I wouldn’t fault you for not knowing what aerial is – I’ve had someone think I was talking about the font style from Microsoft word. It’s hard to describe without showing you a video of me doing it, but a decent comparison would be to say you have a hoop suspended from the ceiling on silk ropes, and you do gymnastics on it. It’s not a great description, but hey, you have Google and YouTube, I’m sure you can figure it out if you’re really curious.
The reason I’m writing this account is to warn you to stay away from Fielding Studio in Edmonton Alberta. I’m not even sure if what I experienced really happened, or if it was some kind of crazy hallucination or dream – but when I wake up the bruises and cuts are still on my arms and legs… so it must have been real.
I live downtown, but the studio I used to practice at is far on the south side of town, so I didn’t get to practice nearly as much as I wanted to. Given that, I was thrilled when I was walking just a block away from my apartment and saw a sign in a window that advertised a new studio was opening up. I followed “FieldingStudioYEG” on Instagram and saw that they were planning to open only a week from now. I liked a few of the posts advertising their grand opening, and went about my day.
A week came and went, and busy with work and school I had almost forgotten about the new studio – until a post announcing that they were now open for business showed up on my feed. My excitement from a week ago came back to me and I made a mental note to visit them sometime soon. Checking their hours, I was surprised to see that they were open from seven in the morning until midnight, every day. While this might be normal for a gym or a gas station, I had never seen a studio open with hours like this, but I was glad that I would be able to fit a session in almost anytime I wanted.
It was another three days before I managed to find the time in my schedule to make it down to Fieldings. It was shortly after dinner – around seven o’clock if I remember correctly, when I packed up my bag and set out to walk to the studio for a quick session. I arrived and stepped into the lobby, where a woman who looked to be in her thirties was sat behind a desk, eyes fixed on her computer. She looked up and smiled as I entered.
“Hi there, how can I help you?” She asked.
“Just wondering what your rates for drop-in sessions are.” I asked, returning her smile.
“I’ve got a pricing sheet right here, have a look!” She said, handing me a laminated sheet of paper that detailed the rates for the various classes offered here.
The prices were surprisingly cheap, so I paid the drop-in fee and went off to the change room. I emerged back into the main room of the studio and was well impressed by it. If you’ve never been to one of these before, it’s essentially just a huge open room – mats cover the floor and mirrors line the walls all the way around. Coloured strips of silk cloth hang from the ceiling above the mats, and in the corner are stacked the hoops that you use.
I found a spot for myself and set everything up – I spent about an hour there in total, which includes all the warmup and whatnot. It felt great to get back into my favourite hobby again, and I felt revived and happy as I walked home. The hours of the studio were great, as was the cost – in hindsight I wished that I had remembered the concept of ‘too good to be true’, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
The next month passed like any other – school, work, time with friends, and when I could make time, indulging myself down at Fieldings. Towards the end of that month, I had gone through a little bit of personal drama which I won’t get into, but I hadn’t been feeling the best, and was having to force myself into doing most things.
It was a Thursday night. I had been feeling drained all day but got one of those random bursts of inspiration that you tend to get after the sun has gone down, and I forced myself to my feet and decided that a good workout and some aching muscles would fix me. It was late at night, so I thanked the stars that Fieldings was always open until midnight. I packed up my change of clothes and walked down to the studio.
The same woman who had been there my first day was still there, and oddly enough was the only one who I had ever seen working there. She gave me her usual smile, and I scanned in with the membership I had since bought. I changed and began my routine.
There was only one other girl there when I had started, who seemed busy with some beginner exercises, so I threw in my headphones and paid her no mind. I had a fantastic time that night, the silks just seemed… alive, and all my moves were flowing beautifully from one to the next. I felt happier than I had in a while as I was cleaning up my spot, and I returned to the change room smiling to myself.
As I left the change room, I noticed that all of the silks hanging from the ceiling were slightly, listlessly, silently swaying back and forth in the studio. While it hadn’t crossed my mind at the time, I should have realized that something was odd – the studio had no windows and no air conditioner powerful enough to cause them to move.
I had made it about halfway home when I realized to my horror that I had left my watch on the bench in the change room. I checked the time on my phone, and having some time to spare before closing, I jogged quickly back to Fieldings, pushing the door open and stumbling into the lobby.
It was dead silent in the building, and the woman who was usually at the desk was nowhere to be found. I ignored it and turned into the changing room, where I found my watch still laying on the bench in-between all the lockers. I strapped it back on and went back into the lobby. I was almost at the door when I heard a bizarre sound coming from the main area of the studio that sounded like someone shouting through a cloth.
I walked slowly to the main room of the studio and peered into the hall. I was instantly horrified when I saw the girl who had been practicing earlier snared in one of the silks. The silk had somehow wrapped itself around her and was covering her face, and she was struggling to get it off, ripping at the cloth with her hands that were gradually becoming tangled into the silk.
I sprinted over towards her and threw myself into a kneeling position on the mat, yanking the cloth away from her face. Her eyes were filled with terror as she locked her gazed with mine. I had expected to find her relieved, but she simply pointed behind me and screamed.
I whipped my head around to follow her finger, just in time to see that one of the silks hanging from the ceiling was swinging with alarming speed towards me. I tried to throw myself down onto the ground, but the silk cloth caught me around the arm and tightened into a vice-like grip. I was both stunned and confused at the same time, as I struggled with my free hand to wrench the cloth off of me, but it would barely budge, almost like it was holding onto me somehow.
My heart was racing, adrenaline coursing through my veins, as I shakily opened the gym bang I had slung around my shoulder to find the knife I carried – It’s downtown Edmonton, and late at night, so I always made a point to have one on me in case something terrible happened.
I pulled the blade free of it’s covering and slashed at the silk that held me by the arm – the cut wasn’t deep but the silk responded as if it was alive, and flew away from me in what seemed to be some sort of animalistic reaction to pain.
I turned around, knife in hand, to see that the girl had been re-enveloped by two more bands of silk. I stabbed at them and they relaxed their grip on her enough for her to fall back on the floor, panting and with tears rolling down her face. I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet.
“Let’s go!” I yelled as I pulled her after me. All the silks in the room were now either twisting and swaying violently or poised like some sort of snake preparing to strike. I held my knife in one hand and the strange girl in the other as I sprinted towards the door.
She must have either been too scared or I was running too fast, because she tripped over her own feet and landed face first onto the ground with a loud thud. I turned around to help her back up when the world spun around me and I was wrenched off my feet and sent sprawling onto the ground beside her.
There was an iron like grip on my ankle, and I twisted myself around to see that one of the cloths had wrapped itself around my ankle. I sliced it halfway through just inches above my foot and the silk recoiled in some strange inanimate anger. I staggered to my feet and turned to see that the girl who had fallen had been entangled by three of the silks, and was being quickly dragged from the ground into the air by her feet.
She was too high up for my knife to reach by that point, and my flight or fight response was racing. I wish I could say I tried to help her… but I didn’t… I ran. I turned and ran for the door of the building, stabbing at any of the silks that swayed even remotely close to me.
I reached the entrance of the studio’s main hall, and turned, gaping in horror at the scene that lay before me. The girl had been dragged up to the top of the high ceiling of the studio’s hall, and all of the silks in the room had converged on the point where she was being held.
All I could see was a thrashing, humanoid shape writhing about in the cocoon of silk for a few moments, before the cloths began to wriggle and squirm in a disgusting, almost intestinal manner. Thirty seconds later, the silks went still, and they burst open all at once like a flower blooming in the morning. They all returned to their normal hanging place – clean and spotless aside from the rips and cuts I had given to a few of them.
What fell out of the midst of the silks, however, is something I’ll never forget – a pile of bones, still smeared red, had fallen from the centre of the cloth flower, and clattered onto the ground in the centre of the studio.
I stood in stunned silence for what must have been minutes but felt like hours, gazing alternatively between the silent hanging silks and the silent red bones. A wave of terror crashed over me, and I ran from the building, sprinting home to my apartment, where I splashed my face with water and stared at myself in the mirror for half an hour wondering if I was crazy.
I couldn’t think of anywhere else to post this account. I don’t know what I saw that night or what exactly happened… but I have marks to prove it’s real. It seems so fake and yet I know what I saw happened. I just don’t know what to do now.
I guess all I can say is, stay away from Fielding Studio.