The 11th Day

The 11th Day


"Nathan, what time are you going to be home?"

I wish I knew the answer. My boss always makes me stay late.

"I don't know, babe. If Gary makes me stay, probably around nine?"

Silence.

Sofia and I have been fighting lately. She thinks I'm never home and has the thought I'm cheating on her. Tonight was the night that I was going to propose after being together for three years so she knows that I really do love her.

"Hey, if Gary makes me stay, I'm going to refuse no matter what. I want to take you out to dinner tonight."

"Really?" She asked. I loved it when she got excited. Her smile was beautiful, except I'm here sitting in traffic talking to her on the phone, but I can picture it.

"Yeah. I'm going to take you to that place you've been wanting to go, what's it called? Oh yeah, One Capital."

"I thought you said that place was overrated?"

"I want to do something nice, but I have to let you go. I'm going to be late for work."

"Alright, bye Nathan. Love you."

"Love you too."

I finally parked my Ford Fusion into the Twin Tower's parking lot at seven fifteen. Luckily I had to be in by seven thirty.

The office was busy as usual. Everyone was always everywhere. They were filing, doing paperwork, sucking up to their bosses for a promotion. Usual day.

"Hey Collins!" An enthusiastic and cheerful man quickly made his way towards me."Hey Oliver, what's up?" I replied taking a sip from my coffee that I had made at home.

Oliver Flynn was my best friend. He was tall and lanky with brown hair, and was a committed family man. Oliver gave me the honor as being the godfather of his eight year old daughter, Katie, and his four year old son, Ben.

"Awesome! Katie got into that fancy elementary school Jane has been dying for her to go to," he boasted happily, "I knew she would. Katie is smart like her mom." I teased. I've only met Jane a few times. I know that they have been married for six years, and are very happy.

"Hey, she had to get some of that from me. Her best subject is math." Oliver protested jokingly, "Yeah, ok. Says the one who using his fingers to figure out what seven plus five was."

"Whatever." he murmured with a slight smile, "Alright, Collins. I'll see you in that meeting at eleven." Oliver wrapped up our chat, "Ok, see you then."

Once he left, Gary came right up to me like he was waiting for us to be done. "How's it going Nathan?" My boss asked pretending to be my friend, "I'm fine." I huffed with a sigh, but he didn't notice. "Do you mind staying late again?"

Gary Cooper was a tall heavy set blonde moocher. No one really knows how he ever got the promotion as our boss, but he somehow did. I know that Gary is facing a tough divorce, and he doesn't have a lot of friends. Otherwise, he's definitely an ok guy.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I made plans with my girlfriend tonight and she's super excited, so is it a big deal if I just leave at normal time?" I blurted nervously.

"Oh, yeah." He sighed. This just got awkward. "Hey, who's the new guy?" I asked changing the subject, "Nathan, Peter's been working here for three months now."

I have never even noticed that a Peter even worked up here in Economics. He was a shorter man, late forties, bags under his eyes, and seemed to be a workaholic. I felt pretty bad "Next time I'll say hi to him." I lied.

I just wanted to get out of here. "Ok, well, have a good day, Nathan." Gary ended quickly and wondered back to his office.

I decided to go back to my desk where I would finish some paperwork, I took the last sip of my lukewarm coffee, and it happened to spill on my suit.

That was the moment where everything changed. Before I could realize it, I was thrown by a momentum so strong, that I could see people not moving already. Black dust filled the air, and people were screaming and running.

I forced my sore body up, but I fell when the building jerked and sunk. Thankfully, it was stable. For now.

What was going on? I got up, dusted myself off, and tried to find help.

I finally found one of my other close friends, Liam Jordan. Liam was very smart and inquisitive. The African American man was a single father with three younger children after his wife passed away in a car accident. He always had a smile on his face, except for now.

"What's going on?" I yelled over the screams, "I don't know, but we have to find a way out!"

Liam and I searched around the now wrecked offices, but that's when another force hit right below us, and threw me once again.

Fire spread quickly around me.

"Liam, are you alright?" I shouted, but there was no sight of him.

I crouched down and looked for him. I then stumbled upon him. One of the pillars in the ceiling was on top of him. "Nathan! I'm right here!"

"I'm going to get you out of here, ok?" I reassured him, "You can't. Get yourself out of here before this place takes you down with it."

"No, I can't leave you here to die!"

"I'm not asking you, Nathan. Leave. You have a chance! Just please go! I'm done."

"Thank you." I said from the bottom of my heart and he nodded his head, I felt like a terrible person.

Stairs may have not been the safest thing, but I found them. After I went down three flights, the next one was covered by debris. I opened the door to the tenth floor.

Everyone was either gone or dead. I'm sure someone had a pulse, but for now, I would consider myself the only one living on this floor.

I made my way towards the window and looked down. So many people were on the ground with the fire department and police. I tried screaming for help, but my throat was to dry.

I started looking for another way out, but there another jerk and I went flying. I'm no doctor, but I assumed my left leg was now broken because I couldn't get up and the pain was excruciating.

I lied on the floor that was now covered in ashes and groaned because my leg. My breathing was getting heavier by the second because of the smoke around me.

Was this really it? Was I going to die today? What about Oliver, Liam, and Gary? Were they ok? The thought of them and anyone being gone sent shivers down my spine. There were so many things I had planned for my life, and it's all going down the drain. After I questioned the end of my life and everyone else's, everything went black.

What felt like a century and was actually just twenty minutes, I woke up to see a bright light shining in my eyes. Someone was talking to me, but I was in a haze. I turned my head to see firefighters searching the rest of the floor.

"What's your name?" a deep voiced firefighter asked while put a neck brace around me, "Nathan." I said faintly, "Well Nathan, we're taking you home. You were one of the lucky ones today.

I repeated that in my head. "You were one of the lucky ones." I knew this incident was bad and probably killed people, but was it really that bad? Was the plane crash an accident? How would Sophia take this? I didn't even realize it, but the firefighter carried me outside, and the light shined down on my face. All my questions were about to be answered.