Quickly rushing through the pale, green metro doors and into the subway cart was always the struggle about riding the train in Paris. People crowded the cart and you had to push your way in if you didn’t want the subway doors to slam into you. And when I say slam I mean slam. The doors really gave no mercy.

When all the girls on the trip huddled into the cart with their groups, everyone immediately scattered to find seats. I must say that French trains were quite unclean. There was a sour odor in the air and almost all the seats had graffiti sprayed on them in garbage green. I avoided the temptation to sit, and rather stood, close to a pole. Clenching my fingers on the cold pole, I rocked slowly to the motion of the train. “How many stops do we have?” I asked my group leader. He responded claiming six. Oh, we have plenty of time. When my teacher looked away, I discreetly walked over to my friend from another group, stepping on the passenger’s toes while approaching her. My leader was not very fond of me disappearing on him. Regardless, I was only a couple feet away and I chatted away with my friend.

When the train steadily began coming to a halt, everyone quietly acknowledged that five stops remained. All except one group leader, Larissa who began waving her hands in the air. “EVERYONE WE’RE GOING TO GET OFF THIS STOP”, she demanded. Students and teachers crinkled their brows in confusion and looked at one another for answers. “What? Why?” Everyone questioned quickly considering that the train doors would be unbolting any minute now. Larissa urgently revealed that a commuter claimed this train wasn’t going to lead us to stop we wanted; that we were on the wrong train. Before any of the leaders could refute her argument, the train doors opened automatically generating a cannon noise. My heart sank. There was no time to make wise decisions. With a sense of panic, half of the group who overheard the order hopped off the train in a speedy manner. Meanwhile, the other clueless girls followed the herd of people getting off. It was as if a swarm of ants were trying to scurry to get away from the villain. In this case the enemy was the train doors. Three by three, girls got off sighing in relief that they weren’t left behind; however when they heard the door literally slam into one of the girls, everyone turned their heads. One girl was literally stuck between the two train doors. With quick reflexes my group leader was able to push the doors open from crushing the poor girl’s shoulders but it wasn’t until the train doors officially closed that everyone noticed a group leader and another girl got left behind on the train cart. The metro doors had closed and two people from our tour were not able to make it on to the platform. For a millisecond, all of us stood and watched the girl and the teacher’s eyes wide and faces struck with panic. That was all we could do; just stare at the glass that separated us. Before the train stole them away, a group leader shouted to them “Meet us back here!” Without losing a second, the train worked its gears and led itself into a dark tunnel. Everyone remained frozen until a group leader demanded “Who told everyone to get off?!” Silence. Or perhaps it was my ears that was blocking out every noise. One second everything was calm and everyone knew where our destination was and then the next second everyone was panicking. Within all the commotion we lost two members of our group. My head felt heavy. Everything was happening too fast.

All the girls either whispered among themselves or others, like me, lingered with eyes on the group leaders waiting for directions. The next thing I knew my group was going to have a new person in charge of us. My group leader told me and my group was to follow one of our body guards for he was going to stick around and wait at this stop in case the two who got left behind came back.

Later, when all the groups switched stations together, they quietly waited for the arrival of the next train. From a distance, a raspy voice was rambling something in French. The voice slowly got closer until I noticed a man in his forties muddering in quick French. He was dressed casually and he had a slight hunch back. Piercings covered most of his face and he had a sloppy smile that made you feel edgy. More than often times he would bother us by talking to us directly and he would wave his arms around in an awkward manner. Walking back and forth to our group, he continued to chant constantly in his mother language. Most girls avoided showing fear and gave no eye contact to the creepy man. Who knew what was running through his head? What if he had a knife up his sleeve and wanted to attack? What if he wanted to steal our money? I attempted my hardest to be as close to the group of girls since I was becoming uncomfortable by the minute. First we lost two people from our tour group and then this French guy kept trying to get near us. At that moment, I truly felt vulnerable. I felt as if the entire tour group was in danger. We were all vulnerable to this foreign country for we knew no French and it didn’t help that the people around us were very unwelcoming.

Unintentionally, I prayed for the man to leave us alone and almost as if on cue the train’s headlights lit up the tunnel, making its way toward us. The train paused and the doors opened in the familiar cannon sound. The girls tried their best to scramble on to the cart hoping not to get left behind as the other two did. My eyes were glued to the creepy hunchback man who was cursing in French until he made his way towards the end of the train cart and away from us. I let out a sigh of relief for I felt safe again.

It’s crazy to think that just ten minutes before this incident, we were all nonchalant. Everyone knew of their destination and everyone felt safe. However, this was easily snatched as one obstacle came upon us. Like a domino effect, more problems kept arising. These fifteen minutes made me realize that situations are constantly changing and truly anything can happen. Therefore as an individual we must always be alert and have our guards high up for we can never foretell what may happen.