I’ll never forget that sinister laugh in a darkened room. It sent chills down my spine, it brought goosebumps out on my arms, I could feel the hairs on my head stand up. I was gripped in panic, fear, surprise. Any negative feeling you could ever imagine being gripped by, I was feeling it. But that sinister laugh in the darkness is also the thing that saved me. I was 20 years old, a university student, and I was the only one home in our back-section, student-flat property. It was after midnight, with no hope of anyone else being home for hours, if at all. I wouldn’t have even known he was there, had he not laughed sinisterly, from somewhere in the darkness.

That day, one of my male flatmates, we’ll call him Science Guy, had been the last in our flat and group of friends to finish his exams to wrap up the year. The rest of us had finished days if not a week before, already celebrated and celebrated again as other friends got done. Most flatmates had already moved out and moved on to summer plans. He and I were the only flatmates home the night he decided to bring five random people back to our place for a booze-up, because nobody in our circle was keen or around for yet another mid-week night out on the town. I call these people he gathered random on purpose, for although they were known to him through his Science Degree classes, they weren’t people he (to my knowledge) had ever socialised with before, and I had certainly never laid eyes on them in my three years of knowing him. They were people keen to get on the booze some place, celebrate the end of exams with whoever was offering, and in my mind were (judgement alert) people who didn’t have any better offers. My flatmate just wanted a party, and I genuinely think he didn’t care who with.

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