Mercedez Jones, who survived a racist dollar general shooting in Florida a year ago, is still reliving the nightmare as she "can't unsee" the shooter's face.
Jones wrote a reflection piece detailing the traumatizing events of that day.
"I'm just telling my story in hopes it evokes change," Jones said as she read from a memoir in an interview with News 4 JAX.
Last August, a gunman opened fire in a hate-filled attack that left three innocent people dead at a Dollar General Store in Jacksonville.
Jones drives by the store every morning to take her 2-year-old daughter to daycare, but revealed the constant commute brings back unwanted trauma.
"The one thing that sticks in my mind about that day is that you can't really get that image of the shooter out of your head. You cannot unsee him. I can see him right now," Jones said, according to News 4 JAX.
At the time of the shooting, Jones was in the store with her daughter when the suspect walked in.
"It was surreal. It wasn't just because it was you gotta act fast. You gotta act fast. You don't really understand what's going on. So I act fast. I have a daughter with me, so I didn't have time to freeze up," she added.
Leaving everything behind, she grabbed her daughter and fled through the emergency door as she heard gunshots ring out.
"I was kind of trapped behind Dollar General, and that's how we came in contact with the shooter, me, as well as the other three older white ladies who couldn't jump the fence as well," Jones recounted.
"We were there begging and pleading for our lives when I actually didn't hear him say, 'If you don't want me to shoot you, run.' I can't recall. Another lady who's actually closer to him recalls him saying those words. All I know is, at the same time, I knew he wasn't shooting."
She told the news outlet that she rushed into Flag Street Apartments and started banging on a woman's door.
"I think her name is Mrs. Miriam. I'm so glad for her because she actually let me and my daughter in."
But the interaction with the gunman still replays in her head today.
"They say time heals all wounds. But when you can't make sense of it, yeah, it doesn't really go away."
