First Place: Leila Buf:ington, 9th, Osage High School, (Non-:iction

First Place: Leila Buffington, 9th, Osage High School, (Non-fiction)

"My Very Own Episode of The Twilight Zone"

“For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back, neck problems, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure. Expectant mothers should not ride.”

I stared dead ahead at the safety warnings of the ride I was about to face. The warnings were practically the same as every other foe I had seen before, but something was different. No, these warnings didn’t magically apply to me this one and only time, but I actually knew what this ride did. It was going to be the worst of the worst. It was, quite literally, the Tower of Terror.

“Mom, I really don’t want to go on this one, I-I know what this one does,” I sort of stammered out, mumbling a small bit.

My mother just reassured me it would be fine. “We’ve been on the other rides and you were fine then. Remember how much fun The Haunted Mansion was?”

She did have a point, The Haunted Mansion being a ride I actually enjoyed, but I wasn’t convinced. I knew what this ride did. My panicking before every ride had been because I didn’t know what was about to happen. This time, however, I did. I’d heard about this beast. I knew what I was in for.

“No, I’m serious. You hate heights, right? We have to go really high and they drop us down,” I further pushed. “The other times were before I knew what happened. I actually do this time.”

By this time, my younger sister had taken notice. She began to look a bit worried. She’d sort of just brushed off my previous anxiety filled breakdowns, but now, even at the age of 6, she could tell I was serious.

“But how do you know you won’t have fun with this one?” my aunt, who had basically made this whole trip possible, chimed in. “Just trust us, you’ll enjoy it.”

I would not enjoy this. I knew that for a fact. I, at age 10- two months away from 11, would be dead. I would be dead, all because of a Disney ride. A Disney ride my family thought would be fun.

I decided to shut my mouth, though. I would suffer silently. They weren’t going to get out of line for me anyway. They believed it was going to be exactly like all the other rides. I would panic and freak out due to my anxiety, but end up realizing I was overreacting by the end. I wish it went that way.

When I couldn’t make myself suffer with the safety warnings, I took in the atmosphere of the building. It being a ride based on The Twilight Zone, the place looked old, slightly rundown, even. It feels like you really just went through a portal that took you back in time to 1939. From an artistic perspective, it’s fascinating to look at, and I seriously applaud them for it, but from a scared 10 year old perspective, it is terrifying. I know they made it look like that on purpose, but I couldn’t help imaging the ride breaking down with us on it.

Yet, even with a fast pass, waiting took longer than time itself. It was excruciating, yet it was all I had to do. I needed something to take my mind off of my own terror and fear, yet the only thing that did that was fuel it. I couldn’t even tell if the build up was worse than the ride itself. I was just standing there, awaiting my death. I was a lamp to the slaughter. We all were, but I was the only one who knew it.

The Disney employee beckoned us forward. It wasn’t menacing in any way, just some likely underpaid person doing their job, but I was still panicking. If 10 year old me could swear, I couldn’t even imagine what little me would be internally saying- or, rather, screaming.

I followed the herd into the old timey elevator. The elevator that would deliver death itself. Me and my family were goners. If only they listened to me. It was too late now though. We took our seats in the back of the elevator, buckled up, then awaited judgement day. I was shaking in my seat. My leg was bouncing up and down, and my fists were clenched. I was a coward and I knew it- but I didn’t care. It was time. The ride had begun.

This was even more apparent as the voice of Rod Sterling plays, telling you that you are now “on your very own episode of The Twilight Zone”. I was starting to grow more worried. I was 10 and some freaky voice was telling me I was about to be in a scary show I barely knew anything about. We were rising too. You could see yourself doing so, the wall in front of you falling as you went up.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

Then, the doors opened. Ahead of us we could see what looked like a hotel floor, just one from the past. Ghostly figures of people, five to be exact, began to form. Suddenly, lightning crackles through the hotel floor, the ghosts seemingly vanishing

because of it. The lights dim until you are plunged into cold, hard darkness, just with white specks sprinkled around, exactly like the beginning of each episode (just without the title). It seems Rod Sterling hadn’t been lying.

Once again, the doors to the elevator closed. I could only tell because of the white specks. I also wouldn’t haven’t been able to tell we were rising once again if it wasn’t for the sensation of going up resuming and the unearthly, dread-inducing sound emanating from the speakers. We were going to the top. The top of a ride with a height of 200 feet.

“One stormy night long ago, five people stepped through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare. That door is opening once again, and this time, it's opening for you.” The voice I was convinced was going to haunt me came back. It was like he was taunting me. Taunting me for daring to step foot in his elevator, for stepping into this nightmare.

When the doors opened again, we were greeted with a room with a sort of rustic feel. The ride began to move forward and we went into the room. While we did, the lights dimmed out again. When lights began to come back on, ones that cast an eerie blue hue into the corners of the room, we were still going forward, but now we were moving past different things. At first, it was the outlines of people, but then it was a clock, and then a room with the same, familiar lightning the ghosts had emitted. The all familiar theme of The Twilight Zone was beginning to play now too.

We headed to another room, one seemingly made out of space itself with pure black walls with flecks of stars on it- matching the same look the room had when the ghosts had disappeared. The walls and lights split open though, as if the elevator we were in had gone into a new elevator. We were in “The Fifth Dimension”, as the all knowing voice that came through the speakers told us. Though, we weren’t going to be for long. We were going to be in the Tower of Terror.

And so we did, slowly going into the shaft we needed to be in. It was pitch black. Along with being terrified of roller coasters, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the dark. I clung to my mother’s arm like the coward I was. My sister was right on her other side, also cowarding, knowing we were in for something. It was like we were in the dark forever, even longer than the dreaded line it took us to get in the ride itself.

Then, we stopped.

We began to fall, then stop. Then fall again.

That process repeated a couple of times before we went back up for a bit. By now, the

thrilled screams of the other passengers were filling the “elevator” at every little fall. They would have no match on my sister though.

You see, when we got to the top of the tower, they opened the doors again. You could see how high you were- 13 stories, coincidencently. It wasn’t like I could pretend to enjoy the view either, because as soon as I felt the dread of how high I really was, we plummeted.

I closed my eyes tightly and basically hid myself by my mom’s armpit, clinging on her for protection like a baby monkey who can’t yet swing from vine to vine by themself. I actually didn’t join in on the screams around me, but my sister did. It was the loudest I had heard her scream (and I think that still stands today). In addition, Tower of Terror makes you fall faster than the pull of gravity, apparently, so we were rising in our seats. If it wasn’t for our seatbelts, we would have been like astronauts, just only with blunt force trauma from the roof.

I didn’t open my eyes until the elevator came to a forceful stop- meaning I slammed down in my seat. It was completely pitch black again, of course, but now the same blue ghosts were in front of us.

Great. Them again.

Could I even relish in the feeling of not descending down to meet The Devil himself? No. No, I couldn’t. It was back to falling.

Everyone’s screaming picked up, including the ear splitting one my sister produced. If only they had listened. This was my own personal Hell. I hate roller coasters. I hate drops. I hate the dark. I could be enjoying this right now if it wasn’t for that stupid, dumb cowboy ride at Adventureland.

We had stopped, once again. The doors opened to reveal a black and white spiral, the one that seems to go in a spiral itself, if you know what I mean. The music was back too, a fitting sound as the spiral began to zoom out. Objects began to fall into the black and white abyss, the most striking being Rod Sterling himself. Luckily for me, however, the ride was to an end.

“A warm welcome back to those of you who made it,” the man I had just watched fall into a spiral congratulated. “A friendly word of warning; something you won't find in any guidebook. The next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you're filling or you may find yourself a permanent resident of The Twilight Zone.”

We got up, leaving our seats and exiting the nightmare I didn’t think would end. I was still shaking. The look of the gift shop couldn’t even calm me down. I still felt like I was in flight or fight. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go on anymore rides like that. My sister was probably thankful for that too. I’m never going back on that ride again, I vowed.

But, looking back on this, would I ever go back on “that ride” again, five years later? Maybe. I actually enjoyed looking back at this ride, especially after watching The Twilight Zone itself. So much was put into this ride, and while I still hate drops and don’t like roller coasters, I now know what happens on this ride, hopefully easing my anxiety a bit. This ride also taught me about how easy you can become the boy from “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. While it wasn’t in that same sense, my family didn’t trust me because I had panicked in every line before this one. What would have made it different in their eyes, you know? Anyways, while the ride certainly lives up to its name, I think I would recommend Tower of Terror. It was terrifying, yes, but it’s also such a neat ride that should not be forgotten.