrified and I did not know what to predict for this day. My strange feeling from this morning seemed to be coming true.


5 hours later!

When we got to the World Trade Center Towers there was nothing left. I realized that the only thing left from the Twin Towers was broken glasses from the windows and paper floating about. I had come to find my sister Sandra; I needed to find her. She had to be O.K. I saw ambulances, fire fighters, police cars and a lot of people laying on the ground. There were puddles of blood, and death seemed to be all around. I was scared and sad for all of these people and their families. But I maintained hope that Sandra and Susan were not dead. They couldn't be.

As I looked around, I was suddenly terrified. I did not know what to do. The only sound I could hear was people screaming and crying. Mourning the death of their family members were lost inside. They were just like me, and I didn't want anyone to have to deal with the death of a family member. I felt guilty thinking only of my two lovely sisters. I really hoped they were alive. If something has happened to them, I would really feel badly for their daughters and sons. "Please," I said aloud, "Please let them be alive."

While I was standing outside in the ruins of the Twin Towers, I felt guilty that I wasn't as close to Susan as I should have been. If something happened to her inside the Twin Towers, I would have not have the chance to tell her how much I loved her. I would not be able to let her know how much I would miss her. I realized how much was unsaid. How much I should have told her while she was living. I began to cry.

Suddenly, I saw a firefighter coming out of the dust. He was running with my sister Susan in his arms. As soon as I noticed it was my sister, I ran toward her as fast as I could despite the fact I had to be really careful not to step on the metal and hurt my feet. I felt like they were burning, but I didn't really care about myself right now the only person I could of think right now was my sister Susan. As soon as I got in front of her, I noticed that her face looked terrible. It was all black, and I wondered if it was because of all the black smoke that was in the towers. Her eyes were closed; I hoped she was still alive but I feared they were dead. When I looked down, I noticed that my sister's arm was broken and one of her legs was hanging at a weird angle. This made me sad and upset because I wondered if she was going to be able to walk ever again. If she was going to be able to grab things by herself with that arm that she was broken inside the terrible towers. I felt one tear slide down my cheek, then it was not one tear but many. They were tears of relieve mixed with worry. I was relieved to see Susan, but where was Sandra? There were lots of them.


"We gotta get her inside the ambulance! Will you go with her the hospital? I need to get back to the site," the firefighter asked in a loud voice.

As we were loading her into the ambulance, Sandra ran up to us. "Is it really you? I cannot believe that you are both OK!" Sandra jumped into the ambulance with Susan.

Susan's daughter, my niece, met us at the hospital. We were worried and nervous, both of us feeling guilty for not showing more love to Susan. We promised each other that that would change. After a really long wait, the nurse came and told us that we could go in to her room. We raced into her room. I realized she was the most important person in our lives right now! When we got in the room, my sister was still sleeping. My niece sat down in a rocking chair next to her. I just stared at my sister. It worried me how her face looked. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes, one at a time. I felt like my heart was going to explode from happiness!

"How are you feeling?" I asked with a worried voice.

"I'm feeling a little bad and tired, but better than when I was inside the towers," she answered weakly. "Where is my daughter?" my sister asked in a worried voice.

I squeezed her hand and said, "She's right here. We are both right here."


By: Danicia