The worst birthday ever (contest entry)

March 2nd, 20031

Well now, everyone says that your birthday is supposed to be a special day, a day when you feel like you're on top of the world and that nothing can hurt you, right? About 98% of the time this is a true statement. However, it was far from the truth on my 16th birthday. Some days I sit in my room and wish that it had never happened, that I had somehow been able to skip that day and move on with the rest of my life. 2

It started out semi-decent, my mother had left for work and had left me with five dollars to take myself and my younger brother Donnie out to breakfast before school. I woke him up and helped him get ready just as I did every morning, and we went to the coffee shop down the street and bought two doughnuts. I ordered our doughnuts and we made our way down the street towards the middle school where I would drop him off and continue by myself to the high school that I attended. 3

Up until about lunchtime everything went smoothly, same boring classes, same boring teachers as always. I went through the lunch line, got my lunch, and sat at my usual table by myself. About five minutes before the bell rang to send us back to class, several boys came in carrying guns. No one noticed that they had the guns until they started shooting. Nine people were killed, and countless others were injured. I was lucky that I wasn't hit. School was dismissed for the day afterwards, so I went back to the middle school to pick up my brother. 4

I was half-way between the high school and the middle school, walking down a back street that I always took, when several men ambushed me from behind. They beat me to the point that I passed out in their arms. 5

The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed, apparently someone that lived nearby had heard the noise and called the police. I had sustained a broken wrist, two broken ribs and a nasty deep cut up my right thigh. To make matters even worse the doctor came in and said that they had done a rape kit on me and that it had come back positive. 6

This has to be the worst birthday ever.