9 A terrible day

September 11th, 2001.

Today was like any other day for us.

We had just finished PT and should be getting ready to be taken to some classes that we had.

But something was off, normally our drill instructors were on the dot on time, but today nobody had come yet, leaving us to talk among ourselves.

Standing by my bunk I talked to Mike and Tony, while we waited for our instructors to come and get us.

"What do you think is taking them so long?" Tony asked.

"Who knows?" I said with a shrug.

"It must be something big, I'm telling you because our drill instructors get off on our suffering and wouldn't miss it for anything."

It was 15 minutes after our normal time to leave when our head drill instructor came into the large bunk room.

But something must really be off, because he didn't have that aura around him, of our normal hard-as-nails head drill instructor, but right now he had a slightly hollow look in his eyes.

Looking at all of us, he said in his normal voice.

"pull out your footlockers and take a seat."

I was a bit shocked, I had never heard him say a word that wasn't yelled at us.

Most of the other recruits didn't think he had any other voice but the yelling one, and I was one of them.

But we didn't stop to think about that, instead, we did what we were told.

Pulling out my foot locker I take a seat, making sure to sit straight and look at the drill instructor.

The head drill instructor waited a moment for us all to be seated before he did something to shock me again.

Raising his hands he grabbed his drill instructor hat and slowly took it off.

It took everything in me not to gape at what was going on, something must really be wrong.

Just then I was rocked where I sat.

The images of one of the world trade center Towers on fire, smoke billowing from the side of the building, in massive plumes of black smoke.

The sight terrified me.

Never had I had such a vivid vision in my life, it was like a birds-eye view of the destruction.

As I watched the vision, something else came into my view, it took me only a millisecond to figure it out, it was a large airplane and it was heading right for the other tower.

In horror, I watched as it crashed right into the second tower.

All of this happened in less than a second in my mind then with a flash of white I was back from the vision.

I blinked my eyes a few times to reorient myself, I looked over at the drill instructor who had yet to speak, my hands were shaking and a cold sweat was starting to take over my body.

"Something terrible has happened today, today." Before he could finish what he was going to say the doors behind him opened, and one of our other drill instructors came in, walking to the head drill instructor at a fast pace.

He walked to the side of the head drill instructor and whispered in his ear.

I could see when our head drill instructor froze.

He looked down at the other man, his words clearly shook the head drill instructor to the core.

Then without another word, he turned and walked out of the bunk room at a fast pace.

We all sat there in shock and confusion about what was happening, everyone but me.

I was glued to where I was sitting and I couldn't move or speak.

The sweat was starting to soak into my clothes and roll down my face.

"That's what that feeling was, and the visions were of this happening." I thought.

"I could have done something to stop this"

"I could have warned someone"

My mind was a mess as the guilt of not acting on my visions tore at my conscience.

"no," said a small voice in the back of my mind.

"What was I to do, tell one of my instructors that there's going to be an attack, they would have thought I was crazy and thrown me out of the military, and I didn't know my visions would be related to anything that didn't involve me."

My heart started to slow down, and my thoughts settled down.

Even if my drill instructors had believed me, I didn't have enough information to tell what was going on in my visions besides the fire and screaming people.

Later that day we were led to one of the open areas that had a metal roof and watched the footage of the planes flying into the towers, which was recorded on VHS tapes.

It was a somber moment when we saw them start to collapse.

It was silent all around, not a sound to be made.

But slowly one feeling became clear on every face there.

"anger"

It was clear as day on all of our faces.

Pure anger at those who did this.

We knew it was an attack, and every single one of us wanted revenge for what happened today.

And I knew without a doubt we would get it.

—---

Short chapter.

Another lunch break chapter. If there are any problems please let me know and I will fix it.

-BEAN-