 I love scare mazes. I always have. You know the ones I mean, those live experiences where you walk through rooms with themes like deep south werewolves, zombies, or scary clowns. Actors burst out of dark corners or loom creepily in the middle of a room before vanishing when the lights flicker. You walk through a group and one of you shrieks, the rest of you do, and you laugh in a shared hysteria. The most important rule is you can't touch the actors and they won't touch you no matter how close they seem to get. Like I said, I love them. There's nothing like that combination of moments when you forget that they're an actor when you really suspend disbelief for that briefest time an adrenaline courses through you in the face of danger lunging towards you. Followed up by that exceptional relief, that manic laughter when you rediscover your safety that this is just a game that you and your friends are having fun. I should have said I loved scary mazes because I did before the last one. I had a group of friends who I usually did these things with fellow adrenaline junkies who got as freaked out as I did. We'd been scaring ourselves stupid for years. And there was this one we'd heard about online. I think it was one of those targeted ads, you know, the ones based on your search history or whatever. This one caught my eye immediately. It was called Daedalus and the ad was this mask. It was like a pig's head. But the snout was limp, weak, sort of like a trunk. It was gray and kind of like unmolded wet clay. I don't know what it was about the ad that caught my eye. Maybe the simplicity of it, the lack of a gimmick, the fancy name. I still don't know. It wouldn't be much of a comfort even if I did. Point is, I liked the look of the ad. And it was soon next weekend and nearby. Apparently, they were converting our local shopping center for the occasion. So it was a match made in heaven. The shopping center had been dying a slow death, like it had terminal retail cancer. And I guess this might be its final breath. I let the gang know about it. And there was a general wave of excitement. This quickly faded into a less committed chorus of calendar checking before diminishing into a group whisper of excuses and alibis screw it. I thought to myself, I'll go on my own. Not like I'd never done that before. It would be scarier on my own. And I probably meet some fellow fans of freaking themselves out who I could get to know shared trauma makes fast friends, right? So I went. It was a short bus ride and the shopping center managed to look terrifying all by itself. A gray hulking presence that had the vague memories of colorful signs and promotions. I didn't remember it being so run down. It's slow death seemed to have really sped up since I was out here. I approached the old automatic doors and peered inside. It wasn't dust near anything. It was just empty. As I looked in, I saw a group of people who looked like your typical scare mace crowd. Heavy metal t shirts, beards, piercings, my people. I knocked on the door, hoping to give one or two of them another startle for free. But none of them responded to the sound. They all walked together huddled close like a shoal of fish. Their heads were down. And they were so close that they were almost all touching frowning. I worked out where the group must have entered the shopping center from based on where they were now and skirted around the building. A few cars were still in the car park, a couple of abandoned trolleys, but no signs of life or weirdly promotion. Until I came to a fire escape door, it hung open and on the wall next to it was a simple paper sign that had been taped to the bricks. It only had one word on it, Daedalus, the word I was looking for at least. It all felt immersive, like they'd really committed to making this place into something. And they didn't want any of the usual trappings like the shitty masks or plastic curtains. I liked it. Snapping a quick photo on my phone. I headed on in. Hello. I asked the hallway I came into. I expected a preamble, some sort of introduction. I was also expecting somebody to charge me and give me one of those paper wristbands. But so far, nothing. At the end of the hallway, there was a big set of industrial doors with a slight gap winking lighted me. I headed towards it and figured that the corridor I was in must have been one of the maintenance ones of the old shopping center. When I reached the end of the corridor, I hesitated. I mean, there's immersive, and then there's a dangerous scam. I thought about leaving. Even the greatest ever scare maze wouldn't be worth getting actually hurt. But as I looked back at the doorway I'd come in through, I saw someone standing in it. They were a silhouette with the dim light of the corridor and the evening sunset behind them only revealing the vaguest outline of a person. Hey, are you here for the maze? I asked, managing a friendly, if suspicious tone. They didn't say anything. Maybe you're part of the maze. I then asked if they were really in character. Obviously, they wouldn't confirm this, but it already made me feel better to not take it as seriously as they were. Aren't they said in a sighing voice? And as they did, the door behind them crept exceptionally slowly towards us. We they said again and the corridor lights already dim flickered badly. All they said, and with a start, the door slammed shut behind them as the lights cut completely. I'm not proud to admit. I screamed. I grabbed my phone too and frantically brought up the flashlight app. The searing white light cut into the gloom and I shown it directly at where the silhouette had been. Of course, the part of my brain that analyzed these events was expecting them to have disappeared. It was worse that they hadn't. The silhouette was exactly where it had been before. Standing stock still, a rasping hissing rhythm of breathing was coming from it. It stood strangely, almost like a fashion model. As I got closer, I realized why it was a shop mannequin relief flooded through me. Even as I wondered about the breathing sound, maybe some sort of hidden speaker, I got closer and I saw that the mannequin was wearing one of those sleep masks. You see on a plane, I reached up to remove it. For some reason, I felt compelled to look this dummy in the eyes, but it was fastened tight to its head. Glue, I assumed the breathing continued. And I was pretty confident now that there was a speaker somewhere. I even smiled to myself and padded the mannequin on the shoulder. That's when I felt it. It didn't feel like hard plastic. It felt soft, like skin, unnerved again. I glanced at the door, but there were those industrial style doors that had a bar to push open on one side, and seemingly nothing to open them back up on the other looked like my only choice was to carry on in the other direction, either that or hang out with the most disturbing prop I'd ever seen. I started walking down the corridor using my phone as a flashlight. I also put the photo I'd taken of the front maze in my scare maze group chat with a caption of yo, you guys are missing out. The bravado made me feel better, but I was still anxious. The fact the corridor had three paths splitting off it now didn't help. The name scare maze is deceiving because really you only walk in one direction and most of them and you can't really get lost. Being presented with a choice was kind of cool. But I would have felt reassured if there was someone anyone official looking there. I shown my phone flashlight down each corridor, but they all looked identical. Signing to myself, I muttered a quick, any meanie, mighty moe, no idea, let's just go and chose the left path. Of course, I was already forming questions. What kind of shopping center has all these backstage corridors? I've never worked in one myself. So maybe they all did. Surely the people running this thing wouldn't have. I don't know built these somehow. I started to worry about my phone battery when I noticed that there were a few windows running along the top of the left hand wall of this corridor. I flicked off the flashlight and could see you reasonably well in the dim light from outside. It was still light out, but gray and the dim daylight didn't do wonders for the soulless industrial corridor. I was wandering down. That's when it opened up into a large circular room with those small windows all around under the ceiling. And in the middle of the room, there were people, actual live people. They were all stood close together, huddled up, really close together actually, and all facing inwards, like penguins do for warmth, I thought, with some basic assumptions about how Arctic wildlife behaved. As I approached them, they all scuttled away from me, staying in the same huddled formation. None of them looked up at me. So I didn't even know how they knew I was there. Hey, I began to say walking towards them again, but they scuttled away faster now. I swallowed suddenly feeling anxiety creeping up on me again. They all looked like normal average people. They weren't the crowd I'd seen from outside. They were men and women wearing kind of smart, casual looking clothes, like they could have been at a homely neighborhood barbecue or something. Listen, I need to talk to someone. I said as sternly as I could reaching out again. Once again, they moved away from me. But I stepped in their way and I managed to grab one of them, a man in a green plaid shirt. He gasped, the rest of them huddled up again without him and moved across the room. I'm sorry, I just I started to say. But while he was still looking at the floor, he started to shiver. It felt like something was building up in him. He clutched at his stomach, then his throat, his eyes still fixed downwards, his legs trembled, and he collapsed to his knees. I stepped back, freaking out that I'd somehow done this to him. Somewhere in the distance, I heard something wailing. It was like a police siren sort of, but somehow sounded like it was coming from a living thing, as if a being, not a machine, was making the sound. The man on his knees started retching. And before I could even get down to his level, something slid out of his mouth. It was covered in stringy saliva and dangled there like a magic trick. His body heaved then with the effort, and more of it pushed its way out of his mouth. He was clearly straining to get this thing out of him. It felt almost like watching someone give birth out of their mouth. The corners of his lips cracked and little red streaks of blood were visibly mixed in with the saliva now. Finally, with a last trembling effort, the thing fell from his lips onto the floor. It was the mask. The one I'd seen promoting this whole thing gray, like a pig's head, but with a longer, strangely unformed trunk. The siren was still blaring somewhere. And wordlessly, I looked from the man to the rest of the huddled group. They were all wearing the mask now. And they'd all turned towards me. Instinct seized me. And I turned tail and ran, spinning down one of the other corridors that came off the circular room. I didn't know what I'd just seen. But I couldn't stand in the same room as whatever it was. I'd instinctively run towards the siren, hoping it meant that there was still a chance of somebody actually running this thing. As I did, my frantic eyes caught something on the wall. It was another poster with that same unsettling gray shape on it. Underneath was a message. They won't touch you if you do not touch them. But there was something wrong with these words. It was like they were shifting somehow, forming in front of my eyes. When I blinked, they were still doing it. I don't know why I did this, but with a shaking hand, I touched the piece of paper. It was warm and soft, like skin. I don't know why. But that's what pushed me over the edge. I'd been scared before, like I say. But this was unabashed terror. This was a verge of sanity breakdown style panic. I ran as fast as I could down the corridor. I'm sure I was screaming, but I only know that from my horse voice and sore throat after the fact. More of those people with masks emerged from doorways and halls. And I saw a few who looked like the first crowd I'd seen. They were all turned towards me. Somehow I found a door with another piece of paper next to it. It was an emergency fire door and I burst through it out into the evening air. Panting from the effort, I leaned heavily on my knees and gasped for air. I was shaking my mind reeling in disbelief that I'd escaped. I got my phone out to frantically call someone. The group chat had seen my text and replied saying that it looked cool and they were disappointed to miss out. They looked it up again online to see when and where they might catch it next. But it all seemed to have gone offline for now. I shuttered over time. I gradually stopped talking about scare mazes and even a lot of horror stuff with most people. I tried to make it seem like I just gone off at all. But I don't think I'll ever forget it. Not really. I remember that mannequins question, aren't we all? When I catch some strangers eye or when I take a wrong turn and feel that disorientation of being lost, even just for a moment, the mask stays with me too. Not because of anything intrinsically haunting about it. Not really. But my frenzied mind as I ran through those hallways to freedom has held on to something I saw from all those figures emerging around me. Their masks were like the words on the paper, shifting, moving and forming into different shapes in front of my eyes. Then there was that last piece of paper I saw just before I made my escape. Simply there stuck to the wall. All it said was thank you. Not thank you for coming or thank you for taking part or thank you and we hope you enjoyed it. Just thanking me as if I'd given something that day or had something taken away.