I don't have a good recollection of what happened that day. I can remember most of the details before the event, but my mind is blank on most things after the event. Whatever did happen, I've pieced it together based on the stories my friends and family told me as I grew up. Back then, I was just six years old. Like any other six-year-old I was attending elementary school. It was the morning, and my grandma had just dropped me and my older brother off at the school cafeteria, where all the students were assembled in the mornings. I remember eating the breakfast she made for me with my brother. Was it pancakes? A muffin? Noodles? Who knows, it's not important. Breakfast ended and my first-grade teacher Mrs. Mallory came to walk the class up to our room. I said my goodbyes to my brother as we went our ways. We poured into the room where we would learn for the rest of the day. We did our first-grade things: play around, talk, doodle on the chalkboard, that sort of stuff, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Mallory. As we settled at our desks, a ding from the school intercom came on. A student from another class, chosen everyday by the principal, began to speak some words:

"Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star-Spangled Banner."

I've done this routine since kindergarten and I've probably tuned it out by then. Following that, we had a daily announcement: some words of encouragement, and the weather, spoken by the same student from before:

"Good morning P.S. 101Q, today is Tuesday, September 11, 2001. As we rise on this beautiful morning we are reminded..."

I don't remember what the student said after that, probably something about valor. First class we had was math. Mrs. Mallory asked us to take out our homework as she went around the class collecting our work. Mine was always described as "chicken-scratch" by my dad who would make me redo everything until it was clean, but at least it was readable compared to some other kids there. We did our boring lesson of the day, learning the times table for the number 6. I always found myself looking at the clock when bored as my desk was perfectly aligned with it. 8:55. Just then, another announcement came on the intercom. It was unusual to have one so soon. Usually, there would be a few a day: a student being sent home early, an emergency for a teacher, that sort of thing. But just the second after the ding of the intercom I could hear on the other side heavy breathing. The principal of the school spoke a few moment later, not in her usual stern voice, but in a frantic and panicked tone:

"All students, please report the the auditorium. I repeat, all students, please report the auditorium."

Despite hearing the panic in her voice, she still got out the words perfectly. Just from her tone we could all tell something was wrong. It took a few minutes to get down to the auditorium. Kids from all other grades entered and we sat in our designated areas, segregated by grade, and sat down. There were murmurs from the other kids as the teachers gossiped about what might be the reason for this sudden gathering. Suddenly, the auditorium display turned on and a voice boomed from the auditorium speakers. Whatever was said I don't remember, but I looked up at the projection. It was a news story. Displayed were two large rectangular buildings towering over some other buildings. Wait a minute, my kid mind thought. This was Manhattan! This was the Twin Towers! Yet as I looked again I finally noticed something was wrong with one of the buildings: there was a gaping hole in it billowing dark smoke into the otherwise clear sky. I looked around the room for my brother. We locked eyes for a second. And then I remembered:

My mom worked there.

The realization sent me into a panic, but I showed no outward symptoms. I was trying to remember where she worked. Was it the one on fire or the one not? Was it high up? High up, I remember her telling me this. She brought me up to the observation floor. during the summer. "It's a few stories above my head." How many stories were there? AON. I looked at the time shown on the news: 9:02. AON Corporation. That's where she worked. Was she still inside? Leaving? Stairs? There must be a million stairs in that building. As a thousand thoughts flowed in my head I noticed a blur in the distance on the broadcast. It was moving slowly at first but then got bigger and bigger. The broadcast cut to a different angle. A giant silhouette of the plane appeared. I'd never been on one. Mom always flew business class for her work trips. The silhouette inched closer and closer. It was going to hit. It was going to hit. Tears formed in my eyes as I understood then I was going to lose my mom.

At that moment, I looked at the broadcast again. It was not moving. I looked around the room. No one was moving. Everything around me seemed to be frozen except for me. I looked back at the broadcast. It was a little different than before. I looked at the person sat next to me. He was blinking, but in slow motion. I looked back at the broadcast. The nose of the plane had entered the other building. A rush of emotions came over me as I continued watching, tears making my vision blurrier and blurrier. More emotions rushed in. Rage. Terror. Loathing. Grief. But mixed in was the strongest feeling of hope I have ever felt.

I have no memories of that day after that moment.

I woke up at a hospital bed five days later. The rhythmic sound of the cardiogram filled my hearing as I looked around in the unfamiliar room. Sat next to me, asleep, was my mother. At the instant sight of her tears rolled down my eyes. She was alive. With a feeling of joy I drifted back into sleep, or coma, or whatever it was.

I was discharged from the hospital two days later. From what I've been told I screamed then fell into a coma as soon as that plane hit the second tower. Terror then washed over the entire auditorium. My brother rushed to my side, jumping from chair to chair over everyone finding me out cold, nose bleeding heavily. He shook me to wake me up but I would not. Paramedics arrived some time later and whisked me away when the parents of all the kids came to pick everyone up. I later learned on that day, terrorists had hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. I didn't know what a terrorist was back then. My mom tells me she was on the 105th floor of the South Tower when a sudden jolt rocked the building. And then, inexplicably, she and everyone else that was on that floor found themselves in the middle of Central Park. It wasn't just her floor though: everyone in both those buildings still alive appeared there. Everyone trapped above by smoke and debris, everyone in still in a cubical, everyone stuck on the elevators, everyone in the stairwells, every office worker, every firefighter, every policeman, every rescue worker, everyone including those on that plane. Save for the terrorists on the plane, so I've been told, as the teleportation happened when the cockpit had already been destroyed.

I came back home a week after I had left to go to school that day. My brother gave me the biggest hug when I entered the house. I noticed something was missing though. Someone was missing. My dad. He had died that day, yet was nowhere near the Twin Towers. Witnesses say he wailed and collapsed on the street. I didn't know how to feel hearing the news of my father's death. We were never close. He always yelled at me for doing something small. He always belittled me and compared me to my brother. My brother always tried to protect me from him regardless. It made me hate my brother and my father. Mom never said anything whenever he yelled at me. He yelled at my mom too. I later learned that my father hated me because I didn't look like either of my parents or my brother: I had curly brown hair, while everyone else in my family were jet-black.

At the funeral, I felt a rush of relief as soon as the casket was lowered into the ground, as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I thought about the emotions I felt at the moment of impact. From the news reports I watched covering that day, apparently the same mix of rage, terror, loathing, and grief had surrounded the buildings following the teleportation. No one dared to enter the buildings, not even the bravest of the firefighters. It didn't matter, anyway as there was no one inside left to save. The 911 calls ceased from inside the towers. Everyone feared the worst. Everyone feared until a new rush of 911 calls came from Central Park all telling the same story, that they were in the buildings, some trapped, some not, and the next thing they knew they were surrounded by green five miles north of their last location. The aura of emotions ceased as soon as both towers fell.

I can only guess what happened to me to trigger all of those emotions. Perhaps it was the dozen years of abuse that I would endured if my mother had died that day and if my dad had been left to raise me and my brother in her absence. I don't know. But what I do know is whatever happened, it was my first use of that strange ability I now call the lever. All I had to do was switch it and it would sacrifice someone to save others. But at what cost to me?