Because of a very creepy phone call (that I won't get in to here), I can't sleep and am posting here after reading a bunch of stories. This was the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

When I was studying abroad in England for a year, some friends and I (a mixture of Americans and British) went to go see a movie in the closest big city, which was Liverpool. It was just a 30-40 minute train ride each way, but we decided to get some dinner and drink a few pints before we headed back to our school.

We got a fairly late train and one of our American friends was entertaining us by doing magic tricks. We were being happy and clapping and obviously a little buzzed and people started coming around to see him doing magic.

I had a...thing for a girl there. She ended up dating a friend of mine, but at the time, I had a crush on her, so I wasn't focusing on the magic. That may have been why I was the only person who heard someone in the back of the train car say "Let's go cut that magician's fingers off."

About five teenagers, ranging from about 14 - 19 and averaging the upper limits of the 5-foot height range, started messing with the people watching the magic. First the man and woman wearing formal-wear were being harassed. Nothing physical, but it was getting there. The man pulled his wife out of the chair and left at the next stop. She argued with him as he dragged her out the door, talking about how she can't leave those kids (my friends and I) on the train. They did the smart thing and we really should have followed suit.

The crowd around us starts to dissolve as no one really wants to be involved with this. For all intents and purposes, the thugs were advancing and we were on the back of our heels. We try asking them to leave. It doesn't work. We tell them to leave.

Now, I am not sure if you've ever told someone to leave that has the intention of cutting you open, but all it really does is make them take their knives out faster.

More words are exchanged. We're talking a lot less at this point. I think we're hoping someone does something, but our backs are against the closed door and there's no where to run to, anyway. If security had not arrived by then, they were not going to. We're all just staring at the pocket knives.

One of them grabs one of our girls and starts groping her. At that point, pretty much every guy in our group starts seeing red and thinking a combination of "Damn the consequences" and "We weren't going to get out of this, anyway."

We tackle two of them and the others run. The ones on the ground are still fighting back and I get a massive punch to my jaw. The other guys with me aren't fending much better but, by the time I get my bearings, the thugs have run off to another car. We all sigh sighs of incredible relief, still scared out of our minds, and get off at our stop.

As exit the train, some part of my brain just goes in to rage mode and I kick a dumpster as hard as I can and hurt my foot. One of the girls points out that something fell out of my pocket when I did that.

I look down and see a pocket knife on the ground, then check my coat and see the big hole it was just sticking out of. Apparently he missed me by less than an inch.

I never took that train at night ever again after that.