Stray bullets. Split-second decisions. Selfless acts. And the arbitrary whims of a killer.
These are the ways people survived the Orlando massacre.
It's left many grappling with survivor's guilt over the seemingly inexplicable twists of fate that let them live when 49 others died in the worst mass-shooting in American history.
The city is providing psychological help at a football stadium. The police force is offering its officers counselling. And 200 grief counsellors responded to a call for help from the local LGBT centre.
One survivor dealt with her trauma by writing a poem.
"The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy," said 20-year-old Patience Carter, reading her poem from a hospital bed.
"Wanting to smile about surviving, but not sure if the people around you are ready."
She lost a friend in the nightclub attack.
She described how she'd urged this friend, Akyra Murray, to re-enter the club after they'd escaped. They rushed back in to rescue Murray's cousin Tiara Parker: "I told her, 'Let's go get Tiara.'"
Of the three, two made it out. Murray didn't. The 18-year-old who was headed to study criminology on a college scholarship became the youngest victim.
In the blood-soaked, bullet-pocked mayhem, Carter had a femur shattered and thigh struck by shots. The girls piled into a bathroom stall, struggling to keep its broken door closed, while they watched the killer's feet pace back and forth.
Carter recalled the gunman promising to spare African-Americans like her: "He said, 'Are there any black people in here?' I was too afraid to answer. ... (Another man said), 'Yes, there are about six or seven of us.'" She said the killer responded: "'You know, I don't have a problem with black people. ... You guys suffered enough.'"
She's since spoken with Murray's mother: "She told me not to feel guilty. (That) God has his plan."
Ty Smith also pointed to divine help. He goes to the Pulse nightclub once or twice a week and was on the verge of going last weekend. It was his birthday. He'd gone out the night before and a friend convinced him to do something else Saturday.
"That's the only reason we weren't there," Smith said. "I'm a firm believer that that was God. ... He didn't want us there."
He and his husband count at least seven friends among the dead. They also believe they've seen the killer at the club on multiple occasions dating back several years.
Angel Colon was sure he'd be among the victims.
He saw Omar Mateen executing people around him. He fired bullets into people lying on the club floor to make sure they were dead. Colon was sprawled among them with a shattered leg. He'd been shot three times, had fallen and was trampled by a stampede that crushed his leg.
The gunshots got louder as Mateen worked toward him. He fired into the woman next to him. That's when Colon figured it was over.
"I'm thinking, 'I'm next, I'm dead,'" Colon recalled in a hospital across town from Carter.
Then for reasons he can't explain the killer misfired — twice: "He shoots toward my head, but it hits my hand. And then he shoots me again and it hits the side of my hip."
He credited his survival to three sources.
One was God. Next was the police officer who dragged him from the club, while his body was sliced by broken glass and drenched not only by his own blood but that of others pooled on the crimson-stained floor.
Finally, he thanked the hospital crew.
"If it wasn't for you guys," Colon told the hospital staff, choking up, "I definitely would not be here." Some of the staff teared up too, during a news conference.
One doctor recalled wave after wave of victims arriving at Orlando Regional Medical Center.
"They weren't being brought in by ambulances. There was no paramedics coming in and giving us a report and dropping them off. They were being dropped off in truckloads and in ambulance loads," said Dr. Kathryn Bondani.
Off-duty personnel got overnight calls from Chadwick Smith, the surgical director of the intensive-care unit: "I said, this is not a drill. ... We have 20 to plus gunshot wounds coming in. I need you here as fast as I can."
Surgeons began bursting in. So did another wave of victims, following the final shootout as police smashed their way into the club.
Other frequent visitors to Pulse wrestled with thoughts about what might have been.
Aaron Bos-Lun called it an early night, as he was moving the next day and was tired after driving up from Miami. He awoke to the terrible news and checked on friends.
One of them lost four people.
As he moved the next day he struggled with dark thoughts: What if he'd arrived earlier from Miami? What if it had happened when he was there? Was he driving up on the highway near the killer?
Now he hopes for positive outcomes for his community. LGBT people must stop being complacent: "I hope that for the foreseeable future people are not saying, 'Oh we've reached it. We've arrived,'" he said.
"There's still a lot, a lot, a lot to be done to get to a place where people are at a place where they're allowed to be who they are."
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.