The Bomb

I had only left the City Shopping Centre a minute ago. I had only stopped to check that I hadn't forgotten anything before I caught the bus back home. No sooner had I stepped out of that building than several police cars and fire engines were on the scene.

I turned back to see what was happening. When I first entered the Shopping centre, everyone was happily doing their shopping, and people were sitting in the cafe areas eating, drinking, and chatting.

Now, people were being told to evacuate the building, but nobody was told why.

A little girl vomited on the pavement, so I headed over to see if she was okay.

No sooner had I started heading over to her than I heard a loud BOOM! behind me. I turned around, startled as the Shopping Centre where we were all happily shopping suddenly turned into a towering inferno.

The people in the street froze in horror. the ambulance carried three people out on stretchers, two of whom we knew had died because they were strapped in body bags. Within the next second, about thirty firefighters were rushing to the scene.

"Everybody leave NOW!" The police shouted, but we were all in complete shock, frozen to the spot, unable to move.

A firefighter stood chatting with a lady who was on her knees in tears. Within a second of that, he was rushing into the building with three other firefighters.

We stared at each other in fear as we realized that there must be a child in that building.

Myself and another person headed over to speak with the nearest police officer who told us that a bomb had gone off inside the centre.

Within the next second, a small stretcher had been brought out of the building with a small body on it.

The body of a child.

The police officer we were talking to, left in a rush.

We observed him talking to a woman opposite who fell to her knees and sobbed. She had been in the Shopping Center buying toys for her excited three-year-old, and within a minute of that,

she had just been told her child died instantly in the blaze.

I was ready to go home. I desperately wanted to get away from this horror, but I stood there frozen, looking around me as more and more bodies were carried out of that blaze. Tears fell from my eyes, as more injured women, children, and men were carried to safety, and more people were found dead.

We never got to find out how the bomb had been planted in the building, and we never got told who had committed the horrific crime.

My head and eyes could not process the events of today which took place within one minute. I couldn't watch any longer, so I headed home.

I was shaking and crying when I reached my house.

Mum asked if I was ok, but I could not speak. She asked me what had happened that was bad enough to put me in the state I was in, but I replied,

"I'm fine."

Today, everything had happened so fast.

We were happily shopping and talking in that mall. Our entire lives were turned upside down within a minute of us having fun.

I am not sure that I will ever recover from today's events

All I know is my mind, heart and body are frozen beyond repair. So many people and children were seriously hurt today, and my life has been changed into a life of trauma within a space of one minute.