Ding! The horrifying ring of an elevator bell pierced through the placid air. The resonating pinging sound seemed to echo through the vacant hallways for minutes, before eventually fading out. With my exploring partner nowhere to be found I quickly ran behind the nearest corner, leaving just enough room for me to peek out and keep an eye on the elevator doors. I could hear the electric pulleys lifting the car up to the floor I was on. I began to feel my heart move into my throat, beating like it was right against my adam's apple, the pounding further amplified as the thought of who could possibly be occupying the arriving elevator fogged my mind with fear. The "up arrow" illuminated, followed by a brief pause as the electric motors slowed to a stop. Ever so slightly I protruded my head from around the corner so as to get a good look at the elevator doors as they would soon begin to open.

I felt like I was staring into the realms of Hell, fully expecting the Devil itself to appear into vision. Fight or flight mode kicked in, my legs tensed, I felt like I could nearly chew on my heart, as it had moved so far north. Like the red curtains obscuring a Broadway stage packed with an audience of hundreds, the elevator doors slowly opened, at first revealing just a terrifying fraction from the interior of the elevator car. After opening about two inches, the doors swiftly retracted fully. My eyes bulged out from their sockets as the sight of nothing came into view. A puff of steam may have very well exited my skull as my boiling mind began to simmer back towards a state of normalcy. Just a few seconds later my buddy walked down the hallway, exclaiming "Hey man, where you at?", "The elevators work, we don't have to take the stairs!" "Sick, man" I replied, "But I think I'm gonna take the stairs anyway, elevators scare me!"

We both decided to take a stairwell up to the top floor to check and see if a roof access door was open. Indeed, a swinging door cast in motion by a summer breeze presented itself as an invitation to what tuned out to be a beautiful view of New York City's Manhattan Island. I sat down and dangled my feet over a cement ledge, grabbed the sandwich I had packed out of my backpack and indulged into a few bites of peanut butter and jelly goodness. The strong late summer sun cast a glare over Manhattan. Sun flares reflected off the hundreds of thousands of skyscraper windows, creating a blinding sight if one was to look directly into the city skyline. Below my dangling feet kids played on the black top street. The occasional mother could be heard boasting her parental voice, commanding here little Johnny, or perhaps less politically correct, her little Trevon, to come inside. No one though, ever bothered to look up, as is so often the case with human beings.

I plopped off the ledge and onto the sticky tar covered roof. Walking towards the roof door, I felt the building suddenly start to violently shake. Startled, I focused on the horizon and witnessed before my eyes the entire hospital sway to and fro. This continued for a few seconds before abruptly halting. Glancing towards my friend, it was clear we both had the same perplexed look strewn across our faces. "What the fuck was that?" my friend shouted. "Shit, that was nuts, I thought a wrecking ball was gonna come swinging through the hospital", I replied. It wasn't until arriving home after our explore that the day's events came into full perspective. As I sat in front of the television expecting to be entertained while shoving the rubbery contents of a terrible microwave meal down my gullet, some dopey NBC-NY television news anchor clad in a suit and tie, face painted with the expression of a melodramatic falsified concerned look, interrupted what ever boob-tube shit I was rotting my mind, with the promise of "breaking news"! I watched as the anchor's teleprompter reliant lips babbled the unfolding news across the airwaves and into my ears. His clueless demeanor informed me of the earthquake which had struck Virginia earlier in the afternoon, sending powerful shock waves through the underlying bedrock, felt as far north as Maine. Luckily for the blacktop, I wasn't at the time still sitting on the hospital's roof ledge, I thought to myself.