If the testimonies of the Bataclan survivors inevitably resemble one another, each experience presented in evidence at the special criminal court in Paris is unique. As is the burden of grief and guilt carried by each of the survivors. The difference is in the details.
The guilt continues to ravage even those who saved lives at great risk to themselves.
A man who helped his injured friend and three other people to the safety of an exit continues to be haunted by the memory of the stranger he left behind.
"A hand gripped my foot. It was a guy beside me that I thought had died right at the start. I looked at him and knew that I couldn't take both him and my friend. I made a cold calculation.
"I would like to tell that person on the floor that I'm sorry I couldn't save him. I'm sorry for his family. I'm sorry . . .
"I see him in my nightmares every night. The look in his eyes when he realised that I was going to leave him."
The witness has since paid a heavy price for his bravery, struggling through drugs, alcohol and two suicide attempts. "I wasn't able to look myself in the face."
SMS warning from his mother
Another man explained how he initially took refuge with a crowd of other escapees in a first-floor toilet.
While cowering there, he read an SMS his mother had sent him: "Be careful," she warned, "there are shootings in Paris." Under different circumstances, it could almost be funny.
After a while, convinced that the overcrowded toilet was a death trap, he decided to make a run for safety, only to find himself face-to-face with one of the terrorists who was coming up the stairs to take a position overlooking the main floor. Another killer, Foued Mohamed Aggad, was just behind. The third attacker, Sami Amimour, had already set off his suicide vest on the stage downstairs, killing himself.
The man on the stairs was Omar Ismaël Mostefaï. "He looked at me and said, bizarrely, 'Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you.' And then he pulled the trigger."
The witness miraculously avoided injury. But a girl who had followed him out of the toilet was hit and badly hurt. The two terrorists continued past them, leaving the pair to return to their dubious refuge.
They were subsequently freed by the special police unit which brought the attack to an end, killing the two remaining terrorists two hours later.
A life disintegrating into chaos
Another survivor told the court how, one morning a couple of months after the attack, she hadn't the energy to get out of bed. She lost interest in everything. Her marriage imploded. Her professional existence dissolved into chaos.
"It is like living in the body of a complete stranger," she explained, using the present tense to describe the experience, six years after the tragic events that sparked her trauma.
There was a psychological similarity with another witness, a man shot in the leg who survived by pretending to be dead while lying on the main floor of the Bataclan.
"I don't feel I control my life any more," he said. "I'm just a spectator."
The trial continues.
