We fought hate With love 10 hot stories of _2017
Sometimes I wake up at night and I can still feel the vibration, choking in my chest, that roaring as the whole world shook. I’d never heard a bomb detonating before. I had no idea what it would sound like. Now it feels like I’ll never forget.
As Ariana Grande finished her encore on 22 May and my sister Sophie and I got up to leave, Salman Abedi exploded his bomb in the foyer. We heard it – we felt it – but we didn’t understand what it meant. There was silence for a full five seconds as everyone looked at each other – and then suddenly there was chaos. People started screaming and running. Grown-ups my parents’ age were crying. I didn’t know what was happening, I just had this bad feeling like Sophie and I weren’t going to get out of this. My sister was hysterical. I grabbed her hand and said, ‘Everything’s going to be all right, just don’t let go of me.’ And then we ran with everyone else. The crowd moved together, crushing us, and I knew people were getting trampled.
I held on tight to Sophie as we were all forced out of the back of the Arena along with 20,000 others. A woman near us shouted that it was just a balloon popping, and I told Sophie, ‘See, it wasn’t anything, it was just a balloon,’ as my throat burnt with the effort of not crying. I didn’t want my sister to see me fall apart but the crowds around us were overwhelming as we ran down the stairs. Sophie’s phone battery was dead, and I had 2% left as I tried to call my parents who were coming to collect us. Mum was frantic when she answered and said they were 15 minutes away – they’d heard the explosion even from that distance. As we finally escaped from the back of the Arena, the police were screaming at us to ‘Get out, get out’, but I didn’t know where to go. Half an hour later, my parents found us huddled outside a Travelodge, among all the other frightened people.
I didn’t really sleep that night and my phone, once recharged, was full of messages from friends, asking if I was OK. I couldn’t reply properly as my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I went to school the next day and everyone kept talking about what had happened, telling me about the eight-year-old girl who’d died, and how one woman had sacrificed herself to save her niece. I didn’t want to cry at school but it was all too raw.
And honestly, more than six months later, I still feel like that. It’s taken its toll on both me and my sister. We’ve suffered with PTSD, we have recurring nightmares, and we’re both due to start therapy soon. But it’s helped that we have each other. Attending the One Love concert really helped, too – talking to other survivors who are going through the same process. It felt too soon to go back to Manchester and I was afraid. But I realised that if I didn’t go, it would be like letting them win. If I stop living my life and doing things I want to do because I’m scared, that would mean they’d got what they wanted. So we went and it was wonderful.
I do believe I will recover. The thing I try to focus on now is the love and humanity that came out of that night. People ran towards the hell. They helped each other. There is more good than bad and I remind myself of that often. It happened and it was awful, but I’m OK. I will live my life and I won’t pass up opportunities to be happy. We only have one chance at this, and we take it for granted. I won’t do that any more and I won’t be afraid.
We lost many lives to hate this year, but Amy Walker, 17, survived the attack on Manchester Arena and says terror won’t beat us