When Prince Vo, a manager at a backpackers hostel in the southern Indian state of Kerala, rushed to a donation-collection center to contribute a week after disastrous floods in August, he couldn’t find one that was well-staffed or had remotely enough supplies for victims. “The response seemed cold — not even lukewarm,” he recalls. It was in stark contrast, he says, to a year earlier when, after similar floods, droves of volunteers swarmed collection centers to coordinate relief, as mainstream and social media revved up calls for urgent support. 

Yet it’s a response relief agencies across South and Southeast Asia are increasingly beginning to confront. As floods, droughts, typhoons and other extreme weather phenomena batter nations with growing frequency, donors are turning weary and selective, leaving one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change even weaker in its ability to grapple with such mounting crises. 

This is incredibly dispiriting.

For hours after The Live Thriller ended, I was alive to every threat. Sitting in a Paris café with a glass of wine, people watching — a calm and time-honored activity — became murderer spotting. Every time a door slammed or a light flickered, I almost knocked over my glass.

Blame it on Paris’ most engaging, exciting, absolutely terrifying interactive theater experience. Though it will likely appeal to the adrenaline-chasing escape room crowd, this isn’t an escape room: It’s more like being inside a horror movie or video game, where your decisions and ability to connect the dots affect the story.