Brown eyes stare back at me, apprehension and another emotion I can’t quite place. These are the last things I see before the world ends.

July 7th 2005

Bolting upright, my chest beating out a rhythm of panic, I try and remember what happened. But the reality of the day is already seizing me, and my dream fades away into hazy misrememberings. Glancing at the clock beside my bed, I sigh. It’s already 8:15, and I am going to be late.

Pulling on clothes at random, I rummage through my kitchen cupboards looking for anything I can eat, as usual, I have forgotten to buy any food. Resigned I make to the door and look at my watch, 8:25, crap, I really am going to be late.

As I round the corner to the station, I once again marvel at my ability to get here so quickly. Speeding down the escalators, I curse under my breath at the tourists blocking the way, no bloody sense of urgency. Finally, they move, startled to see the line formed behind them of people seething with quiet injustice… and they say Londoners aren’t friendly. I make for the doors of the train just as they begin to close and stand for a minute smug with my luck. Any later and I would have missed it.

I move towards the only seat available, near the end of the carriage, before I reach it, a man cuts in front of me and slides his way onto it. I shoot a glare in his direction and am greeted with a flash of a smile back, as if to say ‘Better luck next time, sweetheart. ’ I laugh to myself silently, that smirk must work on a lot of women, shame he was barking up the wrong tree.

The Tannoy crackles into life overhead, and a reedy voice announces a holdup at the next station. There’s going to be a slight delay. Groaning I check my watch again, 8:40. This is not good. As I am about to consider prying open the doors and sprinting into work, the train jolts me forward into a young man.

Blushing, I apologise to him; he stares back with big eyes, startled and nervous. He looks about my age, no younger than twenty-three.

The train shifts, and I heave a sigh of relief; probably wouldn’t have been able to open those doors anyway. No way out once they close behind you.

Three stops away. I am practically bouncing on the spot, I’m so anxious to leave, Aldgate can’t come quickly enough.

One stop. My continuous watch checking makes the young man I banged into tense; he keeps fiddling with his jacket pocket and glancing around at everyone. As if we are about to rob him.

8:48. Through the windows I see the beginnings of the station, so close. I move away from the carriage and walk down the train, gearing up to be first off the train and beat everyone to the escalators.

I am halfway down the train before I notice something’s off. People are whispering and pointing all around me. I turn and see him. The young man. He’s taking something out of his jacket pocket, which looks to be a mobile phone. No…not quite. A remote of some kind, maybe. I still haven’t placed it when he presses the button that sends us flying.

Time seems to slow as the explosion funnels down the train, barrelling straight towards me. And in those last few seconds, I swear through the throng of panicked people and broken pieces of glass tearing through the air, I catch his eye. An emotion I can’t quite place is etched upon it. Then the world explodes.

Screams echo all around me as debris goes flying. I hit a wall, and something heavy lands on top of my legs. The last thing I see before I black out is a small fire burning further down the line, and wet sticky chunks coating the tracks. The time is 8:50. I am late.

July 7th 2025

I wheel up to the edge of the memorial pillars and breathe. It is 8:15. I haven’t officially put in the request for a day off, but no one expects me to come in today.

I can’t quite believe it’s been twenty years today. I still see those honey-brown eyes sometimes, just before I drift off to sleep, and wonder what he thought in those last few seconds. For I can now place the emotion etched upon his face, fear.

The doctors tell me I am lucky to have survived. I know it’s somewhat of a miracle I was not one of the fifty-two, a hair’s breadth separating me from death. Yet now and then, when I awake screaming from nightmares replaying the last few seconds before the people around me are turned into nothing but red mist, I don’t feel lucky. On those days, when surviving weighs heavily upon me, I’ll always find myself drawn back here, staring at these pillars. Occasionally, they’ll be others too; we never talk, but exchange nods.

Peter Stillen. That was the name of the man who swooped in to steal my seat that day, inadvertently saving my life. I think of him a lot, 28 years old, a banker in the city. Whole life ahead of him. But mostly, on anniversaries, I think of that man with those honeyed brown eyes. Younger than I’d thought at twenty-one, had barely experienced life. Yet capable of ending so many.

For years I carried around such unrelenting rage towards him. During that time, I was a stranger to myself, like I’d fallen off a sharp ledge and lay flat out on the floor staring up at all the people above me. Marvelling at how they could exist with the knowledge of how fragile and vulnerable they truly were, raging at their calmness whilst my pit of panic threatened to devour me whole. Those years are a blur. Yet with time, I sat up and eventually climbed my way back up there.

Still, I feel the shadow of what happened, lurking over my shoulder. Over the years, I have learnt to keep it at bay, talking with other ‘survivors’, then retraining as a counsellor, and eventually going back down there.

That took the longest, making myself go down into the station. The first time I rode the train again I had a panic attack. As the fear swirled through me, the only clear thing I could focus on, was the brown eyes that were forever burned into my memory. Four years on from the fact. Now I am able to do it without suffering a mild breakdown, but I’ll never quite be able to shake that feeling of unease.

Sighing I push myself away from the memories and wheel out towards the gates. The street in front teems with the energy of the early morning rush, I move out, allowing myself to be swept along with it.