Bashings, killings, rapes, shootings, stabbings, and murders -- we hear about them every day, with alarming frequency. Crime is so much part of our lives that the horrifying detail of them flits through our consciousness faster than it took me to type this sentence. Rarely do we stop and think -- properly -- what these people, the victims of these terrifying stories, are actually going through. We're numb to their pain, and perhaps for good reason. But how do they do it? How do they deal with physically getting up each day -- if they went to bed at all -- to face the kind of nightmare we barely stop to contemplate? I have spent hours absorbing and digesting other people's pain, analysing it and reporting it as a testament to the vitality of the human spirit. But I didn't really understand how that happened until I met the family of Sydney girl, Lauren Huxley. It's no secret that this is one exceptional family -- but from let's be clear, they are not alone in this category. The story -- sorry, the Huxley's reality -- began when 18-year-old Lauren Huxley left TAFE on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, only to be confronted by evil in her quiet suburban family home. Lauren was accosted by a violent stranger, bashed then soaked in petrol and left to die as her home burned around her. It was where she -- anyone -- should be safest. Doctors said she wouldn't make it; five percent chance