Blackout

By NL
Each time I enter a crowded area, I cannot help it but feel scared after I experienced that chaotic day. That fateful day, my parents brought me to a shopping centre that was just a stone's throw away from my house. We went there on a mission-to buy new year goodies for the Chinese New Year. We walked briskly to the shopping centre, which was bustling with people. We squeezed through the big crowd and noticed a stage set up in the atrium. We decided to check it out what was happening there.


As there were a lot of people crowding around the stage, we had trouble getting a good view of the stage. We saw an empty space in the crowd and rushed there. From there, I could see a magician performing, entrancing the audience with his tricks.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will attempt to make a member of the audience disappear! Any volunteers?" The magician’s deep voice boomed through the atrium. A little boy raised his hand eagerly and was chosen by the magician. As the little boy walked up the stage, the crowd applauded.

Suddenly, the lights went out and the atrium was plunged into darkness. The audience thought it was part of the magician's act and waited for the lights to come on. But the lights never came on again.

"Blackout!" someone screamed. Panic spread among the audience and everyone started to run for the exit quickly. Screams of terror echoed through the dark atrium as people were trampled on in the big stampede. I looked back and saw the little boy trying to get to the exit. However, he tripped and fell heavily on the floor. My parents saw it too. They wanted to help the little boy get up. But before we could get to him, he disappeared into the flurry of panicky people. I knew that I could not help the little boy anymore. He was surely going to die after being trampled by so many people. I turned my attention to trying to get out of the atrium myself.

I squeezed through the crowd of people and ran for the exit with my parents. When we were out of the atrium, we heaved a sigh of relief and watched the people getting out of the atrium. We saw the magician limping out of the atrium with a bleeding cut on his leg. Many people, we noticed, were covered with cuts and bruises.

Within minutes, a team of paramedics arrived and took the seriously injured people to the hospital. Luckily, we managed to escape unscathed. We did not care about buying goodies anymore. We could only think of going back home and never coming back here again.

The next day, we turned on the television to watch the news coverage on the stampede. We saw a graphic image of the little boy with his head and arms bent at an awkward angle. He was surely dead.

Since that terrifying day, I had a phobia of crowded places. The graphic image of the boy will forever be etched in my memory.