As my aunt screamed for me to come back to the car, I ran in the opposite direction back toward my house. Car alarms were buzzing into the darkness of the night. People were running into the streets dressed in their lounge clothes and some already in their pajamas to see what had happened. I ignored all this and kept running, urging my legs to go as fast as they would carry me. I hadn’t realized how far away from my house I had already gotten because it seemed to take an abnormally long time. My lungs started to burn, my sides began to ache, but with the increased smell of smoke I knew that I was getting closer to the source. However, I also knew I was getting closer to home.

The first sight of the house caused me to stumble. I fell straight to the ground and slid on the glass of the broken windows that had been blown out by the initial explosion. I wanted to cry for the nightmarish vision in front of my eyes—the home I had grown up in, the building that was holding my parents was completely destroyed. The only thing still visible were the larger wooden supports of the house’s frame. Everything was gone. My mom and dad were gone. I knew that without a doubt. My entire life had disappeared in a large cloud of smoke the color of molten gold. I lay on the ground staring at the blazing inferno even though my cut palms and knees bled onto the pavement. Tears wouldn’t come. Sobs wouldn’t come. So, I did the only thing my body would allow. I screamed into the smoke-riddled sky above me, straight into the strangely yellow cloud. It was not just any scream. It was the yell of a crushed soul, the agonizing screech of the broken-hearted, while the few visible stars of the night sky continued to sparkle and twinkle upon me as if my entire world had not just been wiped from the earth.