Thankful To Have Each Other (Exclusive November 2024)

(All characters are consenting adults)

In this world sometimes life can be cruel and unfair, sometimes disaster strikes out of nowhere, and tragedies occur. That can often mean your life, or even the life of someone you care deeply about may come to an end.

For me though, that awful tragedy five years ago wasn’t the end, though it felt like it at the time, but now I know it was my beginning. It’s hard to speak about even today, but it’s an important part of our story.

Five years ago I was a normal guy studying alone in my dad’s apartment while he was across the country on a business trip. At the time the only thing out of the ordinary was the fact that I was studying. I was grooving, and knocking out homework easier than counting to ten.

I had my headphones on and I was listening to my favorite music from my laptop, which is why I didn’t hear the call from my dad who had just watched the news and found out something bad was about to happen in my area.

My entire apartment building began to shake violently. I was thrown from my chair and dropped onto the ground. My headphones smashed against the floor and I could finally hear all the commotion. I thought at first it was an earthquake but when I got to the window and looked out I was wrong.

There was a giant mushroom cloud in the distance, likely from some sort of nuclear missile attack. I felt my heart start to beat quickly. Then I watched a building in the distance get hit by something and another mushroom cloud appeared.

Another shockwave sent me flying backward, and this time all the glass in my house shattered and things in my room flew around. When I was able to get up I knew I had to get out of there. So I ran out of my apartment and made my way to the stairwell.

There were a ton of people screaming and pushing into each other. All of them lived here and were trying to escape. I pushed my way in and began to go down the stairs as fast as I could. About halfway down I heard someone calling for help from the sixth floor.

Everyone in the stairwell ignored it, all of them were out to save themselves and their families, but I couldn't do that. I pushed my way through the people trying to enter the stairs and looked around. I followed the direction the voice was coming from until I found them.

I ended up finding a woman, whose leg was trapped under some debris. I ran over to her and with all my might I lifted the corner that pinned her leg enough for her to crawl out. I then ran over to her and helped her up.

There were tears in her eyes and she thanked me so many times for coming for her. I told her not to worry about it now, and that we should focus on getting out of there. We made it to the stairwell which was now a lot less occupied.

We slowly went down the stairs since her leg was injured and we were worried about more shockwaves, which did come. Once outside it was hard to see with all the smoke and dust, not to mention the air burned out lungs, almost like it was toxic.

Cars were honking everywhere, and people were even fighting. It was chaos, but that was to be expected in this situation. With the roads a mess, people fighting, and the risk of buildings collapsing on top of us, we agreed to head into the subway and go into the old abandoned railroad.

We went down as far as we could and sat against a wall. We were strangers, scared, her leg injured and my lung felt burnt from breathing more from over-exerting myself trying to bring her around, yet we held each other and hoped we’d be okay.

We spent days underground huddled together. The bombings stopped after the first day, but the shockwaves of buildings collapsing didn’t stop. It was dark, it was scary and the only thing we could do was talk, so we got to know each other.

We told each other everything about ourselves, perhaps because we had time to, or because we wanted the other to remember us in case we didn’t make it out. It was a small comfort having her by my side, and it turns out we were pretty similar.

We had similar hobbies, were only a year apart in age, and well the obvious, we lived in the same building. After a few days, we began to make our way out to the surface, and well, that's when things got worse.

The subway began to collapse around us. We tried to run, but it came down on us. I remember one moment being upright, and then the next on the ground with a boulder on my head, and the girl's hand in mine, after that everything was dark for a long time.

I ended up waking up in a hospital room, my head was pounding and my body felt awful. There were doctors around me who were all surprised that I was awake, and they all came over and started asking me questions and running tests.

I was rather stunned and confused, but mostly because I thought I was going crazy. There in the corner looking quite concerned, myself, although my hair was very short and I had a nasty scar around my head.

I was also skinnier and looked sort of frail. Once the doctors settled down, one decided to take the spotlight and explain things to me. By some miracle, first responders heard the collapse of the subway and came looking.

They found us and dug us out, then rushed us to the nearest medical facility. We went in the best of shape, our heads had suffered a lot of damage, and they spent days repairing our brains while they were outside our bodies.

Luckily the medical technology they had access to had come a long way in the last few years or we wouldn’t have stood a chance. That’s where a slight problem comes in, while working on our brains, a mix-up happened, and well, I ended up in the body of the girl I saved, and she ended up in mine.

They apologized and told me if it hadn't been so chaotic this would never have happened, they also apologized again as they told me it was likely permanent, as removing our brains again yielded a much higher chance of instant death.

I’ll be honest I didn’t care that I was a girl, I was just so thankful to be alive, even more so that she was alive. The doctors then left and the girl, well she’s a guy now, came over and sat next to me. He told me that we’d been in a coma for almost a year and that he only woke up a month ago.

He then held my hand and started crying. He apologized more than the doctors and was blaming himself for all of this, saying that if he hadn't called for help I would have been able to escape. I told him not to blame himself and told him it was all okay in the end.

He still cried but agreed while smiling. After that day we got to spend a lot of time together, as we shared a hospital room, and were in physical therapy for months. After that, we were moved into a temporary living facility in the next state since our city was devastated by the attacks.

We once again ended up being roommates which was great. It was nice to have him around, not only because he was amazing and comforting, but having the original owner of our bodies around was quite useful for both of us in case we had questions.

As time went on, we only grew closer and closer, and before we knew it we were dating. We finished college together and ended up moving across the country to where my dad worked and had gotten a new apartment.

Life continues on and while there are still nights where nightmares keep us awake, those moments get fewer and far between as time passes, and we’re able to enjoy special moments with each other, and replace the scary memories with happy ones.

Like today, the two of us have been cooking all night in our new home. We were throwing a big Thanksgiving dinner for our families. I’m so thankful that on that day we found each other and had each other, so again, it may have felt like the end, but it was really just my beginning, and I still have a lot to look forward to, like getting married to my wonderful fiance and starting a family.