"It felt like a Salvador Dali painting," said Samuel Jurgens, then an underclassman at the University of Alabama, recalling that late winter night in 2013.
Laid out on the sidewalk, he stared into the sky. Everything felt dizzy.
Then, nothing. Total darkness.
On his feet, he thought he saw Blount Hall. Wobbly, he gathered himself and moved toward the dormitory.
Then, again, someone turned out the lights.
He woke up, slumped against a glass door. Looking down, he noticed he was holding a cup filled with his own blood. He couldn't feel half of his face. His glasses were broken. He was unable to see out of his left eye. In a state of confusion, he turned and saw his friends staring back at him.
"They were looking at me like something horrible happened," he said. "Then the police came and asked what happened. I'm like, 'I don't know.'"
The moments before the attack would come back to him later, after he was taken to the hospital. He'd sustained a concussion, beaten so badly that one of his attackers thought they'd accidentally killed him. They kicked him just to make sure he was alive. Then they left, taking his backpack and the computer inside it.
Talking with police officers, something felt off to Jurgens.
Driving with his father the following morning, he understood why.
"We were listening to sports radio and they were talking like, 'And news is coming in: Four Alabama players have been arrested of an apparent assault,'" he said.
Tyler Hayes, D.J. Pettway and Eddie Williams were all taken into custody and charged with the second-degree robbery of Jurgens and another University of Alabama student. A fourth player, Brent Calloway, was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card.
Only a few weeks earlier, Alabama had won its third national title in four years. Nick Saban's program had stayed out of trouble, for the most part, and another championship run seemed almost inevitable.
But on Feb. 12, 2013, everything changed. Alabama was in the news for the wrong reasons: a pair of brutal assaults allegedly perpetrated by a handful of athletes on the very campus they were propped up as idols. Calloway, Hayes, Pettway and Williams were all dismissed from the program two weeks later.
While the others continue to toil in obscurity with hopes of restarting their football careers, Pettway has made it back to Alabama. The charges from his arrest are no longer pending, according to a university spokesman. Jurgens forgave him. Saban said he was satisfied with the way he handled his punishment: 11 months of what amounted to exile at a junior college in Scooba, Mississippi.
A return to Alabama was never promised. At times, it seemed as if it might never come.
It was a feeling of loss nearly everyone involved in that late-night attack could understand.
"I went through a real existential crisis," Jurgens said. "Especially at the trial to hear that the only reason I was beaten was to be someone's object of fun. I was objectified, and I was really depressed and suffered a lot from depression and anxiety. At one point I was even suicidal. It was a real dark time in my life."
* * *
There wasn't time to talk about why.
Those closest to Pettway say the same thing: He made very poor choices about who he spent his time with. He got caught up. Even Jurgens believes Pettway wasn't the one who did the attacking during his assault.
But sitting around a kitchen table in Tuscaloosa shortly after his dismissal, none of that mattered. Pettway, his parents and Buddy Stephens were busy discussing his options. Stephens, the head football coach at East Mississippi Community College, was frank about what came next.
"We laid it out to him exactly what it was like, what Scooba was like, what we were like. A very structured environment here, discipline. We laid out his expectations. We laid out the expectations Alabama had for him," Stephens said.
"Coach, I just want to make it better," Pettway said.
To do so, he'd have to survive Scooba.
If everyone's home from the maternity ward and it's a slow day at the funeral parlor, Scooba might hold 700 people. As Jordan Lesley, the defensive coordinator at East Mississippi, said, "There's more deer than people here." His is a town of long gravel driveways, wide porches and unfenced yards. Commuters tailgate tractors on their way to campus.
The nearest Walmart is 40 miles away. There are no bars. When an assistant coach was asked what there is to eat, his first and only response was Subway.
Most of the school's buildings are of faded red brick from the 1960s or '70s. Next to the student union is the Department of Funeral Services building, which is marked by an actual tombstone along the road.
"They have no distractions," Lesley said. "They're here for books and ball."
It was a chance for Pettway to collect his thoughts. His calls were screened. He didn't bring a car. On weekends, when teammates went home or into the city to party, he stayed in.
Most nights Stephens would drive by Pettway's dorm and see him sitting outside on the phone with his girlfriend or his parents. It was lonely, but that was the point.
"He had one goal: He wanted to go back to the University of Alabama," Stephens said.
* * *
The quiet of Scooba almost got to him.
Pettway missed Alabama.
When fellow defensive lineman Jarran Reed, who was being recruited by the Crimson Tide, was getting ready to make a trip to campus, Pettway wanted to tag along.
"Coach, I'm going to go for a ballgame," he told Stephens.
"No, you can't go," Stephens replied. "You're not allowed."
It was a painful moment. Stephens reminded Pettway, "You made this bed." The university wouldn't let him set foot on campus until he was cleared through the proper channels.
After starting out in Scooba motivated and focused, Pettway began feeling distant.
"He kind of felt in the middle of the desert," Stephens said. "He never knew if Alabama ever wanted him back."
One phone call changed that.
After catching up with Stephens one afternoon, Saban asked to speak with Pettway.
"I don't know what that conversation was," Stephens said. "But when he got that phone call, it was like he was smiling. I don't want to say he was tearful, but I could have shown him a picture of Old Yeller and it would have sent him over the edge."
Later on, after Pettway had been cleared to visit campus, he and Stephens drove to Tuscaloosa for the first time since his dismissal.
When they arrived and went upstairs to visit the staff, a secretary came by with two boxes for Pettway. Inside were his SEC and national championship rings.
Pettway sat speechless. He couldn't stop grinning. All he got out was, "Oh, man, that's what I'm talking about." He stared at the rings and after a while said, "Wow."
An Alabama coach said, "Now you know you're home, don't you?"
Someone else in the room asked Pettway what he was thinking.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm glad to be back, that's all."
The return drive to Scooba was full of hope.
"You know how when you have that moment you've had a lot of stress and then it's taken away from you and then it's where you want to rest?" Stephens said. "So much tension, so much anticipation, so much not knowing. Then he felt that love."
* * *
Jurgens' recovery came in two phases.
First, there was the depression and anxiety. His grades slipped and he dropped out of school.
Being assaulted was one thing. Being assaulted by Alabama football players was another. He felt as if he couldn't connect with anyone.
Jurgens caught himself pondering suicide. As he was preparing dinner one night, he thought: I can just fall on this blade, put it right up against the sternum and fall, and it would be over.
"Even though it would be an extremely painful way to go, I didn't feel like there was another way out," he said.
The pain lasted about 10 months, he said. Gradually his mindset improved thanks to family support and the help of a therapist.
"I had an uncle who died from Parkinson's in December," he said. "Him dying made me get away from being suicidal because I didn't want to hurt my family. ... It got me to realize my life has meaning.
"I'm still trying to figure out what that meaning is. I'm still on that path, but it's an easier path now."
At a pre-trial hearing, Jurgens forgave Pettway.
"You could tell in his voice that he was really remorseful and he didn't want this to affect the rest of his life," he said. "I forgave D.J., which is hard to do. I still can't say I've totally forgiven the other two for everything. I'm still dealing with that."
When Pettway was allowed back at Alabama and on the football team again, Jurgens didn't flinch. That part was reconciled long ago when his father reached out to the coaching staff. As a family of Alabama fans, he told them, "My son, he wants to go back to loving football. He needs to hear from you guys."
Then-director of player personnel Kevin Steele sat Jurgens and his father down in his office. Steele apologized and said he'd do his best to keep the program on the right path, Jurgens said. Saban then dropped in and did the same.
"They made sure I knew it was my team, not theirs," Jurgens said. "Those national championships were mine. I was a part of that, too, as a fan. I was in the band, I was there at the games. I have a right to enjoy that."
The games don't carry the same weight anymore, though.
"It's shifted from blind following as a religion," he explained. "Now it's less about the result than the experience. It's about having a good time with friends and family and just enjoying it no matter what the journey is."
Still, Jurgens doesn't know how he'll feel when he goes to a game and hears Pettway's name called out over the loudspeaker.
Alabama's dean of students, Tim Hebson, reached out to Jurgens to set up a meeting with Pettway and the other UA student attacked that night, according to Jurgens. But as of yet no arrangements have been made. Because of that there are still so many questions left unanswered.
"I've certainly changed a lot," Jurgens said. "One of the things I've always been told is, 'Their lives have been changed just as much as yours,' and my life really has. I want to know, has he really changed? Has he really changed his ways and is he never going to be in that situation again? If he has kids, is he going to raise them never to be in a situation like that?
"That could at least reaffirm that this incident changed all of us, for better or for worse."
Caleb Paul, the second victim in the February assaults, declined comment beyond a short statement via email.
"At this point, I feel continued focus on the issue is less harmful for me and more harmful for the four athletes trying to overcome the consequences of their poor decision. Much like DJ Pettway, I have striven to ensure that event will not become the most notable part of my time at UA."
* * *
Lesley, who spent almost every day with Pettway in Scooba as his defensive coordinator, is convinced of his turnaround.
"I'd go to bat for him any day," he said of Pettway.
"He's more humble," said Alabama safety Landon Collins. "He understands that any given thing can change his life and that any thing can make or break his season or his future."
At a news conference in February, Pettway sounded contrite. He called his time in Scooba a "humbling experience" and recognized not many people get a second chance.
"You can probably count on your hand," he said. "But I'm very grateful. Words can't describe how grateful I am. I can only show by actions, and I plan on doing that."
On the football field, he has played like a new man.
During Alabama's spring game in April, his first time back in Bryant-Denny Stadium in front of a large crowd, he was named co-most valuable lineman after intercepting a pass and scoring the game's first touchdown.
Today, he's a starting defensive end. On Saturday, he'll be vital part of Alabama's plans of stopping Ole Miss' high-powered offense in Oxford.
For a man who nearly fumbled away his career, spent close to a year in exile and wondered whether he'd ever be allowed to come home, his return to Alabama and the national stage has been remarkable.
But like Jurgens' continued recovery, nothing is finished. It may never be.