Case 130719, Statement of Brianna Paris, November 11, 2019. Statement on the subject of Solus Ice Rink. Statement read by Errin Baylor.
I hate ice rinks now. I don’t want to see them ever again. I know, it’s a stupid thing to say. But whatever that rink did to me I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
I had always loved ice skating with friends. As a child I’d spend innumerable hours in the Minnesota winters skating on the lakes that froze over. But as I grew older and left everyone behind I found myself in Arizona, which is famous for being suffocating, and iceless. So you can imagine my absolute joy when I learned there was an ice rink near my college. Apparently my college had a hockey team and I thought it would be a great way to meet some friends, you know? So I signed up for the league.
The first day I was there went well. I went to the try-out and the manager seemed impressed by my performance. She didn’t really say anything to me but she nodded and muttered something to herself. That didn’t strike me as odd at all.
I got an email saying I had been accepted into the team about a week later and that our practice was to begin on Monday. I was so excited to meet my new team. I remember gushing to my roommate about it, which I’m surprised she had the patience to listen to me. So I waited for Monday to come around.
When I arrived, it was about 5:30 in the morning. That was the time we were meant to practice, and I met up with some of the team inside the rink. They were silent. Eerily silent. It was almost as if they were all mute or something. I could have sworn they made no noise when they walked across the ground to the changing rooms. Each time I tried talking to them they would look at me with those piercing eyes, demanding I stay silent. We were headed to the changing rooms when I suddenly noticed the rink was almost, I don't know fogging up? I stared at it for a while, when I heard the door to the locker room close and the lock click. I tried knocking on the door but they didn’t seem to care too much about me being locked out. There was a fog coming in through the gap on the door too, it was thick and I could barely see my shoes through it. I decided to walk around for a moment to see if someone working here could open the door to the room for me.
The rink was full of odd corridors and corners. The heavy fog had also gotten worse somehow, and it felt almost nauseating. I tried to find my way towards the entrance but every turn just led me back to the ice rink. I couldn’t even find the changing rooms anymore. I was running around frantically by this point, desperately trying to find someone who could help. I was so alone, so lost in this place. I tried to yell out but my voice was so muffled by the fog I could barely hear myself, as if I wasn’t even there. I ran onto the ice at some point and slipped, falling face first into the bitter cold. I stumbled my way back up and realized I was stuck in the middle of the rink, with no one there to help me. I just kind of lay there, waiting for the cold to take me. But it didn’t.
Eventually I felt someone drag me off of the ice. She was hard to make out, shrouded in the thick fog. She kept muttering something to herself. I think it was “not afraid enough,”? Whatever the case, she led me out of the ice rink and I was so glad to feel the early morning sun on my face. I immediately emailed my coach and told her I was not going to be on the team this year. I still haven’t gotten a response. I also swore I would never go on a rink alone again. And then I came here, to one of your foundation buildings. And that leads us to now.
Whatever happened at the Solus Rink I don’t want to live through again it was so isolating, so lonesome. And I hope you guys can do something about it before someone else goes through that.
Well. Ummm that’s something, I find quite a bit of this… difficult to believe. I mean a fog lady in the middle of an ice isn’t’ really a typical winter wonderland find. I do know however that ice rinks can fog up from time to time but that only happens on the ice itself not throughout the entire facility. This could be due to some type of concussion Brianna had suffered, they haven’t responded to any of our attempts to reach out though. I hope this doesn’t end up as another unsolved mystery with a dead statement giver. The rinks sponsor, The Solus Company seems vaguely familiar, i’ll have to check if they’ve been mentioned elsewhere.
