I haven’t been going into Second Life as much recently. I was kind of feeling like it was much of a muchness and I didn’t have a desire to do the same things I usually do. So that meant it was time to get out and explore a bit – to visit a new-to-me sim and just soak in the experience.

I hadn’t checked out the Destination Guide recently, so I hopped onto the page to see what piqued my interest. When I read the description of Timeout, I knew I had found my destination.

Timeout is fun and unique. It is quiet but dynamic. It is calming but frightening. It is for lovers but adventurers. Timeout is a high quality sim with beautiful scenery and many interesting spots. It is an addictive sim with the best Irish pub in Second Life for the perfect pint.

There are actually two connecting sims, Timeline and Timeline2. Dreamland (Timeline2) is more the quiet, calming and lovers sim; TIME OUT! (Timeline) is the dynamic, frightening and adventurous side. While I was enchanted by Dreamland, it was TIME OUT! that fascinated me and is the subject of this post.

This is an eerily unsettling sim. If you visit be sure you have your audio turned on. The new-age synthetic music stream they have chosen enhances the other-worldly experience. Yes, there is a haunted house, baying coyotes and giant snakes, but those are things you would expect to be sinister. The truly spooky part to me was the playground.

The little girl with the bunnies was the first vignette I stumbled upon as I headed toward the playground. On first glance it is perfectly normal. But when I was framing the shot, suddenly the scene seemed to take on a more unnatural feeling. The crows circling in the distance, the camper van on the hill seemed to have an abandoned appearance and even the little girl’s eyes seemed to take on a malevolent glare. I shuddered a bit, took my photos and glanced over to the playground.

When I first arrived, there were people on the swing set. I was waiting for them to leave and while I saw a couple of people move off, I could still see a girl at the tire set. I decided to head on over and pass through.

When I arrived, I realised that it wasn’t an avatar playing; the child is a part of the scene. As I watched her hopping in a continuous loop, her dolly flopping freely in her hand, I felt a chill roll down my spine. There was something freakish, bizarre and creepy about the scene. I spent probably an hour there, shooting from different angles with different lighting to see if I could recreate the sense of foreboding I felt. I finally could stand it no longer and wandered away.

Hours later I still couldn’t shake the unease from my visit. I even waited almost two days to go back to the photos to finish them off to do this post. I still don’t know why I found this sim so unsettling, except that it seems to build a suspense so slowly and sneakily that it is spine-chillingly brilliant.

Or maybe I’m just a wuss.

Location: Timeout