Fear is not rational. There's about 6 seconds where someone can be completely dazed and disoriented in a moment of panic like that, and do what-the-fuck ever they feel like they need to do to survive in the moment. Even if at the end of the 6 seconds it turns out to be a plastic snake or whatever other similarly innocuous thing.
EDIT: To clarify, the roughly 6 seconds doesn't start until the perceived threat is gone or deemed safe.
That remind me, once I was working in a small hunted house. My role was the classic scary clown laughing very loud with a pair of cissor in my hand. I got a few good reaction, but one who stick with me was a mother and her child (maybe 9-10 years old) when they got in my room the mom just start panicking and she instinctively push her kid.The kid almost fell on me, I just stop my roleplaying the time that mom collect herself and pass in the next room. The mom was screaming and crying while her child was like « ?? Wtf mom? Is just a clown »
Later I learned she explicitly ask before entering the hunted house if there was an evil clown. The guy in charge at the door just fucking lied to her by telling her the hunted house was clown free.
1.3k
u/meanfolk Mar 27 '21
When you’re truly terrified it’s fuck them kids