WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Ezmeralda Johns had already been stabbed twice by Isis-inspired terrorist Ahamed Samsudeen when he came back to where he'd left her on the floor of an Auckland supermarket, intestines protruding from the two stab wounds in her side.
She'd needed tomatoes for a level 4 lockdown dinner of home-made tacos and now she was lying on her back beneath the fluorescent lights of Countdown Lynnmall, pretending to be dead.
"There was a lot of stuff happening, and I just saw him come back", says Johns, 29, speaking for the first time about the September 3 terror attack that left her and seven others with a range of injuries, including five with stab wounds.
"In my head I was like, 'Just pretend to be dead, just pretend to be dead. Just lie there. Don't move, don't cry'.
"He probably thought, 'Oh, she's not hurt enough'."
Her still, silent attempt to thwart a second attack made no difference to Samsudeen, a man considered so dangerous he was under 24-hour police surveillance, including by members of the elite Special Tactics Group.
Clutching a knife taken from the shelves of the West Auckland supermarket, he climbed on top of the terrified preschool teacher.
"I just remember thinking, 'Please don't cut my throat'. I was protecting myself, to not [let him] go to my throat, because that's what he was trying to do."
Two long scars, one from ear to chin across Johns' lower cheek, the other along the back of her neck and jawline to her chin, lay bare the terrorist's intentions.
Johns was in no doubt.
"I was thinking, 'So, this is my story. This is how I die'."
In what she thought were her last moments of life, she looked into the eyes of the man trying to take it.
She saw nothing.
"No feeling, no remorse. Nothing. It was just vengeful, that's how it felt.
"I didn't feel any humanity."
Johns and the dozens of other grocery shoppers around her that early spring Friday afternoon didn't - initially - know it, but they were in the presence of one of the most dangerous men in the country.
Concern about the radicalisation of Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen had reached even the highest office in the land - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern knew his name, and shared her frustration over the process and length of time it had been taking to have him deported.
"We have utilised every legal and surveillance power available to us to keep people safe from this individual," Ardern said hours after the terror attack, which only ended when police shot Samsudeen dead.
The Prime Minister made inquiries about the 32-year-old's refugee status and deportation options in 2018, five years after Sri Lankan-born Samsudeen was given safe haven when he claimed persecution as a Tamil Muslim.
At the time of the supermarket attacks he was fighting attempts to deport him.
He came to the attention of police in 2016 - receiving a formal warning - after posting images of graphic acts of war violence and support for Islamic State on Facebook.
A year later, now being monitored by authorities, he quoted the same militant extremist group online.
"I will fill the enemies with stabbing and cut off their heads violently," he posted, again on Facebook.
Later he told a fellow worshipper at a mosque he planned to join Isis in Syria, and if stopped from leaving - he planned to in 2017 - he'd commit a random "lone wolf attack" in New Zealand.
A police search of the refugee's apartment after he attempted to leave the country found material glorifying violence and a hunting knife hidden under a mattress. Samsudeen was denied bail for a year before pleading guilty to charges of distributing objectionable material and being sentenced to supervision.
A day after being released he bought another hunting knife and was arrested by counterterrorism police, still watching him, and a search of his apartment turned up a large amount of violent material.
But attempts by prosecutors to charge Samsudeen under the Terrorism Suppression Act failed because preparing a terrorist attack wasn't an offence under the existing legislation.
A jury would eventually find Samsudeen guilty of possessing propaganda-style material supportive of Islamic State. A judge sentenced him to a year's supervision in July last year.
On September 29, three and a half weeks after Samsudeen turned one of the most mundane settings into a place of horror that left three of the injured - including Johns - fighting for their lives, Parliament passed a new law.
The Counter Terrorism Legislation Act, three years in the making and successor to the Terrorism Suppression Act, makes it easier to prosecute people for planning and preparing a terrorist attack.
The new law gave authorities more powers to intervene in suspected cases. But It was difficult to know if it would have stopped Samsudeen, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said the week the law was passed.
"Legislation alone cannot prevent attacks happening."
Like her attacker, Johns began her life in another country.
By 2018, as authorities were looking at how to remove Samsudeen from New Zealand, Johns, a high school teacher in her native South Africa, and her husband Storm, an electrician, were making plans to come in.
Storm Johns arrived in December that year, Johns the following month.
"We came to New Zealand for safety," Johns says of the hard decision to start a new life thousands of kilometres from their families, "and for a better future for our children one day. They'll be able to walk outside and it's fine, and not have electric fencing [around their home]."
New Zealand had been a revelation and she had found herself feeling "not afraid of anything".
"You get to the stage where you don't lock your front door. Because in South Africa you lock your front gate and your door and you put on your alarm, and it's a whole system every day."
She doesn't want to go back to South Africa, but her carefree Kiwi days are over.
Going to the supermarket sparks anxiety - solo trips are out - and crowds are a struggle.
"Every second person looks suspicious to me. And it's awful, I mustn't think like that, I know.
"But because this person was so normal and it just happened so quickly, I feel like it's going to happen again."
The attack happened in an instant. Johns was barely aware something had happened to a woman in front of her before Samsudeen stabbed her twice in the side.
"He was so quick. It's so quick you can't even wrap your head around it. It's like, 'What the hell's going on now?'
"It was like, 'one, two', and then he moved on. I landed on the floor. And after a while, he came and did the rest."
"The rest" was two more stab wounds, including under her ribs and to her left arm, and four lacerations, including the two to her face and neck.
The whole time Samsudeen was "chanting Allah", while she remained silent, Johns says.
The attack only ended when Samsudeen was challenged by brave fellow shoppers, including one throwing tins of tuna at the knifeman.
Gunshots followed soon after and Samsudeen was shot dead by the undercover police who had been trailing him at a distance and became aware of the commotion.
"I didn't know what to make of that," Johns says, of the moment the gunshots echoed across the aisles.
"I was just like in and out. I've got a lot of time gaps. But I was very calm. It was the strangest thing."
There was no pain - that would come later - only a "warm feeling", she says.
"Then I remember this guy. His name is Mike Andrews. I heard screaming and I heard gunshots, and then the next thing I remember is Mike being next to me, and telling me I'm gonna be okay.
"He saved me."
Andrews later told her he was one of the people who tried to get the attention of Samsudeen as he attacked Johns for a second time, backing away after the terrorist lunged at him.
"He thought I was dead because I was just lying there … but after the shooting he came back to see if I was okay, and he saw me move."
By this stage former paramedic Ross Tomlinson had joined them, dashing between the multiple injured and using nappies from store shelves to staunch Johns' wounds as Andrews comforted the young woman not only critically injured but afraid of the sight of blood.
"I was in a lot of blood. Looking [down] you see blood, and looking up you see Mike. So you just sort of look there.
"He told the ex-paramedic, 'I'm holding the bowels [intestines]', and that's when I realised [what was coming from my side wounds]. I thought it was just the fat peeling."
In shock, Johns - who had recently celebrated her 29th birthday - began talking about her next, the big 30.
"He was talking to me and saying, 'We're gonna celebrate your birthday together."
She later found out Andrews, an office worker, had first run out of the supermarket after hearing the commotion.
"His story is quite heroic. He ran out and then he thought, 'What if someone needs me?' And he turned around and ran back in."
Within an hour of the attack, the healing process had begun.
It continues more than five months on.
The first surgery, under way within an hour of the 2.40pm attack continued until 2am, Storm Johns says.
"They said it was 'a bit touch and go, we're not sure if she's going to make it, but we've got the best in Auckland working on her, don't worry'.
"I was calm but feeling angry, and sat alone in the dark, because it was level 4."
After fixing her neck and face wounds surgeons at Auckland City Hospital had to cut Johns open from belly to chest, and rinse her insides because the injuries to her bowel meant there was "spillage".
Her stomach had also been nicked by Samsudeen's knife.
Johns was unconscious for the first two weeks of her recovery, with tubes down her throat and heavily medicated to battle infections.
More surgery followed to keep on top of infections and the strength of her pain medication meant she didn't realise blood that had gone into her ear - Samsudeen sliced off part of her right earlobe in the attack - caused a rare and problematic fungal infection she's still dealing with.
Consciousness, when it came, was a mixed blessing, Johns says.
"One of my first thoughts was, 'I'm alive'. But for the first few days I was very scared. I didn't know if it was just the one guy, and I was scared they were going to come back."
Although she wanted Storm by her side, she was so "scared and overwhelmed" she didn't speak to him for two weeks.
And when she left hospital after almost a month the couple stayed with friends on the North Shore for three weeks rather than return to their Avondale home, Johns says.
"I didn't feel safe to go out west."
Those first months were hard.
Her wounds had to be cleaned every second day, and she developed rashes from all the irritation.
The chest to belly surgery wound, which only healed completely last month, meant she didn't have the core muscles to help with simple tasks such as walking or getting out of a chair.
Pain and fatigue were constant companions.
Speech therapy is ongoing because of damage to her facial muscles, and physiotherapy and occupational therapy will begin soon. Johns is keen to return to work when she's ready.
The medical care she's received had been "amazing", along with support from ACC, their police detective, friends, family and the couple's workplaces Next Generation Childcare Birkenhead and CGIE Electrical Maintenance, Johns says.
But recovery from the mental trauma is slow-going.
She still can't look at knives - a large cake-cutting knife had to be kept out of her sight at a recent birthday party - and her husband has to pre-watch TV shows and movies so he can warn her ahead of violent or upsetting scenes.
"We enjoy the series The Witcher. And I struggle with the second season, because it's very graphic. Even Disney movies - Mulan, I struggle with that one.
"Anything where there's blood. Because blood triggers."
But the anger she at times struggled with in the early months has passed, she says.
That includes towards her attacker.
"I don't hate him. I just decided I'm not going to live with hate.
"What he did was absolutely unacceptable. But I know nothing about him. I don't know his backstory, I don't know what he'd been through in life."
Her life, she knows, will never be the same. But it will be good, again.
The couple had put a deposit on a new-build in the Redhills development but had to withdraw in November after realising they couldn't afford it with Johns on ACC, which pays 80 per cent of her wages while she recovers.
They were also planning to start a family - to their relief still physically possible for Johns, but will delay until she again feels ready.
And she hopes her parents, who are not well off, will be able to visit this year - the first time she'll have seen them since 2019 - if they can find the money.
One of the biggest ongoing challenges is feeling the attack has been forgotten, Johns says.
"We haven't really heard anything about it. It's like everything was swept under the rug."
The couple worry if others affected by Samsudeen's actions, including shoppers, staff and first responders, have been given support.
And she especially longs to hear how the seven others injured by Samsudeen are.
"Are there any who want to talk? I don't know if they want to. But I would love to get in touch with them, just to see how they're doing. I honestly just want to know that everyone's okay.
"And if they're in need of anything, maybe I can help."
Earlier in her recovery, when she was "angry with the world", one turning point came when her boss told her the story of a person asked if they were angry about why something bad had happened to them.
"And the person responded, 'Why couldn't it happen to me? What makes me more special?' That conversation really made a world of difference, just thinking about it in a different way. This could've happened to anyone, and I wouldn't change it.
"Because if I could change it, then someone else could've gotten hurt. And I'm not more special than anyone else."
The other turning point came when she received a small gift and letter from a survivor of the 2019 terror attacks on worshippers at two Christchurch mosques.
"The letter said, 'It's going to be difficult, but every day will get better'. That was huge, because you're in that place where you don't feel like anyone understands you, and then you get this letter.
"I was still very emotional, and with all my injuries, I didn't feel like it was gonna end. It didn't feel like there was any light at the end of the tunnel, and this little gift comes and reassures you that they've been through a traumatic event and they're doing okay."
She has the same message for her fellow Countdown Lynnmall survivors - what happened doesn't define you, but it can make you stronger, Johns says.
"We're not victims. We're survivors, we're warriors. And it's gonna be okay."
• A Givealittle page has been set up to support Johns' ongoing recovery, and to help fund her South Africa-based parents' planned visit this year. Donations can be made at https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/helping-to-support-the-youngest-victim
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Terrorist Ahamed Samsudeen's death during his knife attack on shoppers at Countdown Lynnmall means there will be no trial over the events of September 3 last year.
But multiple investigations are under way, including into actions by agencies such as police, Corrections and the Security Intelligence Service before the attack, and whether they were appropriate and adequate for the perceived risk Samsudeen posed.
A joint review by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), the Office of the Inspectorate at Corrections and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security began last year and was originally due to be completed next month.
That now won't be the case, the review's principal adviser of operations Warren Young says.
"The scope was bigger than anticipated, and there was more work than expected."
Travel difficulties caused by Covid-19 restrictions also slowed progress.
More will be known next week on when the review can be expected, he says.
"Interviews and fieldwork will be done by mid-March. We're working on it as quickly as we can because we know there's public interest."
Under the terms of reference the joint review was originally only looking at events that had occurred since Samsudeen was first remanded in custody on charges including possession of objectionable material and possession of a knife in a public place.
It now includes events in 2017 leading up to Samsudeen's incarceration, Young says.
The ICPA has also begun a separate investigation into the shooting of Samsudeen - he was shot dead by undercover police tailing him as part of 24-hour surveillance.
The findings of the joint review and the IPCA investigation will likely be released simultaneously, Young says.
HBRC does not allow motor bikes of any description where the birds' bodies were found.