Pretoria, South Africa (CNN) -- The drama in the murder trial of South Africa's one-time golden boy Oscar Pistorius promises to be as intense Tuesday as it was on its opening day.
The trial started Monday with riveting testimony about a woman's terrified screams followed by gunshots.
The first witness in the hotly anticipated case testified to having been awakened by the screaming on the night that Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, last year.
'Something terrible was happening at that house,' neighbor Michelle Burger testified, calling the shouts and screams 'petrifying.'
Pistorius admits he killed Steenkamp but pleaded not guilty on Monday, saying that he believed he was shooting a burglar in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year. He only realized after firing four shots that his girlfriend was not in bed but in the bathroom he was firing at, his defense team said on his behalf Monday.
The case has fascinated South Africa and much of the world, with its high-profile defendant, the double-amputee track star so talented that he competed not only in the Paralympics but against able-bodied runners in the Olympics two years ago.
Burger, who lives several hundred yards from where the killing took place, was the only witness Monday and is expected to continue testifying on Tuesday.
Under questioning by prosecutor Gerrie Nel, Burger told the court that she heard a woman's screams and a man yelling for help.
'Just after 3, I woke up from a woman's terrible screams,' she said. 'Then I also heard a man screaming for help. Three times he yelled for help.'
She assumed a nearby home was being invaded by criminals.
She later told her husband that she feared the woman had witnessed her husband being shot 'because after he screamed, we didn't hear him.'
One of Pistorius' lawyers, Barry Roux, spent hours hammering Burger with questions during cross-examination, demanding repeatedly if there could have been shots before she woke up, if she was sure about the sequence of events, and her knowledge of guns.
He asked if the 'bang' sounds she heard might not have been gunshots, but rather a cricket bat bashing at a bathroom door.
She answered that she had clearly heard gunshots, testily answering Roux's questions about how much time had elapsed between them, saying she 'didn't sit there with a stopwatch and take down the timing of each shot.'
Despite the deadly serious subject of the trial, there were lighter moments, such as when Roux asserted that when Pistorius is anxious, 'it sounds like a woman screaming.'
'I'm 100% certain I heard two different people that evening,' Burger insisted.
There was repeated confusion, irritation and befuddlement over the language Burger testified in. She spoke Afrikaans, her native language and had an interpreter translate her words into English.
Personal essay: What my son taught me about Oscar Pistorius
But she regularly corrected her interpreter's English and had a brief discussion in English with the judge about whether she should testify in that language.
She and the judge agreed she would continue to testify in Afrikaans, but she repeatedly lapsed back into English.
And when defense lawyer Roux quoted her police statement in Afrikaans, raising questions about whether she said she'd heard one scream or many, prosecutor Nel interrupted -- in English -- to object that Roux's line of questioning implied something grammatically impossible in Afrikaans.
He also faces weapons charges
Pistorius pleaded not guilty Monday to all four charges against him, which include weapons charges as well as the accusation he murdered Steenkamp.
It's expected to take at least three weeks for Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa to hear the case and decide whether Pistorius mistook Steenkamp for a burglar or killed her in cold blood.
South Africa abolished jury trials in 1969.
Pistorius faces one charge of murder and a firearms charge associated with Steenkamp's killing, as well as two gun indictments unrelated to Steenkamp.
In South Africa, premeditated murder carries a mandatory life sentence, with a minimum of 25 years. He also could get five years for each gun indictment and 15 years for the firearms charge.
If he isn't convicted of premeditated murder, the sprinter could face a lesser charge of 'culpable homicide,' a crime based on negligence, and could be looking at up to 15 years on that charge, experts say.
Parts of Pistorius' trial are being televised live -- a first in South Africa -- after a judge's decision last week allowing cameras in the courtroom. But witnesses have the option of not having their images televised. Burger took that option, and only her voice was broadcast.
June Steenkamp, Reeva Steenkamp's mother, was in the courtroom for Monday's testimony, marking the first time she had laid eyes on Pistorius in person. The two had never met before.
Steenkamp's parents have avoided previous court appearances because they wanted privacy.
Pistorius' brother and sister were also present for Monday's proceedings.
Dream couple
Pistorius, now 27, and Steenkamp, 29 when she died, were a young, attractive, high-profile couple popular in South Africa's social circles.
Pistorius, nicknamed the 'Blade Runner' because of the special prostheses he uses while running, won six Paralympic gold medals and became the first double-amputee runner to compete in the Olympics, in London in 2012.
READ: Who is 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius?
Cover girl Steenkamp, who was soon to star in a TV reality show, was on the cusp of becoming a celebrity in her own right.
Everything changed before dawn on Valentine's Day 2013, as Steenkamp lay lifeless in a pool of blood on the floor of her boyfriend's house in an upscale gated community in Pretoria.
Moments before, Pistorius says, he had pointed his 9mm pistol toward an upstairs toilet room and fired four bullets through the locked door.
In court documents, Pistorius has said he heard a noise from the bathroom in the middle of the night and -- feeling vulnerable without his prosthetic legs on -- charged toward the bathroom on his stumps.
He has said he shot through the toilet door in order to protect himself and Steenkamp.
READ: Reeva Steenkamp, from model to law graduate
'I felt a sense of terror rushing over me,' he said in his court affidavit. 'There are no burglar bars across the bathroom window, and I knew that contractors who worked at my house had left the ladders outside.'
'It filled me with horror and fear of an intruder or intruders being inside the toilet. I thought he or they must have entered through the unprotected window. As I did not have my prosthetic legs on and felt extremely vulnerable, I knew I had to protect Reeva and myself.'
READ: Oscar Pistorius' affidavit to court in full
Prosecutors are painting a different picture. They say the pair had an argument and that Steenkamp locked herself in the toilet.
At last year's bail hearing, the state said Pistorius put on his prosthetic legs, collected his gun from under the bed and walked down the hall leading from the bedroom to the bathroom before unloading a flurry of shots through the door.
Pistorius is not claiming self-defense; he is claiming to have been mistaken about his need for self-defense. He is denying that he intentionally, unlawfully killed Steenkamp. He has never denied killing her.
The case has put the spotlight on South Africa's rampant gun violence and high crime rates.
Roughly 45 people are murdered every day, according to police statistics, and the number of home burglaries is up 70% in the last decade.
In 2012, more than half of South Africans told the country's police force that they were afraid of having their homes broken into. In his affidavit, Pistorius said he had been the victim of violence and burglaries before, including death threats.
READ: South Africa's legal system in the spotlightREAD: Case highlights South African gun culture
CNN's Robyn Curnow, Nick Thompson, Ashley Fantz and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.
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