RWS 305W Module 3
Online Writing Wakelet Profile Topic Proposal-500 words
Journal 6 prompt:
✓ Name person, place, event, phenomenon, or specific issue or idea I will explore in
my Profile; does this topic connect to a larger social issue or current context?
✓ Cite traditional perspectives on this topic (list specific positions taken) and preview
what makes your approach and perspective unique.
✓ Identify what sources (including quoted voices) you will curate and include; how
will you bring readers into an understanding of your topic; what dominant
impression do you hope to experience and reveal in your Wakelet Profile?
✓ Develop anecdote: write a vivid story that introduces or illuminates your
interest/relationship to your profile topic – use dialogue and description!
Clarins Cecilia
Professor Williams
Photo Essay
18+
Enter Alone
Signed Waiver
Blackout Haunted House
Complete darkness. That’s all I managed to see after escaping from a hooded man who shouted
obscenities at my face as he forced me to take off my shoes and socks. I am now in a black
corridor, where I see a man standing in front of me. “Do you wish to kneel before me?” he
snarled. “Yes, yes I do.” And so I kneeled.
Unlike your typical haunted house, Blackout leaves out the usual zombie and monster
jump scares and opts for terror techniques that play deeper into the psyche of its visitors. The
attraction began in 2009 in New York City. Since then, Blackout has expanded to Los Angeles
and Chicago due to public’s receptiveness and popular demand. Over the years, the entrance fee
has climbed from the original price of $50 to now a staggering $65 for each person. One question
burns on my mind: How do they do it? Could their popularity rest on the “scare” euphoria of
Halloween? Could it rests on the simple notion of “something new to do?” Or could they be
popular because we have a perverted interested with the horrors suffered outside the boundaries
of middle-class America? With those questions in mind, I clicked the purchase button for an
entry to the nightmare that lays ahead, so I can better understand the “It” factor that has turned
Blackout from a small-scale terror theater experiment, into an underground Halloween
phenomenon.
After I braved the four-hour traffic jam that stretched from San Diego all the way to
downtown Los Angeles, I finally arrived front and center at the entrance of Blackout Haunted
House. I greeted a black-hooded male attendant to confirm my ticket reservation, and he replied
by thrusting a clipboard to sign my waiver on. The waiver stated that I must be 18 to enter, I
must go in alone, I am not allowed to talk, I am not allowed to touch the walls, I must do exactly
as what I am directed to while in the maze, I will encounter darkness, fog, strobe lights, water
exposure, sexual and violent encounters, and I must be out of my mind. Once, I’ve signed my
rights away, a female usher positioned me on an X-mark. After a couple of minutes have passed
and the clock hit exactly 8 PM, she grabbed my shoulder, turned my body towards a flight of
stairs, and told me to run up as fast as I can through the wooden door. I ran.
The entrance hallway for signing waiver and
before the madness begins
Mandatory wavers prior of
participation
Once I’ve entered the room, a light was flashed onto my face and a man grabbed the back
of my neck as he barked for me to run up the next flight of stairs. While he trailed behind me, he
shouted, “You’re too slow, go faster,” and “Bitch, run faster.” I entered through another door,
where he grabbed me and shoved me inside a small toilet room. He smelled me, caressed me,
and thrust his fingers inside my mouth, before he left and shut the door. All I saw was complete
darkness. Outside the door, there was a recording of choir music that resembled less of a church
orchestra, and more of a chant sung for a cult ritual. At this point, my pulse was thumping
rapidly, but I’m not sure if it’s due to cardio or fear. Rather than staring at the darkness around
me, I closed my eyes and stared at the darkness inside me to calm myself down. After 20 seconds
of solitude and darkness, the same man entered with a flashlight and told me to take off my shoes
and socks. Then, he told me to get down on my knees. A moment passed and suddenly, he
yanked me off my feet and covered me with a black, hooded poncho with only a small slit for my
eyes. He then led me to a black corridor and gave me a tiny green glow stick. As he passed me
the glow stick, he growled, “When you find the man, the answer is the sky is falling.” He pushed
me towards the black corridor and told me to walk. I walked.
The corridor was pitch black and the glow stick was a useless source of light. I made my
way through the winding black walls by the feel of my two hands. While being trapped in the
corridor, I feared less of what’s ahead of me than what might lay behind me. The thought of
someone stalking and creeping from behind made me walk even faster even though I can’t see a
single thing. It wasn’t until a couple of steps did I figure out why he covered me with a poncho.
As I was walking, I felt a wooden divider at the base of my feet, which forced me to extend my
feet over it. Once I was beyond this divider, the whole floor was covered with water that reached
halfway up to my knees. On top of that, the ceiling was sprinkling more water. After I walked for
a couple of seconds more through the water, I saw the faint outline of a man right in front of me.
He snatched the glow stick from my hand and yelled,” A or B?” I replied, “A.” “LOUDER,” he
yelled. “Aaaaa…,” I screamed. “I CAN’T FUCKING HEAR YOU, LOUDER,” he barked
harshly. So I replied again with added force, “ AAAAAAA…..” Once he’s satisfied, he silently
growls, “Do you wish to kneel before me?” “Yes,” I replied. So I sank myself into the water and
kneeled before him. After he grew tired of me, he straightened myself up and took off my
poncho. He cocked my face to the water sprinkler and waited until I choked on the water. After I
finished choking and gasping for breath, he led me to an opening on the floor and told me to
crawl. I crawled.
I could barely see my hands while walking He held my face underneath the sprinkler until
through the corridor
I was choking and gasping for breath
I was soaking wet and inside an air vent that was littered with fake cobwebs. The shaft
was a straight path and a stark contrast to the corridor behind me, since it’s dry and full of light.
By this time, I felt more thankful for the warmth of the crawl space, than afraid of what this
section entailed. I must’ve crawled for only 10 seconds, before I saw a figure on all fours
advancing rapidly towards me. I froze. That figure is a he, and ‘he’ was a mental asylum patient,
judging on the uniform he was wearing. He smelled me and gestured for me to follow him. After
following him through the air vent, I arrived in a small, dimly-lit room—too small for anyone to
stand up in. He pointed at a corner and ordered me to get on all fours. He then turned on a music
that I can only describe as an eerie, prairie song of a woman singing about her lost lover.
Suddenly, I felt a hand caressing my back and grabbing my hair. As he was smelling me, he
softly grinded his groin against my ass, and whimpered. The song created an eerie atmosphere
that made me shudder even more as I laid motionless on my knees and hands. After he was done,
he told me to sit on my butt and grabbed a black bucket that was sitting on the other side. I
wasn’t sure if he was going to throw whatever is in the bucket to my face, so I just stared at his
smiling face. He told me to hold up my hands and started to rub ointment onto them. Next, it was
my feet. Afterwards, he dried both of my hands and feet with a towel. That was quite nice
actually, come to think of it. Once they were dried, he looked at me and his face changed from a
smile to a scowl. He fixed his eyes onto mine and uttered, “Milk.” The word didn’t register in
my head, so I asked, “Milk?” He uttered again, “Milk,” now, ever so loudly. Suddenly, he
grabbed my face and pressed it against his nipple. I sucked on it as he whimpered and moaned,
“Milk, milk, oh…milk…oh.” He came. Then he gestured for me to crawl into a hole on the wall
and leave. I left.
After I crawled through the hole, I emerged into a shady, junkie-ridden bar, with a longlegged woman who lazily propped herself in front of the counter. Another girl emerged from my
right, took my hand, and led me to a corridor of rooms. She smiled and asked, “Left or right?”
“Left,” I answered. Once we entered the room on the left, she handed me a blue marker and
gagged me with a black band. She then told me to repeat everything she said and write it out on
the wall in front of me. I couldn’t remember what she said, but it was along the lines of
“surrendering myself to blackout,” “volunteering for a public showcase,” and “I have now been
branded.” After I finished, she took my hand and led me to another room of darkness. She asked
me if I want it fast or slow. I told her I wanted it fast and she told me to lie down before she left
the room. To be honest, I was anticipating a man coming from the door I went through and
pretend to rape me as part of the show. However, to my fortunate dismay, it was only the same
girl who came back in. She got on top of me and started to yell and ask about my whereabouts
last night and called me a liar. After the screaming was done, she told me to get up and guided
me outside and into another room. This time, though the room was completely pitched black,
there was a small red light hovering on the corner. She ordered me to sit underneath the red light.
I sat and she laid her head onto my lap. She started to masturbate. Her voice whimpered my
name and started off as faint whispers. Then her breathing grew heavier and her moans became
erratic. Her body convulsed as she welcomes the tidal wave of orgasm that shaped into her
arching back. Once she caught her breath, she took my hand and led me to a different hallway. I
let her.
At the end of the hallway, there was man and woman screaming at one another. I assume
that they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, since the freedom of my own imagination is the only thing
I’m allowed with in this place. He violently grabbed her and dragged her into a separate room.
All the while, I was standing on the other side, mouth still gagged, and waiting for someone to
come for me. Someone did come and she was the same girl who masturbated on me. She gently
grabbed my hand and guided me to the end of the hallway. She pushed me into the room where
the boyfriend and girlfriend entered into, and suddenly, a plastic bag was placed over my head. A
man grabbed my body and shouted for me to make the crying girlfriend stop crying. “TELL
HER TO FUCKING SHUT UP BEFORE I KILL HER,” “TELL HER TO BE QUIET,” “TELL
HER TO SHUT UP,” he ordered. I tried my best to do what he asked. However, with my mouth
still gagged, my words only sounded like incoherent gurgles. When the girlfriend wouldn’t stop
crying, he angrily tore the plastic bag off of my face, grabbed a gun, and placed it in my hand.
“SEE WHAT YOU’RE MAKING ME DO?” he screamed, as he grabbed my hands and gestured
the gun towards the girlfriend’s face. He then took the gun away, grabbed the back of my neck,
and led me into a coffin. He yelled at me to get inside. I went inside and he closed the lid.
Strangely enough, I was neither feeling claustrophobic nor suffocated, and I laid there in peace.
After 20 seconds of solitude, the lid was open, and a light was flashed onto my face. The
boyfriend then grabbed the girl and put her inside the coffin, before slamming the lid shut again.
The girlfriend laid motionless on top of me, but then she started screaming her head off as her
body twisted from shock. After a couple of screams, the lid was torn open again, and the
boyfriend yanked me by my armpit and told me to get up. I got up.
The inside of the coffin was pitch dark and
constricting. Just like, well, a coffin
A standard wooden coffin was used, with interior
furnishings of body cushions and a pillow
He squeezed my neck and shoved me onto another room, where a man came from my
right and grabbed my hair. He gestured with his flashlight onto a pile of shoes and socks. I saw
my shoes and mismatched socks. While still holding my hair, he told me to grab my shoes and
put them on as fast as I can. I did as he told and he grabbed my neck and hurriedly led me
outside onto another set of doors, where they led to a familiar set of stairs that stretched
downwards. He harshly whispered to my right ear, “You are done now. Leave this place and
don’t ever show your face here again.” With that note, I quickly descended from the staircase
and into the hallway entrance. I see the black-hooded attendee who now acknowledged me with
a smile and handed me my jacket and purse. After I gave him a nod of goodbye, I exited the
building and greeted the fresh, polluted night air of downtown L.A. By this time, my clothes
were completely wet and I was shivering from the breeze despite my dry jacket. I glanced back
to the door entrance that proudly wears the sign “Blackout Haunted House” on top of its mouth.
A smile curved around my face, “Well, that wasn’t too bad.”
As soon as my feet hit the pavement of the outside world, I felt a wave of happiness and
accomplishment. Blackout was a unique experience that definitely challenges me to push the
limits of what I can handle. However, despite the “abuse” I suffered whilst in the maze, I was
disappointed at the relatively tame shock-value that was incompatible of the hype that surrounds
Blackout. Prior to entering, I pictured situations of waterboarding, nudity, obscenities, and
extreme breach of personal space. I pictured torture scenes from Argentina’s “dirty war” period,
but instead, I suckled on the nipple of a mental patient. The lack of extremity I experienced
makes me hesitant to conclude that people participate in Blackout, because they have a perverted
interest of the suffering of others; stemmed from the boredom of their middle-class lives. Instead,
Blackout serves as a pricey, harmless experience that adds a certain novelty to the usual haunted
house, scary movie nights, slutty costume contests and downtown barhopping that Halloween
has to offer.
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