Nabeeha Qadri: Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of Never Again with Nabeeha. Today I’m with my guest:

Maisy Torres: Hi, I’m Maisy.

Qadri: And what is your grade and pronouns?

Torres: Grade eleven. And my pronouns are she/her.

Qadri: Okay, so Maisy, what is something you would never do again and why?

Torres: I would never go to a haunted house again. When I was little, I went to this haunted house at the State Fair with my friend, and we were ten or nine [years old] and immediately when I got in there, I started bawling, crying. There were people reaching out for me. I was yelling, “I will call the police on you!” I was really scared and I remember the day after my mom was like, would you do it again for five million dollars? And I said, nuh-uh, there was no way.

I’m not a [fan of scary things]. I can’t do that. People try to convince me to go on haunted hay rides or other haunted houses. There’s not enough money in the world to pay me to do [it again]. I can’t do it. I kind of watch scary movies, but I’m not a big fan in person. And in the haunted house, they’re grabbing you and stuff that … I can’t do that.

Qadri: Oh, how did you … do it in the first place?

Torres: I went with my friend and we were at the state fair and she was like, we have to go in there … I’d never been in a haunted house before that. So I wasn’t expecting something terrible. I wasn’t expecting what happened. And I was like, okay, whatever, we can go inside. And we went inside. I immediately just freaked out because it wasn’t my idea, but I was open to doing it. I wasn’t totally opposed to it. And I was like, nuh-uh, nuh-uh. The first second I got in, I asked, can I turn around and go out the front? [The staff] said you cannot. I remember hiding in a corner for maybe ten minutes and the actors got so tired of acting. They just let me through without scaring me. I was there for so long.

Qadri: You couldn’t pass through unless they scared you.

Torres: Yeah … I would sit in corners until they’d be like, I’m not acting anymore. Just go.

Qadri: That was actually smart.

Torres: Yeah. I was like, “okay, bye!”

Qadri: Wait, what were you expecting in the first place?

Torres: I was expecting something [like the rides] at Nickelodeon universe. It’s a ghost ride, but you’re just sitting there and there’s no [actors] or animatronics or whatever. But I didn’t expect them to come up to touch me and grab me. And I didn’t like that. Their outfits were actually good. When I think of haunted houses, I think of people who got costumes from Party City. But no, these people had the real deal. And I was like, nope.

Qadri: So was your friend with you the entire time?

Torres: She ran maybe a mile ahead of me. She was not scared at all. And it kind of made me mad. I was like, how are you not scared of that? That was terrifying. Oh my goodness. That was oh, it was bad. But at the same time, now it’s a story I get to tell people. And people will try to go to haunted houses with them all the time. I’m not doing that. My sister tried to get me to go on this haunted hayride. I said, “I don’t know who you think you are and who you think you’re asking, but you should know that I would never do that, right?” Not my thing.

Qadri: When you got out of the … haunted house who did you go to first?

Torres: I was bawling, crying. And I remember my mom doing something else. Well, me and my friend were in there because my mom was the one that brought us and I couldn’t find her. And I was just sobbing, crying and looking around for her. And my friend, she was kind of looking at me and then looking around. She wasn’t comforting, you know, she was like, “What are you doing?” She has more courage than I do because I was like, never. I could never do that.

Qadri: Was your friend the same age as you?

Torres: Yeah. Well, she’s a year older, but she’s a very courageous person. So I mean, she doesn’t fear anything. That was her place, not mine. Let’s just say to each their own, right.

Qadri: Did she make you go on another one after that?

Torres: No. I was like, we need to get Sweet Martha’s cookies. I need a snack. It’s so funny.

Qadri: If you passed by a haunted hayride or haunted house, do you feel the trauma coming back?

Torres: I always look inside and peer in, and try to see what’s going on. And if I see one person in a clown costume. I’m out. I’m totally out. In 2017, I was scared of those killer clowns that were all over the news. And that’s what kind of did it for me. And I think it was kind of around that time. No, it was a little bit before. Oh, goodness. I freaked out.

Qadri: Do you have any advice for somebody who might want to go on one of these?

Torres: I mean, start with a low scare level. I’ll say that I went a little bit too high for my first time and didn’t go well. No tolerance.

Qadri: And are you still friends with that same girl?

Torres: She is at Two Rivers now, and I haven’t talked to her for forever. But I used to be good friends with her. She was my sister’s best friend’s little sister, so that’s how I knew her. But I mean, good for her. Oh, I’m just thinking about it. Gives me chills.

Qadri: In the whole ride, what was the scariest part?

Torres: There was a section with clowns. That’s what got me. I can’t do clowns. There was a section with stereotypical horror movie [characters] Scream, Ghostface or I saw the little dude on the bike. There was stuff like that. But once I got to the clown section, oh, that’s when I broke down. That’s when I had to stay in the corner for thirty minutes at least so that nobody would come near me. Yeah.

Qadri: So at the end, the actors [became] afraid of you.

Torres: Yeah. They were annoyed. Just doing all this work for nothing. They were trying to be scary.

Qadri: Do you have anything else to add?

Torres: I don’t think so. I mean, it’s now funny to me, but in the moment, I would have never thought it was funny. A few years after that, if somebody would have brought that up to me, I’d be like, I can’t even talk about it. But now it’s super funny the way I reacted.

Qadri: Well, thank you so much, Maisy.

Torres: Yeah. Of course.

Qadri: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. We’ll see you again soon.

Music: Lounge Beat from WeVideo Music Library