My name is Tenalo Stephen, born into a small fishing town. Before my experience I have always believed that whatever happens in life is as a result of your actions, infact my strongest principle why growing up was " whatever you give to life that's what life gives you in return". Maybe my belief was influenced by my environment, because as a boy born in Sub-Saharan Africa where most people live below the poverty line, which meant if you wanted to survive or you wanted anything you will have to work your way out. Apart from the hardship in this part of the world, this region is known for strange religion beliefs and spirits.
One thing that is always common along people that are highly religious is that everything had a spiritual meaning, so, I grew up with this mentality.
My story all started on 14th April 2014 when I woke up on the wrong side of my bed, and I was not feeling like getting out of bed. In this part of the world this meant that something bad was going to happen to you that day, so things like this were taken very serious. For those who find themselves in this shoes there was always a way of averting the situation depending on your religion. For a boy like me born into a Christian family the next thing to do when you have this feeling was to commit your day into God's hand but I didn't because I was not the religious type. I believed that the fate of a man cannot be changed no matter how you try to.
With all these thoughts going on in my head I picked up courage and got out of bed. Although everything I was doing seemed like I was trying to walk through the mud with a pair of heavy boots. I kept on telling myself that things were going to return to normalcy as the day went on.
Unconsciously to me my day had already started with a problem. You might be tempted to ask what my problem was at this but the problem started in my because I was trying to separate my thoughts in other words I wanted to make sure my beliefs were still the conductors of life instead of other people have said.
At 10:30am that day the sun was already out in his full strength as if it was noon already but up till the point of writing this story I have not been able to determine whether my observations were or because there was already a problem in My head. with all this ill feelings I already for my fate.
At 11:00am that day I decided to do some ATM transactions. The nearest ATM point was in my neighboring town which was like 20km away from my my small town. This distance is accessible on foot but because of the heat of the sun I decided to take a taxi. Just 10minutes from the point where I decided to take a taxi a black Toyota corolla with red rims stopped by my side and asked if was going to neighboring town, I paused for a minute because this type of cars were not used for commercial purpose in this part of the world. After this brief thought I decided to join the the taxi, as I entered into the the car I discovered that I was so engrossed by the quality of the car that was been used for commercial purpose that I didn't take note of the passengers in the car which was a normal ritual around because of the crime rate. At this point I found at that there where three passengers seated in the car two guys and a lady. One of the guys was putting on a jeans and a black cultured shirt that had red tapestry which read"you only live once". The lady was light in complexion tying a red scarf on her head and a blue top that fitted nicely with her material trousers. The second guy was dark skin with red eyes and he was putting on a black T-shirt and a black jeans. The lady sat in front of the car why the two guys sat at the back seat with me.
My misery started when the lady said I should quietly hand over my phone, my bag and my ATM card and the pin to one of the guys seated close to me, I turned immediately to look at the face to look at the face of this other guys to confirm if this was a joke or I was just about to get rubbed. When I saw the expression on their face it meant seriousness, so immediately as normal human being the next thing I thought of was survival but survival only made my condition worst. I tried to open the door and shout for help but immediately I did that the guy next to me brought out a short gun. This gun was so short that I was contemplating if this gun was real or not. With this thoughts going on in my head one of the guys drag my bag and because of the inconclusive thoughts in my head I tried struggling for my bag but why this was happening I noticed that a sharp cold object had pierced into the left part of My abdomen. At that time, I was scared to tell myself I have been stabbed. I held that part of my body and turned to look at who stabbed me but in the process of doing that the guy with the gun used it to hit the back of my head and pushed me out from the car why it was still in motion.
It was a lonely road so I was left the mercy of death. I needed close to one hour before I lost consciousness. In my unconscious state felt the separation between the outside world and myself. After some time I began to feel like I was traveling through an oblivion of darkness.
I heard voices but I couldn't interprete the sounds like so many people were talking at the same time. At some point I saw something that looked like an imaginary line that separated me from the outside world. I tried to cross this imaginary line so many times but I failed every time I tried. This continued for three days but on the third something significant happen, I heard a clear voice telling me Steve you are a survivor. I kept on hearing this voice until it looked liked I was able to feel the outside world and opened to see my mum praying and saying the exact words I head and that was how I came back to life.
