“Taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive,” I read aloud from the exhibit standing before me.
It depicted within a column glass display a diorama model of a wooden coffin submerged underneath a layer of soil and veiny grassroots. Within the see-through model, a tiny wax figure of a middle-aged woman wearing a colonial dress can be seen with bulging, petrified eyes from an awakened state of panic, her hands raised and her palms turned upward.
“Ugh,” I shuddered, teeth clenched. I further read, “In the 17th and 18th centuries, some medical procedures involved using pair of pliers to pull at the tongue, a procedure known as ‘tongue-pulling,’ as a method to ensure that the patient was truly dead.”
“Lovely,” my friend Denise shot her sarcasm, standing just a few exhibits away from me.
I read on. “In fact, fears of being buried alive became so severe through the United States and Europe during the mid to late 19th century, that security coffins began being built, accompanied with an air pipe for the victim (in case of unexpected resurrection) could yell and call for help, a bell to be rung, or the raising of a flag to alert the living nearby.”
“That’s if you don’t run out of air first,” Denise commented.
“Oh gosh, why’d you have to mention that?” I replied, getting even more freaked out by the idea. If that one scene from Kill Bill, Vol. 2 wasn’t enough to make me scared of being trapped six feet underneath then I don’t know what was.
Denise chuckled. “Sorry, just didn’t wanna get your hopes up too much,” she said with a mischievous smirk. “At least it beats thalassophobia.”
“True.”
The thalassophobia display depicted an oil painting of fishermen at sea whose ship had been tipped over during a bad storm, sending several men into the water. If that wasn’t scary enough, submerged underneath the murky depths sat the menacing silhouette of a monstrous sea creature waiting for them below, packing a giant pair of tentacles and glowing yellow eyes. That one sent chills down my spine. It was almost just as chilling as the ommetaphobia display (fear of eyes) that contained countless fake eyeballs clustered together into one culmination of a scrambled, freakish mess that stared right back at you. I surely don’t have ommetaphobia, but I could see myself catching it if I stared at that exhibit any longer.
“But you know what’s really bad?” Denise said. I tilted my head awaiting her answer. “Arachibutyrophobia,” she revealed, pointing her finger at the display before her.
“Hmm?” I responded, puzzled.
After I walked over next to her and took a lot at the same exhibit, I then knew she couldn’t be serious.
I laughed and scoffed, “What the hell?”
“Yeah, pretty scary, right?” Denise smiled, pointing at the reading and trying to take the joke seriously as possible.
“Fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth,” I read. I then dully remarked, “Mmm, terrifying.”
“Scarier than anything out of Stephen King, if you ask me,” Denise joked.
“Yeah, very.”
We initially didn’t plan on paying a visit to The Phobia Museum during our stay in Prague. It was simply something we stumbled upon and had no clue of its existence prior. Denise and I were American students studying abroad in Germany; I’m majoring in Biology, and she in Biochemistry. That may sound smart to many folks when starting conversations, but no one said the shit was easy. Our professor even told us on the first day during the introduction that there is a 60% fail rate for the course. And that’s not even counting the language barrier on top of the studying hours needed to be put in.
But that was expected. I went in with the mentality of understanding that college was going to be a bit tougher and more rigid than grade school. Aside from that, what more could two best friends ask for? We were studying abroad in freaking Europe! Traveling to different countries used to be something I could dream of and here we are actually doing the damn thing. Our first trip outside of Munich was to Paris, and now we were knocking out the Czech Republic with Prague. Next one we had planned was Naples in Italy, I think, but that’s still kind of up in the air for us. The beauty of living in Europe is that once in your one country, it’s very easy to travel to the rest since the continent is so condensed. Traveling between countries in Europe was like traveling between cities in the states, at least figuratively.
What I both noticed and admired so far about Europe was how each country had its own unique sort of look and appeal. The architecture of Prague very much stood out on its own. Each landmark told its own story, from the Charlies Bridge, to the Astronomical Clock in Old Town, and the Prague Castle dating all the way back to the 9th century. It was like stepping into a storybook. The most interesting exhibit I think Denise and I agreed on was the Sex Machines Museum in Old Town. It was very… interesting, to say the least. One thing’s for sure, my mind and perspective were ‘opened’ in ways that probably could’ve been better left unopened. But I digress.
The Phobia Museum was a newly-built exhibit located in Old Town. Ironic, isn’t it? It wasn’t actually that much further of a walk from the sex museum and the astronomical clock. It was almost sort of hidden, oddly enough, yet the structure seemed relatively larger on the inside than the outside. It seemed interesting enough for the both of us, so we figured why not? It was especially interesting during October since they were apparently putting on a special sort of haunted house attraction, where apparently, if you made it through all ‘Seven Levels of Fear,’ as they advertised, you could win 125,000 Czech crowns (or korunas), which was roughly the equivalent of 5,000 U.S. dollars in cash.
“C’mon, stop being a chicken and win this money with me, girl!” Denise begged, pulling on my sleeve.
“Why can’t I just watch and cheer you on?” I pleaded.
“Cheer me on from where?! It’s a closed-off attraction.”
“They have cameras?” I shrugged.
“Really?”
“I really don’t wanna do this, the rest of the museum is cool enough as it is, let’s just explore more if we haven’t already.”
“We’ve seen just about everything, but nice try. The rest down the hall over there is the bathrooms, Slick Rick.”
“Okay, okay, you got me.”
“C’mon, think about it. That’s 5,000 dollars! Do you know what we could do with that money?”
“Um, do more traveling? I mean, it’s not like we have to worry about tuition payments or loans or anything.”
“Exactly. Do. More. Traveling. Duh! And tons more.”
“I mean, we’ve only been here for like a year now, and we’ll have plenty of time to do some more in the coming months.”
“Anna darling, you literally just were talking to me about how you weren’t sure about going to Naples in March because you were a bit tight on money,” Denise said as she lifted her hand, rubbing her index finger over her thumb and middle finger, signaling the money gesture. “You did say the cost for your flat getting tight, and on top of groceries? It’s just a haunted house! This shit will be an easy 5K just like that!”
An ‘easy’ 5K…
“Do you really think it’ll be that easy if there’s 5K prize money involved?” I proposed.
Denise shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re Americans. To them, it’s probably not as serious as it is to us. You know, us greedy, scumbag Americans?”
“God,” I smiled, shaking my head and rolling my eyes at her silliness.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The only worker in attendance today was old and had folds of wrinkles over the skin of his face, crow’s feet and all. Like many of the locals in the city, he was quite tall, too; I’d guess about 6’4 currently, but probably 6’7 during his prime. His eyes were greyish blue and his hairline far receded in his old age.
He presented us with some papers beforehand, then quickly pulled them away.
“Oh, sorry, those are not in English,” he apologized.
Then pulled out the proper ones in English and handed them for us to sign. He gave us time to read them over, but explained in layman’s terms.
“You are just signing that you understand this is a haunted house attraction where you are going inside with the intention to be scared,” he explained each word slowly with super emphasized enunciation, then with a little laugh at the end. “And also, any possibility of injury may be at your own expense, and we may not be responsible for any injury.”
Denise and I exchanged a short look, then looked back down at the papers. I never signed a waiver for a haunted house before. I guess the business was taking special precautions against certain foreigners with a tendency to sue? Like Denise said, we were Americans after all, and maybe the man had a certain impression of us beforehand, whether or not in our favor.
“You sure about this?” I said to her.
Denise scrunched her nose, as if she were now starting to have second thoughts, even though just a moment ago she was all for it.
“Fuck it,” she said, signing the bottom of the paper.
“You read all that?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m a fast reader,” she replied, handing the paper back to the man, who gave her a very tight, broad smile. “It’s pretty much like with companies in the states. In case of any injury or hell, death, you can’t be guaranteed to sue and be compensated for anything if you already go in assuming some level of risk, and yada, yada. Basic legality shit, not too much different from the states.”
“Yes,” the old man nodded.
My pen in hand hovered over the dotted line on the piece of paper. The way Denise explained it made sense, in a way. At least, she made it come off as so. In the back of my mind, something still felt weird about this. Not necessarily just the haunted house, but the whole fact that we were here at all doing this. We weren’t planning on coming here today, and it was our last day in the country. Yesterday we did it all, it seemed, hit up some prominent landmarks, and then ended the night with a bang at the Karlovy Lazne nightclub where we got shitfaced. Thankfully, Denise brought the last bit of her anti-hangover pills, which worked enough, but I still had to drink plenty of water to shake the feeling off.
It all felt so strange to end the day here before catching the train back to Munich. I don’t know why. It just did. I wanted to walk around and shop some more near the markets in New Town or something.
In one single stroke and four fancy swivels of the pen, I went ahead and signed my signature on the dotted line and handed it to the man. I groaned in instant regret. I really wasn’t looking forward to this. Denise was right, I was a pussy, and I didn’t give a damn if it was true. This was her type of thing, obviously, and I was the cowardly one.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” she nudged me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I not-so-enthusiastically voiced.
“Don’t worry, we’ll have fun, I promise - I’ll make it fun,” she tried to cheer me up.
Even though we contrasted personality-wise at times, Denise always had my back. I had to give it to her for that alone.
The old man then clapped his hands together.
“All right, now, before we begin, let us make sure we understand that in order to win the prize money, you must make it to the very end. Yes? The very last level.”
We both nodded.
He continued. “There are seven levels you must make it through, each one more scary than the last.”
He gave that wicked smile of his again. I guess he was trying to be funny and cute, but really, he should stop doing that. It was low-key creeping me out. Denise gave me an excited look at the sound of the levels getting scarier, though.
“All you must do is make it through each room without quitting,” he went on. “If you decide to quit, you lose out on the money. There are six emergency exit doors within each course on the sides of the rooms. Some rooms are bigger than the rest, but you will see the glowing green ‘EXIT’ signs above. If you feel the need to forfeit or must leave at any point, please simply exit through the doors and follow the halls back to the building lobby. Okay?”
We nodded again.
“Okay, now, are you ladies ready?” he said.
“Oh yes,” Denise smiled. She looked to me. “You ready?”
“How long is the whole thing?” I asked.
“Uh, it should be no more than an hour,” the man answered.
“Mmmm,” I groaned.
“Uh, yeah, we’re gonna make it through in like 30 minutes,” Denise spoke confidently. “We’re gonna speedrun this thing, right, Anna?”
I threw up my hands in defeat. “Ya know what, you just lead the way, yeah?”
“Fine by me, sis.”
The man clapped his hands together again. “Okay, perfect!”
Behind him were two large wooden doors with rusty old, dark metal handles that curved into the shape of either snakes or lions - it was hard to tell. With his wrinkly frail hand, he pulled open the left door and waved for us to enter.
“Please, ladies, please enjoy. Have fun and..” - he leaned forward a tad bit - “Good luck!” he finished with that crooked smile.
As he shut the door behind us, ahead stood another door with a sleek metal plaque nailed over it, and an art depiction of a freakishly distorted, sinister-looking clown. I didn’t even have to read the text over the sign to figure out what this level would entail.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LEVEL 1
COULROPHOBIA: FEAR OF CLOWNS
The first thing we were met with once Denise stepped through first - of course, she was absolutely going to be taking the lead - was a colorfully-decorated hallway that I’d compare to a funhouse. The faint instrumentation of carnival music danced through the air. And to top it all off (‘cause why not?) a countless display of jester mannequin heads draped all over the walls, some small and some large, some full-body mannequin displays and some just the upper halves. Unlike the clowns we were used to seeing in America, with a big red nose or giant boots and oversized, inflated pants, these clowns were more, I guess you could say, European. They reminded me of seeing pictures and videos of Carnevale in Venice, and the hundreds of masquerade costumes and dresses that filled the streets. But those costumes were actually pretty and stylish. These ones were… downright creepy.
Some of their faces were wide open with teeth in an oddly contorted fashion. One had their head tilted and jaw shifted over a bit too far on one side, yet their eyes still pierced through my soul and their eyebrows only accentuated the malevolent expression.
“Ooh, these are sick, huh?” Denise said in an amused voice, giving me a look of approval. She knew damn well-
“‘Sick’ in which connotation?” I remarked.
She shrugged both shoulders up and down, alternating. “Uh, I mean…” she said, then trailed off.
At the end of a hall was a turning point, which led down to another corridor. But as we continued stepping through, the light began to dim, making it much harder to see what awaited us around the corner. Denise chortled with excitement and anticipation. My anticipation wasn’t with excitement, however, and I closely hid behind her.
“God, why did I agree to this?” I whined.
“C’mon, girl, don’t be such a-”
A clown head display from the wall sprung out like a cuckoo clock, emitting a mechanical wicked cackle almost like Billy the Puppet’s from Saw. We both immediately jumped and screamed, but I’m sure mine sounded more petrified than Denise’s. She was living for this.
“Holy shit!” she laughed.
“Fucking shit!” I cursed.
“C’mon, let’s keep going.”
I really didn’t want to. As we approached closer to the end of the hall, we saw within the darkness that the faint luminescence of a green light began to shine just around the corner. Once we bravely inched closer, we saw that the source of the light were four clear letters spelling the word ‘EXIT.’ That was the first exit door.
“Change your mind yet?” Denise asked.
“Hell yes,” I said, mostly serious.
“Now Anna, I raised you better than that,” she joked.
I sighed, but kept my grip around both her shoulders for protection. As bad as I felt, she was going to have to be my human shield if I was to get through this hellhole.
“It was only the first scare,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sold, they got me,” I trembled.
“Let’s keep going, c’mon,” she encouraged, taking my hand like I was her child.
We walked past the first exit door and continued around the corner. Across the corridor ahead, we could barely see anything, but I could make out that it was another funhouse-style interior design shaped in a tube-like tunnel. Once we took seven solid steps forward, a clown mannequin swung down in front of us from the ceiling, hanging upside down with its arms spread out in a boo scare position.
Of course, I screamed like a little girl again, while Denise let out another laughed-scream. The remainder of that corridor was pretty much set up that way, with random clowns suspended from the ceiling dropping down at you from any minute. I see that’s why they dimmed the tube so much, to prevent you from being able to look up and expect where they’ll come from. It was clever, I’ll give ‘em that.
Next was the mirror maze, ‘cause of course, what funhouse didn’t have a mirror maze.
“Oh damn, I suck at these,” Denise said.
“Really?” I replied. “I was a… sort of a beast at these things as a kid.”
I was trying not to tremble underneath my breath while at the same time trying to let Denise know that I truly was indeed a pro at getting through the mirror maze. Don’t know why, I was always sort of good at it as a kid whenever a fair was going on and we went through one.
“Maybe I should follow you this time?” she looked at me with a big smile.
“Haha-no,” I shot down. She chuckled.
“Worth a shot.”
I key was to just reach your hands out front in a big ‘C’ or ‘U’ motion to feel for what was glass and what was air. And of course, never try to run or move too fast. I don’t need Denise telling any more embarrassing stories about me as she already has to the rest of our peers.
So far so good, we were making our way through at about five feet, which doesn’t sound like much but it was actually pretty good progress for a mirror maze. This one was extremely complex, however, as it didn’t just move in slanted triangle shapes, but it even curved in all sorts of jumbled directions. I really had to focus on this one.
Then I heard a thump right in front of me, followed by a “Fuck!” from Denise. I covered my hand over my mouth as I tried to suppress my snorted laugh. She bumped her head on the glass.
“Ow!” Denise laughed, taking it like a champ, but still rubbing her head from pain.
“I told you not to move so fast,” I said through my giggles.
“I thought it was clear, I swear!”
Then, in the midst of my laughter, the lights suddenly dimmed to near-pitch black, then slowly back on again, then repeated a few more times before transitioning into a complete strobe effect, flashing on and off repeatedly in rapid sessions. And to accompany the horror-flash effect, louder carnival music began to blare through my ears.
And then I just remembered…
“Oh fuck,” I whispered. “Denise, are you okay?”
Through the short bursts of visibility I could make out of her ahead, I saw her still holding her head down and her hand raised, but I didn’t think it was from hitting her head this time. It was from her photosensitive epilepsy.
“Yeah…” I heard her respond in a low voice. I could tell she was struggling a bit.
“Hang on, I’m coming,” I called to her.
I was amazed at how far ahead of me she was. Guess I lost her in the midst of the darkness. But seriously, what kind of haunted house attraction would have such a strong strobe light effect, one so intense without even considering the possibility of anyone-
As I grabbed one corner of the class to keep pushing myself forward, I felt the brush of a band touch my fingertips. In a swift panic, I jerked my hand back as a short gasped breath escaped my lungs. No way that was Denise. She was still in front of me, as I could tell, and there was no way she could just magically teleport over to my side.
But when I went back to face her, in the reflection of mirrors, I could see not only were her and I’s bodies scattered endlessly throughout the maze, but I could see what looked to be a third… and then a fourth silhouette. Their heads were topped with starfish-shaped arms hanging out tipped with bells on each end. I saw one was crouched, and when the lights came back on consecutively, I could make out that their faces were of jesters, sporting wicked grins with bright yellow teeth and twisted eyes.
“Denise!” I screamed.
“What?” she said.
“Watch out!”
I was about a foot away from her now, and was just about to grab her until it was my turn to make the clumsy mistake of running into the glass. Shit. Now was not the time to start making mistakes. My friend might actually be in trouble this time. I reached my arms out in all sides, frantically feeling for the opening. I reached my arm out to the left, and while I didn’t touch glass, I touched a shoulder. It wasn’t Denise’s.
In a flash of light, a medieval clown jumped at me with arms outreached.
“Aaaah!” the jester horridly shrieked to get a reaction out of me.
Oh it fucking worked. I lunged back, knocking myself into a wall of glass, and instinctually ran to the right for some intuitive reason, somehow knowing that would be my way out of this corner I was caught in, and made my way over to my friend in distress. I immediately cupped both hands around her shoulders, which made her jump and scream.
“Denise, are you okay?!” I asked her, panicked. I knew the clown was still right behind us, and we didn’t have much time. “C’mon, we have to go!”
Now, she really was going to have to follow my lead this time. From what I recall, Denise told me it only happened on one occasion where she actually had a negative reaction to flashing lights that put her into a seizure. She told me that not many people actually have photosensitive epilepsy, but it was still possible and important to take precautions when necessary. That’s why she always covered her eyes or looked down whenever we were at a nightclub where lights could change in the blink of an eye (no pun intended) and begin flashing sporadically and in quick succession.
She hugged her arm over my shoulder as I led the way, doing the best I could to navigate through the nightmare maze. The other clowns’ reflections began to appear closer with every step and every millisecond between each corresponding flash. One of them had a knife pointed downwards in their hand, at least, that’s what it looked like in the midst of the chaos.
The music began blaring even louder, it felt like. With my arm reached out front and shifting left and right like a malfunctioning mechanical arm, my hand knocked against countless walls of mirrors, leaving that annoying thumping noise, which I’m sure bothered Denise more than it did me at the moment.
Then I started noticing a change in color emitting from one corner of the maze. A faint green light. The exit.
I knew Denise would be pissed, but she could drag me later for it. Right now, her health was at stake. Last thing I needed was her fainting on me or worse. I followed the path towards the light as best as I could. The green radiance began to grow, telling me I was getting much closer. We moved in a zig-zagged-like pattern around duplicates of ourselves staring back at us, my own face looking me in my eyes scared out of my mind.
I felt one space to my left that was open, and quickly pulled Denise along.
Boo!
Another clown was waiting just around that corner. He was tall, too, and had a red-painted face with white paint around his lips and eye area. Holy fuck, he looked scary as hell.
“God, would you fucking quit it, my friend needs help!” I angrily shouted, no longer scared for my sake, but for Denise’s.
But the clown seemed to be ignoring me and refused to let me through that side. The motherfucker was the only thing standing between us and the path toward the exit. I saw the clown reach under the breast pocket of its striped suit and pull out an object with a glistening silver between the intermittent flashes of light and darkness about eight inches tall, holding it upside down as it gripped the handle. A knife.
“Shit, c’mon, Denise!” I pulled her in the opposite direction as I tried my best not to stumble for even a moment.
This shit was no longer a fun house - I don’t even know why they call it that - and this certainly wasn’t anything worthy of any type of ‘Level 1’ for any competition. This was too much for either one of us. Surely, that knife had to be fake. There was no way…
That being said, that indisputable sensation that gushed through my nerves, lunged all through my throat and chest, reminded me of the same sensation I’d got only in one other instance when I was 15 years old and helpless…
At that moment, I swore to only one realization, knowing who my dad was and after I could no longer hear my mom put up a fight. I was going to die. It’s a feeling you can’t quite shake off, and one that we’ve evolved to recognize to keep us alive in the future.
Even though this was a ‘game,’ even though this was just a fun challenge to win some money in the end, I can’t help feeling drowned by that exact sensation I’d felt years ago, at this very instance. This was the only other time it’d returned. That was enough to tell me that perhaps this wasn’t just a game. That if Denise and I didn’t make it out of here, we were going to die.
The only good that came out of that fight or flight response, however, turned out to be the only thing that was keeping me going. Adrenaline.
If I could hyperfocus as hard as I was now every time, I wouldn’t have to stress ever again about passing a final exam. The endless layers of mirror and the duplicates of clowns surrounding us began to play in my mind more and more like a puzzle piece that I just had to get ourselves out of. As terrified as I was, I couldn’t afford to let that stop me.
And at last, ahead began to appear another luminesce amid the white flashing chaos. This time, instead of a green illumination of the exit sign, there appeared a yellow vibrance that grew bigger as we kept pushing forward. As I made it around another convoluted pathway, I saw the muddled but undeniable words “FINISH!” spelled out in bright neon yellow, and could draw out the outline of what could only be a door underneath.
That was the checkpoint. I couldn’t believe it for a second. That was our way out. So relieved and mesmerized by the bright lights, I instantly snapped out of it when the scream of another clown from the side came charging at me with a blade. I jerked the two of us just out of its path, feeling the metal brush just across my shoulder.
“Denise, it’s just up ahead! Let’s go!” I encouraged.
“Uh-huh,” she responded, still keeping her head down and eyes partially veiled from the bright flashes. “I trust you.”
She was taking this much better than I ever could’ve. Had the roles been reversed, Denise would have probably fought back herself and given some of these clowns a black eye or bloody noses to go with their makeup. Had there been absolutely no choice but to fight between ‘fight or flight,’ she knows I’d do the same for her. But even for me, the strobe lights were becoming too intense. I was beginning to slow down and get an eyesore. If we stayed any longer…
The exit was nearly arm’s reach away now. Keeping Denise huddled close next to me, I reached for the door first and swung it open. Just from behind, like a bat out of hell, a freakishly distorted jester crawling on all fours raced at us. But I don’t know how she saw, but Denise kicked the shit out of it right in the face, leaving that bitch seething in pain and hopefully with a broken nose.
“Get the fuck back!” she growled.
“C’mon, c’mon!” I hastily pulled her into the other side of the door with me, before immediately shutting it behind us.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We found ourselves in a small waiting room of sorts, closed in by decrepit, aged walls and a checkered-pattern floor. The faint buzz of a single fluorescent light beam lined the ceiling. On the left side of us stood a door, with the green neon sign marked ‘EXIT’ perched above.
I held onto Denise, keeping my arm wrapped around her for support.
“You okay?” I asked her. “Denise? Just breathe, okay? Take a second to catch your breath. I’m right here.”
“Yes, mom,” she replied with that classic Denise sarcasm in her infliction.
I smiled, at least knowing that she was all right. Thank whatever god there was.
“I’m sorry, I know this sounded fun to you and all, but we need to get the fuck out of here,” I insisted. “The exit door’s right there.”
Denise said nothing as she rubbed her eyes.
“There’s a shit ton of other things we can do in Prague besides damn near getting our asses killed by some clowns,” I continued.
She then started stretching open her eyes large and wide, blinking multiple times to set her vision back.
“Denise?” I pressed, waiting for her feedback.
“It’s just a haunted house, Anna,” Denise spoke at last. “They can’t kill us. That’d be illegal.”
I opened my mouth about to speak, but was nearly at a loss for words. She did have a point, yes, but what I felt back there…
“Denise, I don’t- I don’t know,” I stammered. “There was something back there I felt, something about being in there that just didn’t feel right to me. It felt like it was way too intense. Hell, I had to drag you out of there myself, otherwise you would’ve - I don’t know, fainted or something. Those lights were flashing way too bright and way too fast.”
“Wasn’t that much worse from some of the ones in the club last night,” Denise facetiously remarked.
“Denise.”
She threw her head back, looking up to the ceiling as she heaved a big sigh.
“Anna, if you want to leave, you can, it’s no problem, seriously,” she said to me.
I couldn’t believe her.
“What?” I exclaimed.
“You can wait for me outside if you want, or you can go get some trdelníks down the street, I don’t care. But I’m gonna keep going.”
“Denise, you damn risked your life back there - I damn near risked my life in there with you! I’m starting to think those waivers we signed were a liability for them to have permission to legally murder us or some shit!”
“Look, I need the money, Anna,” Denise faced me with both hands clasped, dead serious.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “The prize money?”
“Yeah, the 5,000 dollars. I need it.”
“… Denise, what’s going on? Why do you need money so bad?”
She stood with her back against the wall as she looked up to the ceiling again, frustration in her eyes.
“My dumbass, incompetent brother caught me in a bind, financially,” she explained, shaking her head. “He’s always trying to take shortcuts, always trying to find a way to ‘beat the system.’ He got caught in a Ponzi scheme a while back, like back last December, even though I told his ass not to get involved. But does he ever listen?” She scoffed. “Now come to find out, a couple weeks ago, after I let him stay with me for those two months, remember that?” I nodded. “Well, this bitch went behind my back and stole 3,000 dollars from me and put more into the investment. How? I don’t know, but he fucking did, and now I’m not sure how much longer I can afford to stay overseas and keep studying abroad.”
And to think all this time, we were just having a good time with no cares in the world. I presumed at least one of us was.
“Fuck, Denise,” I sympathized.
“I know,” she nodded. “I don’t have many other options besides dropping out of school and living back with my mom in Mayland. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t wanna ruin the trip, and I didn’t want you to pity me over my bullshit.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You’ve told me much worse. You’re my friend, Denise. And that’s not what’s gonna ruin anything between us.”
She looked me in the eye.
“Uh- that’s not going to ruin anything between us,” I corrected instantly. “You know?”
Denise gave me a faint smile, but I could tell it was genuine.
“Thanks, Anna,” she said.
There was an awkward moment of silence between us. All I could do was keep looking at the exit door.
“So you’re gonna really try and finish this thing, huh?” I spoke.
“Like I said, you’re more than welcome to go without me,” she stated. “I just really need this money. It might be the only thing to keep me afloat in the meantime, and to get me out of the mess my dipshit brother caused.”
After going through all the shit we’d just witnessed in that funhouse back there, and to think that was only Level 1, there was no fucking way she was expecting to get through this alone. As much as I wanted to quit, and she knows good and well I wanted to, Denise knew I couldn’t just leave her here.
I shook my head.
“C’mon, let’s do this,” I proclaimed. “Who’s going to carry you around if there’s any more strobe lights that trigger your epilepsy?”
She chortled for a brief second. “True,” she said.
Ahead of us stood another door, and like the first one, labeled with words marked to indicate the next obstacle that lay ahead. But as with the coulrophobia door, I could already make out the phobia that awaited us on the other side by looking at the illustration of two intertwined serpents, their razor-sharp fangs and pointed forked tongues engraved into the door.