Me, a guy, and two girls are walking down a dark, dingy alley at night. One of the girls is excitedly telling us about this awesome new horror experience where you wear a virtual reality headset through a haunted house to create your own horror movie experience. We're all excited, but I can't shake my nerves. Virtual reality is cool and all, but I'm not sure if I can handle a simulated horror movie experience. We round a corner and see a crowd and strobe lights up ahead. This is the line to get in.
The line is so long that we can't even see the entrance to the haunt. At the back of the line, a worker hands us virtual reality headsets. They look more like helmets rather than the typical VR headsets that look like goggles. We're told to put them on because "even in line, the haunted house has begun." The guy eagerly puts his headset on and exclaims that he's SO ready for the scares to happen. Me and one of the girls look at each other apprehensively, but the other girl reassures us that this is awesome and that if we get too scared we can always take our headsets off. I understand the dynamics of our group now: me, the guy, and the girl apprehensive with me are friends, and the other girl is a person we all met recently and don't know well. I don't trust the girl hyping this place up to us, and I have a really bad feeling about the haunted house. I tell the girl that I'll put my helmet on when I go in, but before then I'd like to stay alert to my surroundings. She laughs and calls me a scaredy-cat. I notice she also doesn't have her helmet on.
The guy is excitedly telling us everything he sees. It seems like regular horror-movie stuff, such as ghost people waiting in the crowd and spiders crawling on the walls, but then things take an oddly realistic turn. He tells us he sees a woman without a facemask peddling anti-mask misinformation. At this point, although I don't have my helmet on, I can see the things he's describing. The anti-mask woman grabs a child from the crowd and coughs violently in her face. The girl shrieks then starts to repeat the anti-mask bs to the crowd. I'm very uncomfortable by this. The line begins to move, so we continue forward. I can sort of see where the line ends, but due to the darkness of the alley and the strobe lights, the entrance to the haunt looks like a black abyss into nothing. There is a middle-aged man standing beside us telling us about how "hot" and "beautiful" his girlfriend is. He's holding a photograph of her and looking at it with adoration. I look over at the photograph and see that it's of a girl that looks to be maybe 11 or 12. I realize this is another of the "realistic" horrors- a child predator! I tell the girl this is too much and that I'll wait outside until they are done with the haunt.
We're actually quite close to the entrance now. The girl pleads with me to try it and once again tells me I can always take my helmet off if I decide it's too scary. I refuse. We are now the next in line to enter. A worker at the front tells us to take off our shoes and to put all of our belongings into a provided container. He tells us our items will be returned to us after we exit. I'm considering following orders until I realize the container is a trash can. It's overflowing with purses, shoes, and jackets. I tell my friends that "no one has reclaimed their things" but the other girl reassures me that its part of the haunt. I'm not convinced. The worker at the front tells us we have to go in one at a time for an individualized horror movie experience. I tell the girl that I am absolutely not going in, as this sounds wayyy too intense for me. She reassures me that it will be great. Suddenly, I get a flash of an image of what lies in the dark. The entrance is a huge, white face and the opening is its mouth. It's eyes are opened wide in anticipation, looking ravenously at its next meal. I frantically tell my friends that we HAVE to go, but the guy, egged on by the girl, yells "GERONIMOOOOO!!" and runs in. I hear him scream and see blood oozing from the abyss, then I woke up in a panic!
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