Standing alone on a street corner in Los Angeles at 1:00 am, I am waiting for someone, but I don’t know who. As instructed, I am wearing old jeans and a white shirt—clothes that I do mind getting destroyed. Anything that I do not want damaged is left in my car. I am anxious, but oddly excited. This will be my first time experiencing Heretic.

I have been following Heretic since mid-last year but have been hesitant in involving myself until now. I lived vicariously through friends who reveled in the extremity of the shows, while I was engrossed in the glimpses into the beautifully crafted storylines that Adrian Marcato, the mastermind behind Heretic Horror House, creates. These stories, these narratives, these works of art are what ultimately attracted me to Heretic, and I was excited to experience one myself.

As I reflect on these thoughts, I notice Adri an approaching me from across the street. He greets me and leads me towards a nondescript building. We chat of previous haunts as we reach the building. Opening the door, one claustrophobically small room is revealed—just large enough for the two of us. He illuminates it with his flashlight, and we talk.

H E X is the show I am about to participate in. It is the 13^th simulation authored by Marcato and his team and is based on a real experience Marcato suffered while being sick. He explains that the bed used in the experience was obtained from a real crime scene, in which multiple people were tortured and killed on that actual bed. This bed has stains, blood, and DNA on it, but it is wrapped carefully and I am in no harm… at least from bed. The addition of this bed gives the experience a certain weight, a certain realism that instead of scaring me, just heightens my excitement. He asks me if I remember the safe word (Awake), if I have anything I want him to hold (my phone), and if I am ready (I am).

I enter a room filled with fog and a blinding white light. A girl in a hoodie sits at a table and a man in a suit stands over her. As I approach, he asks me to take a seat. He then approaches Adrian and says he needs to have a word with him, that the girl at the table is having trouble with the verbage of the waiver. They begin to discuss it with her, but she is obviously panicked, and decides this experience is not for her. But as she leaves, the man in the suit grabs her arm.

“Don’t fucking touch me; I didn’t sign your waiver, you can’t touch me.”

But the situation only escalates from here. In an instance, they are grabbing her, she is screaming at them, at me, to me for help. I reach out my arm to help and she grabs it tightly. But the men are too strong and she is pulled from my grip and into the next room.

“Sorry about that. Shall we continue with your waiver?”

The man in the suit asks calmly as if nothing happened. After I sign it, he pulls out a video camera and a notebook, and begins to ask me of my sleep history. Do I have a regular sleep schedule? What is it? Do I dream? How often? Have I had a reoccurring nightmare? What is it? Do I dream of rape?

“Now Taylor, I need you to trust me.”

The man in the suit hands me a pill—a powerful sedative that will help illicit the nightmares that are plaguing me. Without hesitation, I take it with a glass of water on the desk.

Now he opens the door in which the girl was carried through earlier. As I enter, I am instructed to put my hands against a door—but before I get there, the girl from before stumbles out of the door and vomits blood across my chest and collapses to the floor. This is when I realize the event hasn’t even started. This is just the pre-show. This is the start to that captivating narrative that I am finally experiencing. And now that I have taken the sedative and that horrific bed is only a room away—I begin to feel scared over what nightmares await me.

I don’t want to spoil more of the narrative than that because it was a beautiful experience that words cannot capture. It was extreme, it was aggressive, and it was physical—but all of this physicality fit within the narrative perfectly. There was not a single moment where I was removed from the immersion. To compliment Adrian’s genius, it never felt like a haunt to me, it felt authentic—and that was terrifying. The storyline did not just live up to my expectations—it exceeded them.

As integral to the experience as the narrative, the atmosphere was perfectly crafted as well. The bed was gross, wet, bloody, and uncomfortable. Overhead was the neverending strobing of a single light. This created a pseudo-hallucinatory effect that only aided in generating the nightmare. This further aided in the dreamlike quality of the beings that haunted my experience. Just like a dream, they appeared and disappeared with the flashing of the strobe. I could never quite focus on any of them, and this was only compounded by the absolute ferocity in which they manhandled me. I am not a small guy, yet I was lifted off the ground and moved repeatedly. That is an impressive feat all in its own.

When the event was finally over, my shirt was ripped and my jeans were in tatters. My hands were restrained, so I was forced to waddle out of the event with a blood-covered face and my pants around my ankles. It was strange to move from an extreme nightmare into a room in which the absurdity of a grown man with his pants around his ankles caused the staff to giggle. Even Adrian had trouble not cracking a smile when we took a picture following the event.

I commend the Heretic team in a perfect first performance to a Heretic newcomer. Adrian is not afraid to take risks with his events, and this risk paid off! It was easily the most extreme haunt I have encountered to-date, but it felt controlled throughout. There was one moment where I was thrown on my side, and through the fog, I saw Adrian standing there watching. It was comforting to know he was making sure everything played out appropriately and that he was concerned with my safety. Furthermore, the experience was completely engrossing—I never once focused on any of the pain I felt, and I honestly didn’t even know I left with any marks on me until after I got home and looked in the mirror. It is a very thin line that separates pain from pleasure and Hex knew how to walk that line.

I had faced my demons and survived. I had survived Heretic and did not use the safe-word. As I walked back to my car, I felt empowered. This is not a haunt for everyone. It is aggressive, physical, and extreme. But it is also beautiful and artistic if you subject yourself to the pain. A friend had asked me today if I would return to another Heretic show, and the answer was easy:

Definitely.