The original ride system would have allowed for a single free-fall drop with the elevator moving out of the open doors at the top and down through a hidden run-out track, as if it had vanished after exiting the building. The track was the same as Cedar Point's Demon Drop, with guests lying flat on their backs as the car decelerates. The elevator would then right itself and drop again to an unload track. Guests would see an AA Rod Serling at the end as he delivered his spiel. The script, dated 1991, hits the same beats as the current attraction. There are interesting show scene differences. After we see the ghostly hotel guests in the hallway, the elevator doors close and the car travels up a floor, opening to a hallway identical to the last. The walls of the hotel distort and become transparent, revealing the Twilight Zone starfield. The elevator begins moving through the starfield, toward a materializing door of light. The door opens to an image of our elevator car. The image stretches, distorts, and drops out of sight. Our car drops. Out of a starfield we see another door of light; it opens and the familiar Twilight Zone icons (manikin, math formula, window) float out and pass through our elevator door frame. The last icon is an eye. As the eye moves closer toward us, we see in its pupil our elevator car. Our image distorts; the eye closes and floats away. The doors of light close. We see our elevator car. The image flips around, shatters, and the shards are sucked into "a swirling cloud of light and shadow." The Twilight Zone icons are thrown from this vortex, stretching and distorting along the way. Our car image flies out of the vortex; it stretches and zooms upward. Our car ascends the shaft, reaches the top, exits the shaft, drops.
Even with a script and storyboard arrangement, this sequence of events is pretty confusing, which I guess is the point.
