It is said that children, normally before their teenage years, have the ability to see things before they happen. It is not known how they do, but they do. Some are known to tell of a future danger through drawings, others through their dreams. Mine was through a nightmare I had in the fourth grade.
It was September 10, 2001 and I was at home with my uncle Darien and my aunt Samantha. Samantha, Sam for short, was one grade under me and we were both being watched by my uncle, her brother.
I can’t really remember what happened before that night. Those memories have really quite faded away, but that night hasn’t. It tends to haunt me once every year since then.

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It was late night and I was apparently tossing in my sleep. I wouldn’t know. All I know is that I was trapped in a deep nightmare that would begin to change my life.
It was so dark, too dark for me to see. I hated it and I was frightened. I could see flashes of red, orange, and yellow all over the place and I was getting hot. There was so much heat there. I couldn’t breathe too well. Smoke had caused that. There was so much smoke.
“Someone…help…me…” I tried to say, but it barely came out above a whisper.
Screaming, so much screaming. My head hurt so much from it. It felt like my ears were going to explode or bleed out. I heard the cries of children as they tried to find their families and tried to find an escape route. I could feel tears slide down my face as I heard them and tried to find an escape myself.
“Let me out!” I shouted after finally getting some air in my lungs again.
Something came flying towards my head and I suddenly fell into darkness. I fell still in this quiet, peaceful, confusing darkness known as my mind.

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It was the next day, September 11. I sat in my fourth grade class, waiting on my teacher to show us what it was she had wanted to show us. My teacher, Ms. Winters, turned on the news and I had a silent scream implanted on my face. There, on the news, was my nightmare brought to life.
I saw the flames that had been shown to me as the flashes of red, orange, and yellow in my nightmare. Then there was the darkness of the building’s power going out. I saw people running and screaming, just as I had heard it in my nightmare. The smoke showed up in huge, dark clouds on the screen. I could still feel it’s choking grasp on my throat, as if it were trying to take the air from me once again. It was all there, in front of me, on the television screen.
I shook in my seat now. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I had actually foreseen this event. I had foreseen it! I knew one thing though. Seeing isn’t always believing, but it sure can be scary…especially when it’s something like this.