Friday, October 18, 2013

do you wanna feel a little beautiful baby

Tonight was finally Sunway Lagoon's Night of Fright, and we have all been waiting for this for a long time (weeks actually). We were so ready for this; we even went for a movie screening of Sinister for a warm-up the night before to mentally prepare ourselves for the frights that were to come tonight.

And we got the frights we paid for. We definitely scared ourselves silly during the entire three hours that we had in the park, even though it was raining. There were costumed frights roaming about, horrible clowns and bloodied creatures wielding swords and little girls in lace and frills and broken faces.

I thought that three hours weren't really enough when the queuing time was taken into account. We went into three haunted houses; the first one was the scariest because our group split up and we were left with four people: me, Taliza, KF and Euzarif (Irfan). We were running through the narrow corridors half the time because there were creatures jumping out at us every so often so I didn't really manage to appreciate the thoughtful details that I glimpsed only briefly. When we regrouped I recorded our audio and it sounds now like a terribly cheap horror movie with us shouting loudly most of the time and Euzarif spewing out nonsensical chatter out of fear and casual conversations in between like it was a walk in the park and you can hear the interruptions to our conversations when our walk got intercepted by more creatures and we were back to screaming and running. At the end of the haunted house there was a creature WITH A REAL CHAINSAW BLOCKING THE EXIT AND HE WAS THREATENING US WITH THE CHAINSAW AND I WAS QUITE FREAKED OUT BECAUSE IT WAS A REAL CHAINSAW. I MEAN LIKE IT COULD HAVE BEEN A MADMAN WHO SLIPPED INSIDE THE PARK AND NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO END UP AS CHOPPED-UP LIMBS. But anyway we made a run for it and emerged victorious out of our first haunted house into the park.

Tiny phone pics courtesy of Austin featuring the horror house gang: Ian, Taliza, moi, Euzarif et KF
Then we went on the revenge of the pirates ride which was basically an oscillating ship ride. We always see the ship swinging as we walked through the canopy walk and the people inside the ship always seemed to be having fun so it was great to finally be in the ship. When the chest fastener fell over us I felt a sense of dread as it was too tight and it became hard to breathe, but we sorted it out before the ride began. And when the ride did begin, and the ship started rocking back and forth, I felt my body being displaced higher and higher off the ground as the speed increased. On my right I could see Taliza's hair and her screaming something incorrigible and to my left were Harris and Euzarif making interesting jokes. And when in one clean movement we were swung upwards, all I could see was the night sky. It was refreshingly liberating and I felt a sense of exhilaration knowing that my friends next to me and around me were probably feeling this too.After we reached the peak and the ship started losing momentum, we sang Happy Birthday to Ziyun in shaky voices and loud enthusiasm. When we reached the ground the people in the queue clapped for us.

Our second haunted house was a zombie apocalypse; I don't remember much except for it being a blur of quickly cruising through the horror house as quickly as possible so that the monsters don't get to us. We pushed Harris to the front while the rest of us clumped together as an aggregate of scared teenage flesh, moving clumsily as a unit and stumbling over one another and dispersing, everyone for themself, when a jump scare appeared out of nowhere. I remember Taliza gripping onto my shoulders like they were her safety rods, and when we left the house my shoulders were aching despite the magical Adidas shirt I was wearing.

We went on another upside-down ride again, this time it was the Tomahawk, which I admit I was quite worried about because it was rather small and Ian said it was three times as fast as the pirate ship we went on previously. I felt slightly claustrophobic locked in the metal of the seats of two next to Ian. When it started moving I thought I was going to feel like one of those goldfish in plastic bags that sadistic kids like to swing around their hands quickly. The ride felt a lot faster than the pirate ship; we were quickly swung up to the peak and my body was not even touching the seat anymore and depended entirely on the chest fastener to not fall off. I looked at Ian and he was screaming all sorts of remorse like WHY AM I HERE WHAT AM I DOING HERE right in middle of the peak and he was laughing as he said it and it was so funny and random that instead of fearing for my life I was just calmly absorbing the situation I found myself to be in: suspended in mid-air with my feet desperately pushing against the front seat of a shady ride with a classmate that I was just having Maths class with this morning. When we left the ride, Euzarif's hair was sticking out in all places, and he looked like he just got out of bed and shouldn't be seen in public. He noticed that I couldn't stop looking at it.

normally euzarif looks like this
tonight though
There was a magic show after that, on a tiny stage with a nervous first-time magician. But he performed all right, except the part when he had to sexually mimick women to get the audience to laugh, which was not cool. Ziyun was the voluntary magician's assistant and had to hold a cup of water over her head, but basic Chemistry knowledge plus her own observation revealed the trick of the seemingly empty cup when she returned to our group later.

It was nearly closing time when we went into the last haunted house which was akin to Temple Run. This time we had to line up in groups of eight and hold each other by the shoulder as we walk through the maze. The jump scares were getting a bit old but the presence of nets hanging over the passageway and obscuring the view made things scary. Taliza didn't want to be the last one in the line, actually no one did, so naturally I had to be standing at the back. It was ok except no one notices if you're left behind, which was precisely what happened during an instance at an especially narrow corridor where there was a mummy to the right and a collapsible shelf to the left. Everyone but me made it to the other side when the mummy appeared and the shelf collapsed at the same time. I was left standing stunned, at first in fear, then in disbelief. I stood for a while, in that dark corridor, with the mummy looking at me, thinking about this matter, then I said to the mummy: "My friends just left me," as if to confirm that it actually happened, and nobody came back for me. The mummy nodded in humane understanding, then pointed the way to the exit. I had to walk the rest of the maze alone, and when I reached another mummy and it was trying to scare me, I calmly and sadly repeated,"My friends just left me," and the mummy again was kindly understanding and said,"I'm sorry miss. Goodnight," and did not bother scaring me any longer, as if to spare me further suffering. I was not jump scared until I reached the end of the maze where KF and Ziyun were waiting and they jumped at me with a yell. Cool.

When we regrouped I wanted quite badly to go for the pirate ship again, to feel again the liberation and raw exhilaration of being young with friends. YOLO-ing, if you must. But we didn't make it there in time, and I wasn't convincing/pitiful/pretty enough to get us all the last ride. The park started closing and the costumed freaks were taking group pictures which Ian attempted to hijack, then our group of friends gave them a standing ovation for the entertainment tonight.

On the way to the carpark I thought I was going to have to go home alone/ with Taliza's dad, because so many other people wanted to get into the car to go back to the hostel as well. But KF said he saved a seat for me in his car even though I didn't ask, which was a terribly warm moment and I feel so much fondness for all these people and that and everything else that happened tonight is the reason I am sitting here writing about it at 12.30am when I have to wake up at 6.00 am tomorrow to go to the jungle.

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. We bought the tickets in September so we got the early bird price of RM40

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    2. You don't have to pay for any entrance fee right?

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    3. Nope. All you need is the ticket.

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