Tuesday {The Manhattan Trilogy #1}

Pain (ST)

As soon as my injury happens, I turn back into a human as fast as I can. Many screams and questions are at the tip of my tongue, but I can't seem to be able to say them. I'm very severely wounded, just like my sister was eighteen minutes ago. I thought the same thing would never happen to me, but I suppose twins will be twins for every single thing.

The time is now 9:04. It happened to me just over a minute ago. A giant plane, although I didn't see it, crashed directly into me. I'm in so much pain from it, I can barely move my own legs. My eyes are open as wide as humanly possible. Flashes of light dance in front of them as I struggle against my brain, who seems to want me to faint.

"South Tower! South Tower! My God, South Tower Staten, you've been struck too!" I hear my twin sister yelling my name repeatedly over the shouts of terrified New Yorkers who are just now realizing that a second plane has collided with the other World Trade Center tower.

"North...Tower..." I reply, taking painful breaths in between words. With a wound so deep and severe that it clearly exposes all of my abdominal organs, it even hurts me to speak.

"You're hit too," my caring sister, North Tower, wraps her arms around me with extreme care so that she doesn't hurt me more. "I thought it would be just me, but look at yourself. Oh, Lord, this is bad."

"I...know..." I gasp, hugging my identical twin back. She breaks down and starts to sob into my shoulder.

"This is very bad and dangerous," North Tower continues, as if I wasn't fully aware already. "At first, I thought this plane thing was an accident. But I was still a bit suspicious, you know? I was like, dude, it's a clear-ass day. Why did a plane hit me in the gut? Didn't that pilot see where he was going? He should have, because seriously. The sky is so blue. But now I know-"

"-this...is...definitely...a...DIRECT ATTACK ON US!" I finish her sentence for her, screaming out the last few words with as much energy as I can muster.

"Careful," my twin hugs me tighter as I hack some excess ash out of my lungs. "You'll hurt yourself even more than you need to if you scream like that. We have our first ice hockey preseason game with the Manhattan Jets on Friday, and we can't have our main goalie out. Nine thousand people will be there!"

"Sis, you're the captain of the team, and you're not looking in great condition to play either," I respond, gasping for more breath. "And the New York Junior Hockey League will probably cancel the game and reschedule it for sometime next week due to the severity of today's events."

Even as humans, black smoke is gushing from our wounds in addition to blood. It truly is the most horrifying sight. Who has attacked us, the Twin Towers? Did they realize how many people would be dead? Nothing like this has ever happened to America before. I'm really scared, to be completely honest.

I glance at the exit doors of my tower self. Tens upon hundreds of people are rushing out in one huge throng of humans. That sight makes me smile just a bit. There will be some survivors after all! My twin sibling must be thinking the same thought as me, because she mumbles to herself, "They'll be livin' to tell this tale, and that's a very good thing in my mind."

I silently agree with my identical sister, looking over at her tower self's doorway as my plane wound begins to ache more. Not as many people are coming out of the doors of her tower self compared to mine, but there's more than a few people who are managing to find their way out.

The sound of blaring sirens is getting louder by the second. I know that even more emergency responders are coming to the scene, doing their best to help the citizens of New York City out. A police car, an ambulance, and three firetrucks screech to a halt behind us. More and more stop behind them, more emergency vehicles than I've likely ever seen in my life combined. North Tower and I duck behind a garbage can to avoid being trampled by the first responders jumping out of the vehicles and rushing into the two towers.

The policemen, EMTs, and firefighters, all dashing without hesitation into our flaming, dangerous tower selves.

Almost a thousand of those heroic men and women. Maybe even more than one thousand.

Possibly even willingly giving up their own precious lives just to save the lives of other innocent people.

I bury my face in my sister's shoulder and begin to bawl my eyes out.