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If you have a story to share, send it to let's not meet stories at gmail.com. This happened when I was 17.

It was the holidays, so I was home from school with my friend, whom we'll call Talia.

My household domestic worker was there as well, we'll call her Liz.

It was around 11 a.m., and Talley and I were just hanging

out in my room. Liz was washing dishes, and when she glanced out the window, she saw two men in

our backyard in the reflection. She ran upstairs to tell me what she had seen, and I immediately

hit the panic button, sounding

the alarm loudly throughout the house.

I remember calling my dad to tell him what was happening, but he was working pretty far away,

and it would take some time for him to get home, so he said he would call the police.

I wanted to run downstairs and lock the security gate at the bottom of the stairs,

but even over the loud wailing of the alarm system, I could distinctly hear the sound of wood

cracking as the men outside were breaking the back door open to get inside. I was worried that

they would be faster than us, so I decided not to go

downstairs. Instead, the three of us raced across the landing upstairs and decided that we would lock

ourselves in my parents' room. When we reached my parents' bedroom, it was locked and there was no key.

So then we ran back across the landing again, and just as we were passing the top of the stairs,

we saw those two men bounding up.

They were just a meter or two away from us.

They were large men, both over six feet tall, and they were clutching a

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