I was in a good spot in life, everything was going pretty smooth. I’m quiet and keep to myself, definitely not a tough guy.
For context, I’m a native Russian speaker, and my neighbor at the time was as well. He was an older gentleman, we were always polite and said hello, but we weren’t friends, he just had the townhouse connected to mine.
I come home from work and go to my spare bedroom to smoke weed, that’s what I did after work at the time, just my time of the day to keep to myself and relax and get into after work mode. So I’m chilling, and then I hear a scream outside (didn’t know who it was at that moment) “HEEEEEEEELP!!! HEEEEEEELP!!” So my initial reaction was “damn, I hope someone helps that dude, continue chilling for a few more seconds. Then I hear “ПОМОГИТЕ!!! ПОМОГИТЕ!!!”, which is the same in Russian, but the message is 100% different, it’s now my neighbor pleading for help, but not in general, here he is obviously hoping I hear, and I did it, I rushed outside. I saw one of the most unexpected and traumatic things I’ve ever seen in my life, he is laying on the ground, not quite in a pool of blood, but with quite a bit of blood around him. He quickly explains that his son (he’s a weird goth looking dude that me and the neighbors saw around), was off his schizophrenia medication and attacked him with a bat, causing major damage all over, but mostly his arms, he blocked dozens of blows with his arms and they were destroyed, nor like broken in one place... it was hard to look at. And my adrenaline goes off and I make a decision, I’m going to do it everything I Can in my power to help, short of dying for this. So I call 911, help him walk/crawl around the corner, and helped find a dog loving neighbor to house his dog for the next considerable future. He asked me to take his dog in, but it was a huge dog (Siberean Huskie, I believe), and I had two cats, so that part I couldn’t do. And I did decide that if his son comes out, I’m fucking running, but anything short of that, I’m going to stay here and help him, to a lesser extent his dog like he was family.
His son was arrested (inside) shortly after, I found another neighbor who was willing/happy to take his dog in, and then I went back in, just recovering from the shock. The property manager tried to clean up, but there were blood spots for months outside my townhome.
I didn’t see him for months and I was concerned that he may died or been permanently disabled, but then he came home and happily lived next to me for another couple of years. He was always very kind to me and my lady friend, before and after the incident. He did also have a weird habit of playing the piano at night, which would made sleep in our guest bedroom impossible, but nobody lived there and I didn’t mind