Christian Jasper G.

David

CFE 101

Heroism in Unlikely Situations

It was dusk, the sun was setting, and the sky is painted in an orange-like hue. Suddenly, as I was
walking down our street after a long day at school, I saw a commotion. I heard some sort of grunting and
thudding noises on the dark alleyway nearby. With throbbing curiosity urging me to take a peek in that
alley, I finally walked to the dark passage and looked. It seems that what I heard before was the sound
of five boys, who appear to be in their mid-teens, ganging up on a little boy, aged 13 or so, and they
were punching and kicking him furiously. I quickly looked around me to search the area of any adults
who can intervene on this ruckus, but there was only an office lady, about 8 blocks away from me,
talking to someone on her phone. If I asked her for help, the little boy would be beaten up horribly and
can sustain injuries from the beating. With my adrenaline pumping its course throughout my body, I
shouted at the top of my lungs and rushed by to help the pitiful scene. At first, the five boys were
startled by my scream and stopped battering their victim, but as soon as they saw that I was alone, they
continued their beatdown. Suddenly, someone from their group pulled away from their lashing and
approached me, equipped with a brass knuckle and ready to strike me. In this situation, I suddenly
questioned myself if what I am doing is right and is it worth it to risk my life over this stranger that’s
being brutally assaulted. Right then and there, out of the blue, I remembered my martial arts training
(taekwondo). At the moment that he’s striking me with the brass knuckle, I hit him with a palm heel
(self-defense strike where the hand is pulled back to engage the base of the palm in an upwards
thrusting strike) directed to the base of his chin. The boy looked at me in agony and stumbled to the
ground, writhing in pain. The feeling of satisfaction and heroism at that moment is irreplaceable, and I
thought to myself, “Yes, all of this is worth it.”, as the bullied boy who’s being bullied smiled at me and
thanked me with his eyes. Unexpectedly, I heard heavy footsteps towards our direction. It was the
police, and I realized that the office lady I saw was calling the police to aid the little boy.