We all know what day it is today...
If you already wonder if this is going to give you nightmares, stop reading and turn around... You're better off without them...
Dean looked down at his legs. Looked at where the scar used to be, once upon a time… Before he had been rehymenated. It had been the reason he hadn't worn shorts for about seven years or so...
He shivered. It was that day again.
Fourteen years ago…
Tuesday 9/11, the year was 2001. The day the world stopped turning.
He had been on one of his first solo-trips. Sammy had left for Stanford a couple of weeks earlier.
Sammy was at the west coast, almost 3000 miles away.
Dean was crossing the street a block or two east of the twin towers. The sky was blue, it was a pleasant and warm morning in September.
It was half past eight in the morning, for some reason, he had felt the need to get up early and take a walk. He had ended up at a coffee shop, then he had decided to see the city, before he would get back in the car and drive to Bobby's.
He was going to see the twin towers, then he would hike over to wherever the empire state building was, and see that up close…
As he headed west, up the street, a beautiful young woman caught his eye. He decided to stop and have a chat with her. He would even have another morning coffee if that was an option.
About ten minutes later, he had changed his mind. She had a very nasal voice, and her laughter was hilariously painful to hear. No thank you…
He shuffled along the street heading up to the towers, he was in no hurry…
First he saw the people a couple of blocks ahead of him stop and stare. At first he couldn't understand why they stopped, there was nothing special happening…
Then he saw it.
Chills went down his back, he could feel the taste of blood. All of his hairs stood on end…
There was a plane heading straight for one of the towers. The one slightly further away from him, the northern one.
He took off running, but the opposite way of most the other people. His hunter instincts kicked in, overruling all basic and normal reactions. He was running as fast as he could towards the burning building.
Debris and other stuff was falling from the sky when he closed in on the building.
A fireman, off duty, had been the only damn reason he hadn't entered the building more than once. He had helped a small bunch of people out, but he fireman had stopped him from going in again.
So he had resorted to helping the people on the outside. He helped with first aid, and he helped getting other people away from the building.
Time was fluid. It seemed like an eternity, yet everything seemed to happen at once.
Pain was irrelevant. He twisted his left knee, he didn't bother checking it… He already knew it would be a bitch the next couple of days, or weeks… And it wouldn't help with the matter at hand…
Planes scared him, they had scared him ever since he could remember… And there was no way he was ever getting up in one now… NO FREAKING WAY!
The minutes passed in a chaotic manner. Dean had resolved to keeping his back towards the tower after he had seen a few too many people taking the shortest route down. He had known that it would happen. He had counted on it, but he felt guilty watching.
"Oh no… No, no, nonononono, NO!" a young businesswoman about his age stood up a few feet away from him. She was looking at the towers.
Curiosity and fear peaked within him, and he turned around to watch in horror as a SECOND plane headed straight for the other tower.
The explosion was massive.
"Get DOWN!" he made it to 'Get DOFFF!'
He woke up a few minutes later, the leg of his jeans was wet. He raised his head, sat up. Saw a large block of concrete with a reinforcement bar sticking out of it laying next to his leg. And the same iron bar sticking into his leg. He saw bone and blood and iron and concrete all mixed together in a gruesome sight…
Then he looked over to where the young woman had been, he saw her hiding behind a concrete bench. He relaxed momentarily. Then he froze up again. The young fireman that had kept him from running back in moments earlier laid lifelessly beside him. Most of the concrete block laid directly on top of him, he was dead.
Dean kept looking down on his right leg, where the ten inch, J-shaped scar was supposed to be…
He still felt guilty for living, still mourned the fireman that had saved his life that day. And had been killed himself, standing just beside him.
The pictures of that day still haunted him, and at the times he'd least expect too… Like when he broke into Sammy's apartment four years later, or when he took a cup of coffee this morning…
(Okay, this morning was something special, but hey… It had happened more than once…)
When the first tower had collapsed, he had been in an improvised ambulance heading towards one of the nearest hospitals.
Many others had not been as lucky…
I don't know...
I just felt like writing...
My thoughts go out to the people present that day, and the families and friends of those who never made it back home from work, shopping and sightseeing that day.
I hope I didn't offend anyone by this.
In that case; I'm sorry...