She woke up in horror and stared at her flat, destroyed. It was as if it had been blown away and sucked in by a tornado. Broken glass was screeching under her steps. Appalled, she realised she was unharmed and suddenly recalled the blast.
She had seen thousands of pieces of glass whistle by her ears―knives ferociously aimed right at her―but that only grazed her face, millimetres away from her skin.
In seconds, her life had changed.
She staggered away from the scene, dazed and frightened, and went outside.
The blast had shattered entire buildings. The windows of the 50-storey towers a few streets away from her home were all crushed―not a single frame had withstood the explosion. Cars had been smashed with brutal force. Entire flats had collapsed onto the streets.
People were voiceless, their eyes filled with despair. No one could speak. No one could cry. Only one question was in their minds: why?
They were fragmented souls in a city yet again destroyed by something beyond their control.
She came back inside, her eyes brimming with tears, her head in shock, her thoughts frozen. She was going around in circles in the house, incapable of recognising what broken piece belonged to which object that no longer existed.
Unconsciously, she kept playing back the blast, the incommensurable strength of the sound of the explosion. Her on the couch, blown away with gale force, glass grazing her skin, the alarms ringing, the blood and the cries.
She found her phone intact on the floor, under torn pages of a book. She called her husband. And burst into tears.
Pictures by Jo Kassis and from Buzzfeed