I left work early last evening because I was feeling ill- I had (and still have) a headache, and feel a bit sick, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, because I didn’t drive and didn’t wait for a lift home, I had to take the city bus.

Just as you get to the city bus stop there’s an underpass. Normally, I’d be one to avoid underpasses at night - but I reasoned that it was only half past nine, the underpass was well lit, and I shouldn’t be scared in the part of the city that I practically live in these days.

So I walk under the underpass, and standing on the ramp on the other side are four gangsta wannabe types, who are probably about my age. They weren’t using the underpass for its intended purpose: travelling from one side of the road to the other, they were just standing around in there. And how cool they thought they looked because of it.

What scared me was that I thought I saw one of them holding a knife. I certainly saw something glistening in one of their hands, and thought that if I continued walking towards them I might be the victim of street crime: it was at the point in the evening when the city is deserted… the shops were closed and it wasn’t exactly “public” time, meaning that if I were to cry for help, no one would hear me scream.

It was here I made a fatal mistake. I changed the way I was walking as a reaction to the perceived threat. Rather than continue on up the ramp, I decided in haste to walk up the steps to my left and try and get to the bus stop that way. I’d just broken the first rule of avoiding being attacked: “don’t make it look like you’re scared of them in a really obvious way“.

One of them spots me doing this and I believe he shouted something like “get him!”- its hard to tell because I had my headphones in at the time. When I saw him running towards me I decided to run. And I’ve never run so fast in my life.

The architecture of the pavement was against me slightly - I ended up running along a raised path parallel to the slope up from the underpass. Chasing behind me was the guy who ran after me and up the steps… and as I ran along as fast as I could, weighed down by a heavy bag, he shouted to his friends “corner him!”. Seriously. So the three others who were on the underpass slope ran up it - this would have cut me off. I’d draw a diagram, but I think that might be a bit excessive.

After what felt like a lifetime, I got to the bus station and they didn’t seem to follow me. I’m guessing this is either because it was crowded and people would see me being stabbed up, or they were only chasing me because they were asses and wanted to scare me. They saw I was scared so they thought they’d have some ‘fun’.

The worst thing was, well, not the worst thing, as being chased by some thugs was pretty freaking awful, but it was a bit depressing that when my life flashed before my eyes when I was being pursued, all I could think about was how pissed off my Dad was going to be with me. He wouldn't like that I didn't call for a ride home.

I’ve never been so scared in my life.