One night, as I opened my bedroom door to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, the light from my room shone on a man crouched in the hall in front of me. It felt surreal. I screamed, hoping that my roommate, asleep in the bedroom next to mine, would come to help me, but she didn’t hear me. 

The intruder leapt up, grabbed me, and pushed me into my bedroom. He wrapped a pillowcase around my head and forced me onto the floor. I felt confused and panicky; my mind was racing, and I felt certain he was there to rape me. I didn’t physically fight him, and didn’t know what he’d do if I screamed again, so I went quiet. It was then that I felt a knife on my back.

The words “I can’t breathe” came out of my mouth as a plea for him to remove the pillowcase from around my head. He became angry, pushed the side of the knife blade a little harder against my back and told me to shut up. The room felt filled with mental darkness, and I thought my life was over.