Submitted by PriestessOfSpiders t3_11ejoba in nosleep
People sometimes ask me if I've ever had any paranormal experiences, and I used to always laugh it off, telling them I haven't. I've never had any black eyed children knocking on my door asking to be let in, I've never seen strange lights in the sky that move too fast to be planes, and I certainly have never had a spirit board put me in contact with the souls of the long-dead.
However, a few days ago I was visiting with my mother, and she reminded me of something very odd, something I had seemingly buried deep within my subconscious mind.
We were discussing my childhood, when out of nowhere, she remarked "I'm sorry we never let you go back to Jungle Land, I remember you used to have so much fun there, but, well, I just got so scared after that time you fell asleep in the tube maze that I could never bear to bring you back there again."
I was confused, not even remembering what she was talking about, and I asked her what Jungle Land was. She held up a finger, as if to say "one moment", and then shuffled off to her bedroom, arriving a minute later with a photo album. She flipped through the pages, scanning each one, before stopping and pointing at a specific picture.
I looked over and saw myself as a young girl, perhaps five or six years old, smiling happily as I stood in front of a large indoor plastic play structure, constructed of multicolored interconnected tubes. I felt sick as I stared at the photo for reasons I couldn't fully fathom, and the room suddenly felt much colder.
I thanked my mother for the opportunity to spend some time with her and hastily made up some excuse to leave and walk back to my apartment. By the time I had slammed shut and locked the door after I got home, I had fully remembered the terrifying events that occurred so long ago.
- - -
Jungle Land was a large family entertainment center in my home town, with an indoor jungle gym, ball pit, arcade games, and, of course, a tube maze. I think they were planning to make it a chain, but as far as I know there was only ever the one location, I suppose it just wasn't profitable enough to expand from there.
I recalled that the incident occurred when I wasn't much older than I had been in the photo my mother showed me, maybe eight at the most. It was a weekend my mother had free, so she took me over to Jungle Land to play with some friends. Unfortunately none of the friends made it, so I was instead I had to try my luck with the other children, all of whom were strangers to me.
I wasn't a particularly outgoing child, and tended towards shyness and reclusion unless around my friends, so I was understandably frustrated by the whole situation. As I waded in the ball pit despondently, kicking around the multicolored balls in petulant annoyance, I suddenly heard a voice whisper to me from the direction of the tube maze.
"Hey! What's your name?"
I turned to look at who had spoken, and saw a young boy, about my age, peeking his head out of the entrance to the maze. He was smiling at me.
"Samantha. What's yours?" I asked, cautiously, not used to talking with other kids who I didn't already know.
"My name is Charlie! Nice to meet you" I heard him say. But, though I could tell that it was the boy's voice, I didn't see his lips move at all.
I giggled, and asked "Hey, your mouth didn't move, that's cool! How did you do that?"
I heard the boy's voice again, saying "It's a magic trick! If you want, I can teach you how, but you have to follow me." He gestured for me to follow him into the tube maze. Excited to have a new friend and learn the magic trick, I eagerly followed him, quickly forgetting the sadness I felt only moments before. Childhood moods pass quickly I suppose.
I followed close behind my newfound friend at first, but as he continued climbing and crawling his way through the maze I found myself falling behind. I've never been a particularly athletic person, and even as a young girl this still held true.
The winding plastic tubes seemed to go on forever, with endless twists and turns. The smell of plastic was thick in the stale air, and I felt a little bit claustrophobic. Despite how busy the place seemed only minutes before, we didn't come across any other children as I followed Charlie deeper into the maze. After maybe fifteen minutes I started to feel uneasy.
"Are we almost there?" I asked, a slightly whiny tone in my voice.
"Almost there, I promise! Just one more turn" responded Charlie, cheerfully. He was about twelve feet ahead of me, down a long tube that took a sharp left turn at the end.
As he rounded the corner, and I lost sight of him, I became uncomfortably aware of how quiet everything was. Even without any other children in sight, I should have been able to hear laughter, the sounds of the arcade, and the crying of little kids in the distance. But there was nothing, just my own breathing echoing in the cramped plastic tunnel. Something deep inside told me I needed to turn around and get out as fast as possible.
I rotated as fast as I could in the cramped space, and began steadily crawling my way back as quickly as I could, which wasn't particularly fast. My knees had begun to hurt from the continuous scraping against plastic, and my arms and legs were both sore from exertion. Despite the labyrinthine nature of the tube maze, I somehow seemed to know which way I had to go to get out. I'm very lucky to have a good sense of direction, even from a very young age.
I started to hear sounds of other children in the distance, and I managed to find my second wind, quickening my pace out of a desire to get out of this tangle of plastic tubes as swiftly as possible. I heard something crawling quickly far behind me, and I felt an intense urge to turn around and see who my pursuer was, but I was worried that if I did so something horrible would happen to me.
The sound of crawling from behind me came closer and closer, and I began to cry a little from fear and tiredness. Finally, I saw the exit, and with a last burst of energy, managed to stumble out into the play area near the ball pit. To my exhausted lungs, the air conditioning felt like a mountain breeze. I looked back at the tube maze, but nothing had come out after me. I felt safe once again, and started to calm down, my sniffling tears slowing down to just grateful breaths of fresh air.
I noticed that all the other children were sulkily heading towards the exit, accompanied by their parents, and that the outside windows showed a red sky. As I pondered this, I heard my mother shout "Samantha! Oh my God where were you?"
I looked up to find my mother running towards me, before she scooped me up into her arms in a great big hug, kissing me on the top of my head. I was quite confused, not knowing why she was so worried, nor why it seemed to be closing time when I'd only been in the maze for thirty minutes at most.
"You've been gone for hours sweetheart, what happened?" she asked, visibly teary eyed.
"I was in the tube maze with Charlie, but I got scared. He was going to show me how to talk without using my mouth" I replied, simply.
"She must have fallen asleep in there", said a bored looking Jungle Land employee who I hadn't noticed earlier, "good timing too, it's time for y'all to get going, we have to clean the ball pit."
With that, my mother grabbed my shoes from the cubby and carried me out to the car, continuing to ask me questions about if I was alright, seemingly more for her own comfort than mine. I wasn't paying attention though, I was just focusing on the tube maze. Out one of the rounded, convex plastic windows, I could see the angry, frowning face of Charlie. I had never seen such genuine hate in anyone's eyes before, nor have I since. I felt myself start to cry again as my mother patted me gently, reassuring me that everything was alright.
- - -
After vividly remembering all that occurred, I suddenly snapped back to reality, realizing I was breathing heavily from stress. I started to calm down a little bit, telling myself that it all must have been some nightmare I experienced as a young child. I must have just fallen asleep in the tube maze and made up the whole thing in my mind.
Out of curiosity, I looked up Jungle Land on the internet, expecting to learn it had gone out of business during the pandemic or had been demolished to make way for an apartment building. Instead, I found something very disturbing.
The first search result I found was a news article about Jungle Land shutting down, dated about fifteen years ago, shortly after my incident with Charlie. The whole center went out of business following a huge scandal, parents just didn't feel comfortable bringing their kids there anymore after the news broke out.
Apparently three children went missing after visiting the establishment, with no trace of where they could have gone. Their parents insist they last saw them entering the tube maze.