By Sarah-Michelle Buffy Gage
It’s not often I think of myself as a victim.
Most might know me as the spoiled campus princess-like Cheerleading Captain. They might not be wrong either. But I’ve had trauma in my life. My mom was assaulted when pregnant with me, was put into a coma and died at the moment I was born. I often feel like I’ve lived in her shadow. It’s hard to live up to a ghost.
I was thrown out of a posh Catholic boarding school, “nun school” for fighting with the head nun, who enjoyed beating her charges with broom handles but didn’t like it when I hit her back to protect me and my friends.
But I’ve never known trauma like this.
Traumatised much?
I was minding my own business, at the BETA IOTA CHI sorority house on campus, cleaning up after the movie night the night before (the movie was Tomb Raider and the lesson of being a strong badass woman isn’t lost on me.) An intruder leapt over the wall, grabbing me and after a brief struggle, put a stinky cloth over my mouth. It turned out to be chlorofom and I could feel myself getting sleepy.
Like any pretty girl in this situation (and yes haters I’m pretty and you’re jealous!), I thought the intent was something sexual. I’ve heard so many of my friends tell me they’ve been raped. Some of them it’s happened to so many times, they are almost casual about it. I panicked and tried to fight back, but was overcome by someone taller and stronger than me. I can fight but it’s like they were prepared for me so it wasn’t a random attack, and I might be tough, fast and feisty, but I ain’t Supergirl!
Thank Jesus….
When I came to I (thank Jesus, the gods, goddesses and every deity I can think of) I wasn’t being raped, but I was tied to a chair, bound hands and feet with some kinda’ stinky sack on my head so I could barely breathe. The sack was pulled off and I was faced with a masked woman, wielding a baseball bat and I was locked in some kind of creepy basement. There was blood on the walls and floor. There were torture and medical instruments laid on a table. There were bloody trash bags filled with I don’t wanna’ know what, but I don’t think it was trash day for awhile. There was a terrifying looking cage, and there were heavy chains with hooks hanging from the walls like was in a scene from Hathian chainsaw massacre. Though I’d never seen anything like this hillbilly county death-shack n Hathian or Columtreal.
The inquisition….
For the next however long I was questioned about people and things on campus; particularly about witches. Did I know any witches? Was I a witch? Where did the witches live?
Was this to do with the new business Witch Way Alley opening on campus?
Several times my interrogator threatened to burn me alive if I didn’t answer, but what could I say? I’m just the friendly local neighbourhood cheer captain. What would I know about witches?
The sack was put over my head again, and then I was told I would be set on fire.
That was all folks, it was time to die, and I’m too young and pretty to die.
Despite my protests, it felt like flames engulfed my body. I’ve never known pain like it, even after a cheer workout. I remember screaming, and everything going dark.
I woke up back on campus, groggy and with a headache. I thought it was a bad dream, until I noticed the rope burns on my wrist and ankles. Blood stains on my golden summer dress.
My first stop was the CU clinic where it turns out I was heavily drugged. My second to the campus PD to report the assault. New cadet Sydney November helped take my story.
CUPD Cadet Sydney November
Then a few days later my friends were also kidnapped, threatened with assault, and being burned alive, as well as gang rape.
Kidnapper behind bars…
At least it’s over now with the culprit, Zofia Lewandowski in a jail cell thanks to the CUPD who showed they are more than the often accused “renta-cops” as this was a real crime, with real victims, and a real criminal apprehended by heroes like Cadet Sydney November and Layli Graves.
Zofia was a friend to us on campus, but she’s turned into our monster!
This has us all alarmed.
CU campus isn’t as safe as we’d hoped.
