KUNMING, March 5 -- Even now, Xiao Shi and Xiao He, two students injured in Saturday's deadly terrorist attack at a southwest China train station, have no idea what their attackers look like.

The attacks came from behind, all of sudden. Shi was stabbed in the left side of his back and had his lung punctured, while He suffered even worse -- both sides of his neck were slashed, and he came within a hair's breadth of dying.

The two young men represent the human cost of the barbaric acts by the knife-wielding extremists who claimed 29 lives and injured another 143 people in Kunming City on Saturday evening. Sitting and chatting with Shi and He in their hospital beds, it's clear just what an impact the horror has had on them.

Shi, 18 and He, 20, share one ward at the No. 1 People's Hospital in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan Province, lying in bed and watching TV inattentively.

"It still hurts," Shi mumbles, referring to the place where an intravenous tube is inserted in his chest. Pink liquid streams slowly down the tube into a bottle beside his bed.

"Less liquid came out of his body today. Doctors have said he is doing well. He may leave the hospital in a couple of days," says Chen Wentao, Shi's cousin.

Shi grins at his words and his weary face lights up.

"I want to go home. I have missed my grandma so much," says Shi, who was brought up from birth by his grandparents.

It's been 11 days since he left his hometown, Danzhai County of Guizhou, for six days of traveling in neighboring Yunnan Province with his sister, his nephew and Chen.

It would have been the perfect trip, but for what happened when they were waiting for the train back to Guizhou in Kunming station.

"The attack took only one or two seconds. I felt something put into my body, but it wasn't until I felt the coldness of metal that I realized it was a knife. It hurt terribly," Shi recalls.

Out of instinct, he started to run out of the station, where a bus picked him up and took him and other injured people to hospital. The rest of his family was lost in the terrified crowds.

"I told myself all the way 'don't be afraid, you can't fall down. If you do, you will never get up'," Shi says, with a smile of victory spreading across his lips.

The family reunited at around 8 a.m. on Sunday. His three traveling companions stayed overnight in the station, which was closed till around 7 a.m.