Knife to my waist. Hand around my throat. A stranger trying to rip a bag off my shoulder while I refuse for reasons I still can't fully explain to just let it go.

This is the night I found out exactly what my body does when it decides it's not dying today.

Spoiler: I don't hand over the bag. I hit him where it counts, I run, I make the bus. And somewhere in the middle of getting choked against a wall in a city I'd barely lived in for six months, I stopped being anyone's damsel in distress for good.