The buildings, the ones that hadn’t been destroyed, at least, had taken on a grey hue. The cloud, now fully formed, was as high as a skyscraper. There were people running from the explosion in all directions, some on fire, others missing limbs. I grabbed my cell phone and called my parents. I put my sneakers on, penny loafers seemed meaningless. I ran down the stairs, certain the elevators wouldn’t work.
As I exited my building, I began to take in my surroundings. There were millions of people screaming bloody murder, millions of others unable to scream, out of sheer shock. Thousands still were no longer alive, no longer able to express their emotion through the one vocal achievement all animals and humans seem capable of doing, the simplest Ah! Or Oh!.
I dropped my left arm, the arm that held my cell phone, and stared, looking at the huge mushroom that still hung over Manhattan like a raincloud. I began to slowly walk towards the cloud, then picked up pace, walking at a normal speed, than began to run.