9/11 Narrative Research Paper

A Terrorizing American Heartache I arrived to my office early morning, with a cup of freshly brewed coffee in hand. I looked at the massive pile of papers on my desk, which reminded me it was September 11th. My boss is coming into town next week; I was drowning in stress. I sat down and took a deep breath as I gazed out of my office window at the incredible view of New York City from the seventy-fourth floor of the south World Trade Center building. I laid my head on the back of my chair, closed my eyes, and calmly sipped on my caramel latte. Suddenly, I heard a vast crashing noise, followed by the whole building beginning to shake. I immediately hopped out of my chair and ran into the office lobby to see what was going on. I saw most of my co-workers running for the door, screaming and panicking. Glass covered the entire office floor. There were massive holes in the walls from where the windows used to be. The secretary of the office looked up at me bawling. She cried saying that a plane had hit the building and it was about to collapse. I heard a piercing scream and gasped as I saw a man fall past me out of one of the holes in the wall, where the bathroom used to be. I turned away too traumatized to look at the horrifying scene. My heart filled with fear and distress. I grabbed my co-worker’s arm and we ran together for the staircase. We ran down nearly fifteen flights of stairs in a few minutes before we had to stop to catch our breath. Smoke filled the narrow passage of the staircase; I could barely breathe. I took my shirt off, ripped it into a long, thin shred and tied it around my head as a mask. As we sat for a few short minutes, I tried to comprehend what was going on. I could not believe it. Why would a plane crash into a building? It must have been an accident. Julie signaled with her hands that it was time to keep going (Pressler).
We were making good progress, already down to floor thirty-two. We heard the concrete ceiling begin to collapse a few