Halloween—the time for pumpkins, candy, witches, and ghosts. But Halloween is also a time to be scared, a time where pranks are not looked down upon, and a time when fear is at an all-time high.

Fear, defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat” in the Oxford Dictionary, is always catered to during spooky season, but the underlying causes of this emotion are different for every person. 

For junior Morgan Warfield, her fears are plentiful.

“[I’m scared of] literally everything. I’m a scaredy-cat,” said Warfield. “Poking [is one of my fears]. I don’t know why or when this fear formed, but when people poke me I get so uncomfortable and usually cry.”

Senior Debbie Kitzler has an aversion to sinkholes.

“You could suddenly disappear into the ground,” said Kitlzer

The types of fears Chamblee students have are as many as they are diverse, with many different interpretations of what constitutes a fear in the first place. 

Some students stated that they feared events that could physically harm them, such as fires.

“My biggest fear is to die in a fire because I am afraid that is going to be painful and last a long time,” said junior Jocelyn Diaz.

Others had fears that were more abstract.

“[My biggest fear is] the world ending, nuclear war, the government generally, because these are things that nothing I could do [nothing] to stop them,” said Dasia Brown.

On the other hand, irrational fears, unlike normal fears, are harder to justify.

“I do not like holes. Not like a pothole, but more like an infection—several tiny oozing holes,” said sophomore Lily Andrews.

This fear, known as trypophobia, was actually quite common among Chamblee students. 

“[I have] trypophobia, the fear of small clusters of holes,” said sophomore Braden Stieger, “[When] watching a video on trypophobia, I shake uncontrollably.”

But fear is an integral part of the Halloween spirit, and as such, many people get pranked on Halloween night, including junior Lila David.

“I was trick-or-treating at my neighbor’s house, and the man who lived in the house pretended to be a statue then jumped out.” said David, “I immediately started crying.”

A common theme that seemed to be associated with Halloween pranks was chainsaws.

“The scariest thing [to happen to me on Halloween] was [that] a person chased me with a chainsaw,” said freshman Gabe Guerrero. “It was without a chain, but I didn’t know that yet.”

Guerrero was not the only one to have experienced this.

“[One time, I was] walking past the woods, and a man with a chainsaw jumped out at me,” said Zhariya Porter.

Others, though, take it a step farther and go out of their way just to get that rush of adrenaline fear provides.

“When I was younger, around six, there was a haunted house where we went trick-or-treating,” said freshman Evelyn Entrekin. “It probably wouldn’t scare me much now, but at the time, I remember it being scary.”

While so far this is all fun and games, sometimes truly frightening things do happen to Chamblee students, not at all associated with Halloween.

“When I was younger someone pulled up at my house, and I looked outside to see who it was and there was someone outside looking [in] towards me,” said Diaz.

Others have momentarily feared for their life.

“The scariest thing that happened to me is when my Grandma, Mom, and I had a flat tire and were stuck on the road,” said freshman Andrew Zhi. “A truck honked its horn, and I thought that it was barreling top speed into us. I jumped out of the way of nothing.”

But despite some real problems, plenty of Chamblee students’ fears are lighthearted, based more off of disgust than pure terror.

“[I fear] worms! They are so slimy and disgusting,” said David.