Voices: They’re whispering, they’re screaming, they’re crying. Can you hear them? They’re all over, every person you pass carries them. “Where were you when it happened?” they ask. I was right here, I think to myself. I was right here, watching all of it… but seeing none of it. That night I had gone to sleep early in hopes of a long rest that I desperately needed. Little did I know what was happening only a short distance away. A man sat in his room, setting up for what would be a night none of us will ever forget. I was woken an hour later when a friend called to check on us. She told us what was happening and I immediately opened my computer, searching for anything that would give us details. We had the live feed of a news station playing along with a video of the police radio someone was broadcasting, watching the videos that were sent in of the massacre happening just down the street, tracking the posts of those who were in lockdown at Mandalay Bay, and texting everyone we knew to make sure they were safe. It wouldn’t have seemed all that real if that was all we had, it still doesn’t seem all that real… but I remember the sound of sirens as we watched the flashing lights of cop cars fly by down below for what seemed like hours. They came from who knows where, abandoning their posts to head straight into the fire, speeding towards that great golden building in the distance that I call a second home. I remember clutching to my phone in desperate hope that I wouldn’t get a message back saying someone was not okay, hoping that nobody was there. Inevitably though, some people were. I remember staring into the night as the planes stopped coming in, watching the death toll rise with each passing hour. I remember when the sirens stopped sounding and the light of the first plane made its way to the ground. I remember watching as the sun began to lift into the sky, marking an end to this hellish night and things seemed to somewhat be returning to normal… though nothing would ever quite be normal again. I am lucky in the fact that those directly associated with me were all safe, but others were not so fortunate. My heart has been at war with itself since the event. One half of it tells me I should be grateful nobody I knew was harmed, it tells me this was just another distant terror attack and these people are mere numbers to be added to the statistics. The other half tells me no, This wasn’t just another terror attack… this was my home. Every time I look into the eyes of the ones who were there, there is a part of me that is right there with them. Not only am I the helpless one looking through a window and the eyes of a hundred cameras, but I feel in my heart that I am also the one who fled for her life beside her little sister. I am the one that watched the bodies fall all around them. I am the one who held a loved one in their arms as they drew their last breath. I am the one who drove back and forth between the concert and the hospital saving lives, accepting one last Lyft request, finishing the morning shaking in some stranger’s arms, exhausted and bloodstained. This city is full of confusion and pain right now. On Monday morning campus was a ghost town. People were too scared or too devastated to go to class. Those of us who were there looked as ghostly as the campus itself with our blank unfocused stares. Nobody quite knew what to say. We traded our stories, hugged each other and moved on. However, topping all of the sorrow, anger and fear stands one thing to keep us together. At every memorial, at every event, it’s presence is there. In all of us is an unbounded love, a strength of unity I have never felt before. While we all have a fear instilled in ourselves that we never thought we’d know, there is still that love. As the days pass by the shock begins to fade. It is no longer the only thing on the lips of passerby’s and people seem to be moving on. There will come a day when the wail of a siren no longer makes my heart skip a beat or when the flashing red and blue doesn’t make my gut churn. There will come a day when the city will return to normal, but inside all of us will forever be the memory of that dreadful night and the love that pulled us through to that beautiful sunrise that meant the end.