What Is The Tension Experience?
It all started on Monday, February 22nd, with an email from fellow haunt enthusiast and friend Andrew Kasch, directing me to a website for The Tension Experience. Nine days later (and after our “consultations” with individuals we still can’t identify), we are both being stalked digitally and physically by a shadowy organization calling itself “The O.O.A. Institute.”
Cryptic emails. Threatening phone calls. People in parked cars surveilling us. What is it?
To preface, neither Kasch nor I spook easily. In fact, we are hardcore haunt fans, whether they be mainstream fare like Halloween Horror Nights or boutique, immersive, and psychologically challenging experiences like Creep Los Angeles, Delusion, or Alone (to name a few). We are the guys that will sign a waiver, not knowing what lies in store for us, and enter blindly with one thought: “Please scare us.”
We are currently getting what we secretly asked for.
Head to The Tension Experience website. Crack it, and you’ll be able to submit your email address. Once you’ve done that, you’ll more than likely receive an email with a link in it. There’s a phone number hidden within. If you are able to locate it, and possess the same levels of stupidity and courage which Kasch and I clearly do (our collective friends by now feel we’re both insane), CALL THE NUMBER, and see what happens. Doing so led us both to an abandoned warehouse outside downtown Los Angeles. And while neither of our experiences there were the same, they were both altogether disconcerting.
Are we dealing with an offshoot of Heaven’s Gate, or a “The Following”-series inspired organization? Are we slated to be crated off to Slovakia, or is this merely impressively intricate interactive theater? All I know is that moments ago I received yet another obtuse email from The O.O.A Institute signed “Gatekeeper 5,” and last night Kasch an unnerving call from a sobbing woman who warned him, “Don’t believe O.O.A lies.”
Perhaps we’re in over our heads, and as the man in the yellow shirt had mocked during my consultation (while warning me absolutely to NOT speak of my experience there), “Curiosity killed the cat.”
(Sorry, O.O.A., I’m a writer, after all.)
Here are some photos I swiped from O.O.A.’s Instagram page. Your guesses are as good as mine at this point. One thing is for certain, though: I am being watched.
Categorized:News
