“Why in the world do they even call it a funhouse? This shit is lame,” Daniel said, as they entered the tunnel leading into the attraction, after paying the admission price at the little booth outside the space.
“Lighten up Daniel, it’s just for laughs, right?” Will said.
Jake was in the lead, and didn’t say anything, as the light grew dimmer inside the tunnel.
“But you guys saw that shit, right? At that hypnosis show? That…what the fuck even was that?” Daniel said, “I…I think that shit was real.”
“It was just mass hypnosis,” Jake said without any real interest.
“What?”
“Mass hypnosis. Dr. Watch put everyone in the audience under during his induction. I didn’t notice it, but the way the light bounced off the watch and caught everyone’s eye. He’s really good, to make everyone believe what they were seeing.”
Daniel didn’t quite know how that explanation sat with him. It did make sense, he supposed, but it had seemed so…real, somehow. He didn’t really want to be here anymore, in any case–he didn’t even know why he’d come along with this. “I…I think I’m just going to head back to campus,” he said, turned around, only to discover that the entrance of the tunnel they’d walked through just moments before had disappeared. Behind them, there was nothing but darkness. “Uh…where the hell did the entrance go?”
Jake just shrugged, “It’s there–the path probably just curved gently enough we didn’t notice it, and now we can’t see the entrance around the curve.”
“Do you have to try and explain everything? This shit is fucking weird, you know!”
“Yo! Cool it, it’s all gonna be fine. Let’s just keep going,” Will said, and the three of them pressed on in relative silence. They seemed to walk…for a very long time. There were odd mirrors at strange angles, the sounds of distant machinery and laughter behind walls, odd puddles of goo lining the side of the tunnel in places, slides down and stairs back up, and more than once, Daniel was certain he’d felt something tap him on the shoulder. Everything behind them just kept getting swallowed up into a black void, the lights turning off behind them, making it clear that the only way out for the group was forward. The tunnel began to shrink, until the three of them were nealry crawling along in the dark, until they came to a small door. They opened it and pushed their way through into a large, brightly lit and circular room filled with music. Before they could get their bearings, the floor began to spin, sending all three of them tumbling to the ground and rolling about. The floor spun faster and faster, the music speeding up in time and then stopped just as suddenly as it had started, the lights flickering and the music winding down, leaving the three young men rolling with their momentum, before struggling to stand up, dizzy.
The small doorway had disappeared, and instead there were three large passageways equally spaced around the room. All of the rooms had lighted signs overhead, and on the floor, a fourth sign flickered to life with a message for them:
“Choose your path.”
“Is that…one path for each of us?” Will asked.
“I don’t see why we can’t all go in the same one together. I just think that once we choose, we can’t back out,” Jake said. He stepped up to a doorway and looked down–sure enough, each one had a slide running down into the dark, which was much too steep to climb back up. “So…where do we want to go?”
The three doorways were labeled as “The Mirrors of Delight – Get lost in your secret desires!”, “The Freakish Factory – Find out what you’re made of!”, and “The Haunted Depths – Brave the ghosts and demons of the dark!”. Jake suggested one doorway, while Daniel insisted on another, and the two began to argue and fight about whose idea was right. Will stayed out of it for a bit, but eventually sided with Jake. In a huff, Daniel stormed off and headed down the slide of his choice alone, while Jake and Will sighed, shrugged, and went down their own selection together.
Alright, so how this poll will work, is that the top two answers will be incorporated into the story. The most popular choice will be the path chosen by Jake and Will, while the second most popular will be the one that Daniel ventures into alone.
So, which doorways should we experience with the three young men?
Polls close in 48 hours like usual!
Bracken's Corner 