Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today

*You can find the list of links of my full 30 Days of Truth here.

Miracles and guardian angels!

I dont think I have ever actually written this story down although many of my friends know what happened…

At the beginning of 1999, I was in 2nd year at UNISA, studying at Allenby Campus.  It was my rebellious year and as such I had moved out of home into a commune of sorts with my then boyfriend and 3 other people.  The house was in Cyreldine and belonged to the only other girl in the house’s father.

One evening, I seem to recall  it was sometime over the Easter weekend, the other girl in the house and I were getting ready to go to a friends house down the road.  I was playing cards in the lounge with my boyfriend while I waited for her to be ready.

I remember hearing a noise and looking up expecting it to be her, instead it was two men who had walked in through our unlocked door (yes I know, and thats a lesson I have never forgotten).  They each had a gun, to be honest all I can remember of these men was the huge silver guns they were pointing at us.

Just as I realised what was happening, the girl I was waiting for came round the corner, smack bang into these guys!  They ordered us all to the floor and told us not to look at their (uncovered) faces.  They then asked if there were other people in the house.  There were.  One of the other house mates was in his bedroom with his girlfriend.

They told us to get up and show us where they were.  They knocked on the door and then opened it.  Here are the first few miracles.  The two of them were naked, she grabbed the duvet and covered herself.  He yanked on boxers.  The first miracle is that they did not rape her, or myself or the other girl.  The second miracle is that they didnt push us all into that room (and this will become clear why later on in the story), they told the two of them to come out and pushed us into the next room, my room.

They made us all lay down face down on the futon and then locked us in the room.  The next thing we knew the TV had been turned all the way up, I assume in order to drown out any noise we or they might make.  At this point I think we were all in shock and just lay there.  Im not sure how long it took before one of the men came back into the room.  He came in to tell us to keep quiet and ask where our bags and cell phones were, he then pointed his gun at us and told us he would kill us if we moved or made a noise.  He then locked us in again.

This happened a few times.  While this was all going on the other girl’s cell kept ringing, eventually they turned it off.  Then the land line kept ringing until they yanked it out the wall.  It was the friend down the road calling to see where we were.

The second to last time they came into the room was to take the radio off the bookshelf and to tell us that they wanted to take the car at the back of the line (single file driveway).  It was my car and my boyfriend said he would start it for them as it had a tricky immobiliser.  I honestly didnt expect him to come back to us.  They loaded up the car and he started it.  Then they brought him back in.  They told us that they were coming back and we mustn’t move or they would kill us.

They again locked us in and a few minutes later the sound of the TV went off and we heard them leave in my car.  Here is where the next miracle occurred…

Earlier in the day we had all been out to play Put-Put.  I had bought a t-shirt and had it in a plastic bag.  My old Alcatel cell had only one bar of battery and was next to useless so I had thrown it in the bag and when we got home, thrown the bag, t-shirt and cell into my cupboard and promptly forgot about it.  It was only after these men had driven away that the friend down the road decided to try my cell.  She had called numerous times on the other girls phone and on the land line but never on mine!

Remember when I said it was a miracle that they didnt push us into the first room but made our house mate and his girlfriend come out and into my room?  If they hadnt we would not have had access to my cell!

We got such a fright when it rang.  I had completely forgotten about it being in that bag.  I got up and answered it but because the battery was so low our friend couldnt hear me even though I could hear her.  I ended the call and dialled 112 and the next 2 miracles were that not only could I hear the operator, she could hear me and that the battery lasted, by all rights after the call from our friend it should have died!  I told her where we were and what had happened and she stayed on the phone with me until the cops got there.  Im not sure how long it took them but it couldnt have been very long.

Im not sure why those men never came back or why they decided not to kill us before they left.  My boyfriend had said that he heard them loading rounds into the guns.  They were vicious and mean when they spoke to us.  Rough when they handled us.  But they never came back.

So many small and insignificant details, things that could easily be overlooked and yet when you put the story together, those little miracles saved us.

Im totally convinced that guardian angels were watching over us that night.