It was as if I was standing amidst a graveyard—one haunted by the thousands of souls whose lives were cut short all those years ago. My chest tightened with each step I took that brought me further and further below ground. An anxiety I had not felt in years clawed its way back into the forefront of my mind. The 9/11 museum was certainly a lot bigger than I had imagined it’d be, the building extending a mere story or two above the ground as the bright summer sun glared off of its glass exterior—a stark contrast to its dim and somber interior. Even with its halls crowded with people, there was still only a low murmur of discussion amongst the visitors; rarely was anything above the shushing of a child heard.

 

Further down I walked, the exhibit extending nearly seven stories underground, passing by artifacts that told the history of a workplace that should have been like any other. Pieces of shattered glass from the window panes, mangled steel beams bent beyond recognition, and, most haunting of all, an entire fire truck crushed to the point where the front was barely discernible from the back. A plaque next to the truck told visitors of its role that day, informing all who passed by that the entire company it belonged to had perished.

 

My entire body felt tight, my muscles so tense I felt as if they might snap. It was an eerie place to be, knowing I was quite literally standing in the grave of nearly three thousand people. I hardly noticed anyone around me, weaving my way through families and crowds to make my way deeper, searching desperately for a reason. A reason why this place had to exist, why I was surrounded by so many ghosts who were guilty of nothing but going to work that day thirteen years ago.

 

Off to the side and separate from the main parts of the exhibit, I noticed an alcove that led to what seemed to be a viewing room. I pulled myself from my haze and made my way in, standing in the back so as to not disturb the others sitting on the simple wooden benches in front of a screen. Whatever was being shown had obviously already begun, but it didn’t take me very long to realize what I was watching—or more appropriately, hearing. 

 

On the screen was a diagram of the North and South towers, with a little descriptive bubble indicating a floor number and a name, but it was what was playing over the speakers that made my stomach twist in a way it hadn’t in a very long time. Desperate calls from those trapped above the impact zone of the airplane resounded loudly in my ears, followed by the communication between fire fighters as they made their way up the building in a futile attempt to save those terrified people. The panic in their cries, their screams of terror as they begged for help were a frighteningly stark contrast to the mostly calm and collected fire fighters. Those people may have been trapped with no where to go, but the fire fighters were racing up hundreds of flights of stairs to their deaths and yet there was not even the slightest waver to their voices. 

 

My legs went weak, my throat tightened, and I realized with as gasp that I had forgotten to take in air at some point. The ghosts whose rest I had disturbed with my presence had a voice,—they all had a voice, and their last pleading cries for help rang in my ears and brought bile to my throat. This was the reason. This is why this place had to exist. All of these voices that had been silenced so suddenly that day had a place to make themselves heard once again. A place to ensure that they were not lost to the sands of time, that they were never forgotten. I had to silence my quiet sobs with a hand clasped tightly over my mouth as tears I had been holding back since I entered the building now freely spilled out over my cheeks, soaking the thin fabric of my shirt. 

 

Suddenly the wound I thought had closed long ago was ripped open as the memories from that day flooded through my mind. Sitting at my desk in school as class mates were called over the loudspeaker one by one to be taken home. The excuses teachers gave us as to why they had to leave. My own name being called. Being sat down by my mother as she explained what happened. The black billowing smoke drifting over my house from downtown Manhattan. The bottom of my aunt’s shoes covered in soot as she finally made her way home from that hell hours later. The fighter jets that flew low over my house for days afterwards. It was the day that life as I knew it—as everyone knew it—changed forever. It was the day that life as I live it right now became the norm, and the day my parents began apologizing for having to raise me in a world filled with so much fear and death.

 

The sudden silence in the screening room ripped me from my thoughts, bringing me back to the present. The speakers were silent and the screen was blank, I wondered just how long I had been standing there on my own. Trying my best to compose myself, roughly wiping at the tear stains on my cheeks as I left the room, I made my way toward the exit. My heart was heavy with an old grief  I thought had become lighter and easier to bear with the years; my body filled with an exhaustion only an emotional overload can bring. It wasn’t until I pushed the doors opened and stepped outside that I noticed it was pouring rain, lightning streaking across the dark sky and striking the spire on the newly built Freedom Tower that soared above the memorial site. I squinted through the rain and up at the massive tower, the building filling the hole in the Manhattan skyline that had been there for far too long. And yet, somehow, that skyline seemed emptier than it ever had before.