remembering yesterday ch1 pt2

The emergency vehicles were set up farther away then I originally realized so it took nearly ten minutes to get to the intersection where they had all stopped. Upon reaching my destination I found that a sort of emergency hospital had been set up. Everywhere I looked there were people lying on the ground, on stretchers, sitting on something or standing if they were well enough. Although many injured were there, most of the people gathered at the intersection seemed quite well in body. In mind however, they all seemed very distressed.

I guessed there were nearly a hundred or more people all swarming about the small space and they all appeared to be quite hysterical. Most people were calling out names, trying to locate family or friends. Many people were crying and a few were just sitting on the ground screaming in hysterics. People were running through the crowd, grabbing people who looked familiar and checking to see if they were who they were looking for before moving off. Of all the people looking, nobody seemed to be finding who they wanted.

There was a small group of police officers and medics with their vehicles near the center of the crowd. None of them looked as if they would be of much help, they were all standing around looking very confused and rather stressed. I forced my way through the mass of panicked people towards a medic.

"Excuse me!" I had to yell to be heard over the crowd. "Could you help me?"

The medic looked surprised as he turned to face me. "What?" he yelled back.

"What can you do for my head?" I lifted the rag to show him the damage.

If anything that seemed to further distress the man. He stepped back from me, shaking his head. "I... I'm sorry...I can't." Turning away again he practically ran the other direction.

I shrugged off his strange response and tried another medic and a police officer, they both reacted in much the same manner. Confused, I left the intersection, which had become nearly twice as crowded in the few minutes I'd been there. I had no idea why those men had acted in such a manner. What had happened that upset the officials so much. Had something happened to the police chief? Or maybe even the president? I didn't know if other places in the country had been attacked or if they'd just happened here.

I also had no idea of where to go now. Some buildings looked familiar but I wasn't sure which direction to head. There were other police and emergency personnel walking around but they seemed just as perplexed as I was so I did not bother to ask for help. For a few minutes I just sat on the curb and nursed my aching head while trying to decide what to do. Finally I realized that the large brick building across the street was the library my mom used to work at. I had memorized the way home from there years ago, maybe I could remember it now. I walked up the stairs and stood at the front door. Almost as soon as I began walking back down to the street I realized I still knew which way to go.

Mostly I just turned instinctively when I came upon the right corner and such but the more I walked, the more of the route I remembered beforehand. The longer I walked, the less desolate the area became. After several minutes there was hardly any destruction to the homes and only minimal rubble in the road. There was some people outside a few of the houses frantically loading bags into a car. I paused to watch them for a moment but none of them acknowledged my presence so I left them to their packing.

This area was more familiar and I even remembered who lived in some of the houses I passed. However none of the houses looked familiar enough to be mine. Following the road I turned down past a dead end sign into a cul-de-sac. There were only two people outside one of the homes and they appeared to be arguing. I had just passed them when one of them stopped shouting and ran towards me.

I had no idea what to do as the young man barreled toward me so I simply froze to the spot. As he neared me I braced myself for impact. Much to my surprise he did not hit me. In fact he did the opposite, sweeping me off the ground into a bear-hug.

"Oh my god, are you OK?" he asked, setting me back down.

He looked very familiar but I couldn't place him so I simply said "Um...yes."

"No you're not1 What happened to your head?" he was now looking very concerned as he studied my forehead.

"Oh right that. Well you see..." I paused, realizing I wasn't exactly sure how I'd injured myself in the first place. I must have looked really confused because he cut in.

"Never mind. The important thing is that you're all right. God, we were so worried about you! Callie had Andrew look for you but he said he didn't see you anywhere around the mall."

The mall... so that's where I'd been. Suddenly I remembered. I had been at the mall with my sister Callie and her boyfriend Andrew when all those planes came and started destroying the city. This boy was my brother Justin and we were standing in front of our neighbor's house. Finally I knew what the heck was going on.

"I remember now!" I shouted, relieved. "Are Callie and Andrew all right?" I asked Justin.

"Yeah, they got back ages ago, they're just worried about you. Come on they're inside." he led me across the lawn to our front door. He opened it and stepped inside. "Callie?" he called out "She's back, Megan's back!"

At first the house stayed silent then running feet could be heard and my sister came flying full force at me. Practically crushing me in her hug she started crying, mumbling something like "Thought you were dead", "all my fault", and "so sorry!".

I stood there awkwardly, Callie wasn't usually so emotional. I patted her shoulder. "Really Callie, I'm fine. Just hit my head a bit."

She pulled back to examine me. She was clearly not pleased with my injury but she didn't say anything else. We just stood there for a minute until Callie let go of my shoulders. "Come on," she said starting in the direction of the living room. "We're watching the news." Sure enough the TV was flashing pictures of burning and destroyed buildings, jam-packed freeways and a whole bunch of police, fireman and medics running through the streets.

It was not a local channel but that was understandable seeing the current state of our city. The announcer was saying, "the terrorist attack on Seattle had left an estimated 400 people dead and that number is still rising. The president had dispatched emergency military aid to the area and they are arriving as I speak." A video of army helicopters flying around the Space Needle popped up.

Something about that clip didn't look right. I ran to our window where we had a distant view of the Space Needle. There was not any military helicopters circling it. As a matter of fact there was no aircraft of any kind in the whole skyline. I turned to my siblings and Andrew who had joined us. "What do they mean? The military's not here."

Andrew nodded gravely. "We know. This has been happening all morning. Fake reports of government help in Seattle, along with photo-shopped pictures and videos. We don't know why they're lying but we do know that nobody's sending us any help."