Mark of Death

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

Have you ever heard of a book called "Mark of Death"?
I have seen it once.

It is as thick as an encyclopedia**, and it contains only pictures of faces of people both when they are alive and when they are dead.
The right page has faces of them while alive, and the left page has faces of them after death.

I don't know how it came to be made, but it is apparently a secret book known only in the world of fortune-tellers. I heard that if you studied those pictures in the book every day, you would eventually be able to tell the "mark of death" which would appear on people's faces when their death was imminent.

The person who showed me the book was a teacher from a private-tutoring school I used to go.
Twenty years have passed since then. The teacher worked for a few years at the school after he graduated from university, and then he quit the job, saying he would go to Bali to learn white magic. That was the last I heard of him.

I will call the teacher Aiba in this story.

Aiba obtained a copy of the book while he was still studying at university. From the time he got it, he would spend the whole day, every day, gazing at those pictures.
He was so into the whole occult thing that he devoted most of his time to the study of it; he didn't even bother to attend classes at the university.
Still, he liked climbing mountains, and would frequently drop by the university's mountaineering club.

One day, the club came up with a plan to climb a winter mountain.
When the day came to climb it, they gathered at B station.
Aiba was taking part in it too, but upon seeing the club members' faces, for the very first time, he recognised  "marks of death" on them.
Of course, Aiba told them that they had marks of death written on their faces, and did his best to dissuade them from carrying out the plan.
But they laughed in his face, ridiculing his claims, and all four of them headed towards the mountain just as planned.

A couple of days later, Aiba was watching TV when a news headline flashed across the screen: "Members of C University Mountaineering Club Reported Missing."
Aiba's name was among the list of members who had been reported missing.

He was astonished, and immediately called the university, and decided to join the the rescue team that had been formed by the ex-members of the club.
They travelled to D, which was the city where the mountain was located.

Because of the inclement weather, the search was delayed until the next morning.
Meanwhile, having nothing to do, Aiba visited a coffee shop which was a usual place the members of the mountaineering club would go to after they had climbed down the mountain.

When he entered the coffee shop, he found all the other four members of the club sitting at a table.
What? You are all alive and well?
They were so happy to see one another again, and congratulated themselves for having survived the ordeal; but one of the members suddenly put down a newspaper, which he had been reading, on the table, and muttered under his breath:

Hey, Aiba. You have a mark of death written on your face.

Aiba was shocked by his words, and ran into the toilet to check his face in the mirror; but he did not perceive anything unusual about his face.

He came out of the toilet, but all the four members, who had been there until moments ago, had gone.
Confused, he asked the coffee shop owner, where have they all gone?
The coffee shop owner didn't seem to understand his question.
The owner said, Aiba suddenly burst into the coffee shop, and started talking on his own, and then dashed into the toilet.

But they were all here... Aiba glanced at the table, and his eyes fell on the newspaper. It had an article about the missing mountaineering club members, together with their small portraits.
And all of the portraits, with the exception of the portrait of Aiba at the bottom,  clearly showed marks of death written on their faces. 

-----------------------------------------------------------
 

Kojien

**Encyclopedia ---- Kojien in the original Japanese. Kojien is regarded as the most authoritative dictionary of Japanese (See Wikipedia).

Click to see other posts under the same category ➡(Apparition)　➡ (Appartion #2)

💖Thank you so much for leaving comments. I love getting comments from you all. It's one of the main reasons why I want to continue this blog😊🌸🌸🌸✨

Mountain Witch!

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)
 

This happened to a young couple driving on a mountain pass.

The sun was already setting. Virtually no oncoming car could be seen, nor were there any lampposts.

While the man drove the car, his girlfriend, tired from a long drive, slept on the front seat beside him, wrapped up cozily in a blanket.
The man stared intently ahead into the dark, trying to keep fatigue at bay.

When they were half way through the mountain, he spotted a white sedan parked at a lay-by.
Without thinking, he slowed down his car.

He had known other couples to park their cars at such a place and stay overnight inside them, for they lacked money to stay in proper hotels.

He stopped the car and peered into the rear seat window of the car, out of curiosity.
But as soon as he did so, a door of the sedan suddenly opened wide, and a woman came out. Their eyes met.

Her eyes were boring into his.
Feeling awkward and a little embarrassed, he suddenly started the car to get away from the place.

He was still feeling her eyes on him, and a few seconds later, he looked into the rear-view mirror to see if she was still staring at him; then he gasped in horrified alarm.

The woman was chasing his car!

His feeling of embarrassment turned into panic, and he sped up the car.
He drove it as fast as he possibly could on a narrow mountain pass.
But the woman was still chasing him, although it was impossible for any human-beings to have kept up with such high speed.

In the rear-view mirror, he saw the woman's face illuminated by the red brake lights, and the sight made his hair stand on end.  

Mountain Witch! Mountain Witch! **

The face was the exact copy of the face of Mountain Witch he saw in a children's book when he was a boy.
It was an ugly, wrinkled, demonic face of an old woman, with her hair wildly flying in the wind, closing in on her victim.
He started apologizing for god knows what, and stepped on the accelerator like crazy.

Before he knew it, he had arrived at the parking space of a convenience store at the foot of the mountain.
His girlfriend woke up, and he told her how he had just had a narrow escape from death.

She looked confused at first, but soon her expression turned into one of great shock.
A huge sense of relief washed over him, because by telling her the story, he felt like he was confirming to himself that he was safe now.

When he had finished telling his story, he found his girlfriend looking pensive, as if ruminating over what he had just told her.
"I had a dream." She finally spoke. "In the dream, I was chasing your car frantically, because you had left me alone in the middle of the mountain, and driven away. I yelled and screamed with all my strength, but you wouldn't stop and kept on driving.
For one moment, I seriously thought in my mind: 'I will kill him!' "

 

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

** Mountain Witch - Yamanba (or Yamauba: See Wikipedia ), in the original story. Yamanba is a yokai in the form of an old woman who lives deep in a mountain. She appears at first as a well dressed, benevolent lady who invites travellers into her hut for a night's rest. But during the night, when travellers are fast asleep, she attacks them and devours them.  Her true identity before she became a yokai is said to have been a priestess of a mountain god, or an old woman who was a victim of ubasute (the practice of abandoning elderly relatives in mountains during a period of famine: See Wikipedia).

I just found another good site on Yamanba😊 :

http://yokai.com/yamauba/

Click here for more stories under the same category ➡(Monsters)

This story reminded me of this➡(Mountain Road) and this video too➡(Snowy Roads are scary!) You might need to switch to the web version of the blog to watch the video.

Uncle Pringles

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

This happened while I was still at elementary school.

On the way to the school, I used to see a chubby moon-faced man known to us by the nickname of "Uncle Pringles" standing by the side of a road.
  

Uncle always had a boy with him, called Shinta, who was about 15 years old and appeared to be mentally handicapped.

Uncle would always call out to children walking to school, saying,
"Wouldn't you shake your hands with this boy?"

Most children would get creeped out and simply run away, but I -- small as I was -- took pity on Shinta, and shook hands with him.

"What a good boy!"
Uncle smiled broadly as though it made him really happy, so I felt I did something good to them.

Next day, Uncle and Shinta were waiting at the same place as usual.
"Wouldn't you shake hands with him?"
Just like the day before, I went up to the boy and shook hands with him. But as soon as my hand entwined with his, I felt a sharp pain piercing mine.

Shinta was hiding a drawing pin in his hand.

"He says he can't forgive you no matter what."
Uncle's flat voice reached my ears.

Why? Did they notice in me a sense of superiority hidden behind sympathy?
A lot of thoughts rushed through my mind.
But whatever the reason, they didn't have to do this to me...

I looked at Uncle as if seeking for help, and his face all of a sudden crumbled with remorse.   
"I said to Shinta that I wished you were my son instead of him. Shinta, I am soorryy. I am sooo sooo soorryyy."
 

I ran to school right after that, and told the teachers everything that had happened.
The incident was soon made known to all students by the school announcement. The whole school was on alert for a while, and the teachers even went patrolling in the neighbourhood.

Uncle Pringles never showed up again after that day.
But instead, a rumour began circulating in the school:
"Shinta was trying to shake hands with kids because he wanted to spread his disease to them."

This rumour caused me considerable anxiety for a long time.

(For other stories under the same category, Click Here)

Stargazer

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

This is a famous urban legend (with many different versions), so you might have already read it somewhere!😊⭐

A man casually looked up at the sky on the way home from his work.
What spread before his eyes was the perfect starry sky without a cloud in sight.

"How long has it been since I last looked at a starry sky?"

He had been up to neck with work for months.
As he looked at those twinkling stars, he felt a quiet joy in his heart.

From that day onward, it became his custom to gaze at the stars from the balcony of his apartment after work.

One night, he noticed that, in the apartment building opposite of his, there was a woman who was gazing up at the sky from her room, in the same manner as he was doing.
"She must love looking at the night sky too!"
He felt a friendly feeling towards her.

He continued to gaze up at the stars whenever he had a chance, and as the days went by, his interest in the woman in the opposite building grew too. In fact, he became almost infatuated with her. The reason was because every time he went out on the balcony to look at the sky, she was also there looking at the sky.

"I wonder what kind of person she is. She must know that I am also here looking at the sky."
He couldn't contain his desire to get to know her any longer. He decided to visit her room.

Feeling butterflies in his stomach, he headed towards her room.
When he arrived, he pressed the doorbell, but there was no answer, no matter how many times he pressed it.
He impulsively grabbed hold of the doorknob. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked.

He timidly peered into the room. It was almost completely dark inside.
Only the moonlight through the window was casting a pale light on the woman.

But he froze the moment he saw her.

The woman was dead, hanging from the ceiling by the window.

She looked as though she was standing there gazing up at the starry sky.

Pen

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

A high school girl was studying for the end of term exam in her room.

It was well past midnight. She was getting sleepy and starting to lose focus.
At one point, while she fiddled with her pen, she suddenly had a weird idea of tossing the pen over her shoulder.
She just felt like doing it, for no particular reason.

So while sitting on the chair, she tossed it over her shoulder.
But ----

---- She heard no sound of it dropping on the floor.

The floor was wooden. If a pen dropped, it would have made a sound.
She felt chills down her spine.

But when she gathered the courage to look behind, she found that the pen had simply landed on a cushion that was on the floor.
"Of course!" She muttered to herself as she felt tension leave her body.

Next day, at school, she shared her story with her friends, with some embellishment.
"Have you heard this story before? If, around two a.m., you toss a pen over your shoulder and you don't hear the sound of it dropping on the floor, you will soon die from an unknown cause?  To tell you the truth, I tried tossing a pen like that yesterday, at two a.m. ---- "

She heard her friends draw a sharp breath.
"---- and guess what? It didn't make a sound!"
She exclaimed in a dramatic tone, and a little commotion followed. A few of her friends even screamed in terror.

Seeing that she smiled with satisfaction, and added: "But it was just because the pen dropped on a cushion. Hahaha!"
It was just another funny story to tell during a break.

That night, she sat at the desk in her room, studying for the exam just like the day before.

But it was getting late, and again, her mind started wandering. She glanced at a clock on her desk.
It had just gone five minutes past two.

She then remembered the story she had told her friends during the day, and looked at the pen she was holding in her hand.

And, without thinking, she tossed it over her shoulder. 

This time too, it didn't make a sound.

Only this time, it should have made a sound.
She had moved the cushion that was on the floor onto her bed yesterday.
There couldn't be anything else on the floor that might have absorbed the sound.

She knew where the pen should have landed on the floor, from the way she had tossed it.  
She was sure there could not be anything there.

Cold sweat broke all over her body. She shivered.
After some hesitation, she slowly turned around to look behind her.

And there, she saw one of her friends from her school, standing right at the place where the pen should have dropped. 

".....I tried it too, just like you did in the story you told me."
Her friend said icily in a low whisper.

Firmly gripped in her friend's hand was the very pen which she had tossed only a few moments ago.  

(This story reminded me of this: A Made-Up Story )

"Mopé Mopé" Happy Song For Halloween

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Happy Halloween everyone!  🎃⭐

I had been totally forgetting today was Halloween until someone pointed it out to me yesterday 😆✨

Anyway, I just would like to post this famous children's song to celebrate today! 👻 ✨

It's perfect for Halloween, so please watch it until the end. I promise it's gonna blow your mind 😆🎵✨

Enjoy 💖Much love from Saya💕✨

 

The link to the video: https://youtu.be/nC-bVtpIMd4

Ding Dooong

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

One humid summer afternoon, I was taking a nap on the second floor of my house.

Ding Dooong, Ding Dooong...

The doorbell rang. I was the only person at home, and I was too lazy to go downstairs. I ignored it and kept on sleeping.

Ding Dooong, Ding Dooong...
Ding Dooong, Ding Dooong...

But the doorbell continued to ring at regular intervals.

Who could it be? What a nuisance.
I looked out the window and surreptitiously glanced down at the front door.
A woman in white clothes, about 40 years old, and a little girl wearing similar white clothes and a straw hat, were standing there, side by side.

They could be people from some cult religious group trying to recruit new members.
What a bother! But I suppose I could just go down and ask them what they wanted.

I went downstairs and opened the front door, but there was no one outside.

What? They had gone already? And I had come all the way down here to answer them.
I went back upstairs to sleep again.

But then:
Ding Dooong, Ding Dooong...
The doorbell rang again.

I looked out the window. It was the same woman and child again.
What the hell?
I stormed down the stairs.

The doorbell kept ringing at regular intervals even while I was stomping towards the front door.
When I reached the door, I swung it open, fully intending to give them a good piece of my mind.

But there was no one there. The doorbell had been ringing until a moment ago!
There were no hiding places. My house stood at the end of a straight lane and they would still be visible if they had run away.

As I stood there dazed:

Ding Dooong, Ding Dooong...

The doorbell rang again, even though there was no one around to press it!

I shut the door in an instant, locked it, and ran upstairs.
Closing the curtains, I jumped into my bed and lay there trembling.
The doorbell still kept on ringing.
But I no longer had the courage to look out the window to check the front door.

The next morning, my mother woke me up.
"There's a letter for you. It looks like it's from a woman."
She had a silly grin on her face. She apparently found it when she went to the letter box to fetch the newspaper.

There was no writing on the white envelope.
How could she know it was from a woman!

I opened it and saw the following words written in a neat handwriting:

"Something is trying to get inside your house."

That was all that was written there.

Unknown Caller

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

I got a call from an unknown number.
A middle aged woman's voice asked, "Mr.Suzuki (psuedonym)?"
But I am Tanaka (psuedonym).

So I replied, "No, you have the wrong number."
"Then, who are you?"She asked.

Her response both surprised and annoyed me.
"Why would I answer that? Don't you think it's rude to ask me that?"
When I said that, she just hung up.

That was weird! I thought.
Then a few days later, I got another call from an unknown number (I think it could have been the same number as the last time).
When I answered it, the same middle aged woman's voice asked,
"Mr. Suzuki?"
I said, "You called a wrong number," and hung up. I then blocked the number on the phone.

About a week later, I got a call from a different unknown number. Weird things keep happening to me lately! I thought to myself, and answered the phone, but without saying a word. It was that woman's voice.

"Mr.Suzuki? You must be Mr.Suzuki, right?" She sounded strangely excited.
It was getting too creepy, and I hung up without a word.

This time though, she called me immediately again.
I was caught off guard, but  soon my surprise was replaced by exasperation.
I answered the call so that I could tell her to stop it, once and for all.

"Oh, Mr.Suzuki? You are Mr.Suzuki, aren't you?"
Her voice sounded strangely excited again.

"Look at the number before you make a call! How many times do I have to tell you I am not Suzuki!?" I snapped at her.

That was when her voice suddenly became really low like a man's voice.
"Yeah, I know. Because you are Tanaka."
She said, and hung up.

That was the creepiest thing that ever happened to me. For some time after that, I got freaked out every time I received a call from someone.