I tend to agree with the shadow concept, from personal experience.
At about 20 years old while in college I was working nights at a convenience store.
I ended up working Halloween, of all nights. As a coincidence, the owner had stopped into the store about 11:30 pm to check how things were going and to shoot the shit with me. But just before midnight, two masked guys came in, brandishing a handgun and a long knife and demanding money. At first I thought it was a joke but that quickly changed.
I was instructed to empty the cash register (no problem - I wasn't stupid) and then go to the store safe. Apparently these guys knew the deal with a convenience store. I said I didn't have the combination so they yelled at the other guy (unbeknownst to them the owner) and he started crying like a baby that he didn't know it either. This was practically a movie style robbery.
After a bit of screaming the bad guys told us to lie face down on the floor. Now I don't know about you but that is never a good idea. I had read a story some months early about a nearly identical robbery in the same city I was in where a guy lying on the floor was killed execution style. So I figured in that split second I wasn't going to lie down.
That agitated them a bit, lol. Wasn't funny at the time of course but now I think WTF! They yelled they were going to kill me and my response was something like "go fuck yourself". One guy pulled the trigger on his gun but it jammed. Talk about lucky. Or a shitty gun which was more likely the reason.
The guys immediately split with the money from the register and I called the police. The owner was still a mental mess so he was of no use.
Long story short, the two guys were caught that night. The detective told me later they had done about 10 robberies in the city over the past few months and luckily they had gotten there fast enough this time that they found one, higher than a kite, less than a half mile away walking in an open lot. Knife and all!
I testified in open court against the two of them- and as it turned out the only witness who would. They ended up getting over 20 years each. In court I remember looking at them and suddenly replaying all the events in my head. It wasn't a dream anymore. They would have killed me if they could have. The rage started that very moment. No fear. It was an anger I have never felt so intensely. I wanted to kill them both right then and there.
It has never gone away, years later.
