Consternation (DNF 9/11 A/U)

~3~

When we finally got to the stairwell, it was just as crowded if not more than the 43 floor, seeing as people for every other floor were crowding the area. I had lost track of time, and in this moment, time was the least of my worries. What seemed like an eternity later, after a crowded sprint trying to rush down the stairs as quickly as possible, there was an even louder bang, that caused the tower to shake, that made everybody scream, yell and start moving faster down the stairs.

Between the Yelling, loud bangs and the sound of falling debris, it was too much to handle. It was as if everything had a volume button and was turned all the way up. I could have sworn that the world went silent for a second, and my ears filled with a high pitch sound, and it became painful to be alive. I tore my arm out of Clay's grip and plugged my ears as hard as I could, squinting my eyes and trying to "wake up" to what felt like a fever dream.

People from around me bumped and pushed me around me then getting thrown to the side by someone frantically pushing people out of the way to try and get ahead. I hit my head on the medal bar of the stairs and a sharp pain shot through my head as I took my hands off of my ears and now brought them up to my head. I forcefully opened my eyes and looked up to see clay grabbing my arm again helping me up asking "Are you ok?" Me responded with a short 'Yes' as I got up still clutching my throbbing head.

"I- What was that? Did The South Tower get hit?" I said, clutching my head even more, trying to suppress the pain.

"I'm afraid so." Clay gulped, then whipped his head around with an even worse fearful look on his face. "George? George!" He yelled, turning in George's direction.

It appeared as if George and Clays hands were slipping out of each other's, and George was getting pushed back farther into the crowd becoming almost out of reach.

"Clay!" George cried out as their hands disconnected and Clay's one last attempt to grab George's hand again failed, and George began to be pushed into a crowd of unfamiliar faces and the fear only grew on his face.

Almost as if planned, a couple seconds after their hands disconnected, part of the South tower collapsed, and Dust filled the room causing our sight to be minimal to only a couple feet ahead of us. I could see Clay cover his mouth and try and swish away the dust from in front of him as he coughed after inhaling the debris dust.

Not long after dust had filled the area Fire could be seen lighting up the part of the building that had collapsed and now our lungs filled with smoke and our eyes were burning from the feeling of the smoke meeting our eyes.

Clay then let go of my arm and could be seen running back the other way trying to frantically find George. I followed after him making sure to stay within a good distance so that I could still make out what was going on in front of me.

There was a big pile of debris causing a blockage to the stairs and the people on the other side of the wall were heard screaming and crying for their lives. Clay let out a muffled but loud,

"No!" As his voice began cracking and tears started streaming down his face as he dropped to his knees frantically pulling back fallen bricks and debris looking for the brunette.

I wanted to help but I was nowhere as strong as Clay and would only be an inconvenience. I stood off to the side clutching the railing as hard as I could with a hand over my mouth trying to suppress tears that dared to fall from my eyes.

I looked right to where Clay was standing and saw an older lady that was probably in her late 50s that had a large piece of concrete on her limiting her movement and she couldn't get up to help herself.

She had blood dripping from her nose, and she had scrapes all along one of her arms leaving a pool of a dark red liquid surrounding her. The gruesome sight made me feel sick to my stomach.

I watched as people didn't care about her life and stepped over here and used her almost as a steppingstone to try and get out easier. It was sickening to know people didn't stop to help her but at the same time did they even see her?

I went to step forward to try and grab her hand even though my help would most definitely have no impact, but suddenly the ground underneath her gave out causing her and the Concrete to fall down and fire to spread more around Clay and the debris in front of him.

"Clay, we need to go!" I yelped trying to forget about what I had just seen, stepping back as I felt tears start to stream down my face.

"I'm not leaving George!" He spat. "I can't!" He yelled as tears of frustration met his dusty cheeks and he slammed his fist into the pile of debris out of sorrow and anger. When he moved his hand, his knuckles were bloody and scratched up from his soft skin meeting the rough surface of the rocks, as you could see him start searching for George again.

"George...George!" Clay gasped a couple seconds later as he seemed to have found George, though I could only guess because it was beginning to become dustier than before. I stepped closer to Clay to try and see what was in front of me.

And there was George, his suit more scrapped up and dusty than Clay and I and cuts all over his body from head to toe. His right leg appeared to be bending in a way it shouldn't have been and there was a dark red liquid oozing out of his side and Clay put his hand on it to apply pressure on the wound.

"Georgie? Georgie! Can you hear me? I-it's going to be ok, I'm here, I need you to stay strong for me, ok? We are almost out I promise." Clay assured, though the almost out part seemed slightly inaccurate because neither of us knew how far up we were and how close to the bottom we were.

Clay then took his suit's vest off unbuttoning it and tore a piece off wrapping it around George's waist and tying it in a messily done knot out of rush, discarding the rest of his vest.

Clay slung George's hand around his shoulders and his other arm went around his waist as we all began rushing down the stairs again. George seemed completely out of it, but it was clear he was still somewhat conscious.