COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Blood still stains the jacket David McRae wore during a night out at a safe place they never imagined would make international news.
"It's been a process of kind of wrapping your head around what happened and that what happened was reality and not a fever dream," they said.
David and their boyfriend Devin Dragt arrived at Club Q in Colorado Springs just minutes before a gunman walked through the door Saturday night, killed five people and injured others.
"It's just surreal to think that like this happened at a place that we were calling our home bar, you know, like a place that was local and tight-knit," McRae said.
The two were sitting on the smokers' patio outside when they started hearing strange sounds, which they weren't aware were gunshots at the time.
"We're like, 'Wait, that's not music. That's louder than the music,'" Dragt said. "I could see through the glass door to the patio the muzzle flashes. It was a very specific shade of yellow. As soon as I saw the flashes, I realized that that was connected to the sound."
Through the chaos, McRae managed to lift up the garage door in the patio to help themself, Devin and others escape the gunfire and climb a nearby fence.
"I was the first one over and turned around and I, you know, yanked Devin up, and we tried to ... we were pulling people up after us," they said.
At one point, the two said they hid in the snow for about 15 minutes with an injured mother and daughter while waiting for medics to arrive. Both were bleeding from their leg, and the mother was bleeding from her face.
"We sat there and applied pressure and applied pressure to the wounds. That's where all of this came from," McRae said, pointing to the blood stains on their jacket.
Now, several days later, the two are figuring how to move forward as they process what they experienced.
"Something we say to one another as we get out the door is, 'Good luck, don't die.' And now, like, that has such a different meaning to it. It's like, 'Oh, my God, please don't die,'" McRae said.
Both agree that if Club Q reopens, they may not be able to step inside again. For now, they'll have to rely on each other and their community for the safe space they wish they still had.