Memory Loss

Note: Please do NOT copy and paste this story somewhere else on the web without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation. 

Auntumn, 2001.
I had caught a cold and was on my way to a hospital in Okubo.*1 I was standing inside a train on Seibu-Shinjuku line*2.
Then my head started to throb intensely and I shut my eyes tight to endure the pain.
That was as far as I remember, and the next thing I knew, it was already sunset and I was surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape.

I was wearing clothes I didn't remember buying, and my hair had gone from black to light brown although I had never dyed my hair.
I panicked and ran into the nearest ramen*3 shop and asked the owner where I was.
I was near Fukushima Station in Osaka city,*4 and one year had elapsed. My mobile phone had been switched to a different model.

In the contact list I found more than ten phone numbers, all of which had one-letter names such as "M" or "H,"*5 but found no phone numbers of family or acquaintances.
For some reason I got scared of those strange phone numbers so I threw the phone away. I called home from the police station.

My family were all shocked too. They had already been to the police to file a missing persons report.
Anyway I'm now back at home, and still go to the mental hospital for monthly checkups.
I couldn't go back to my original job so I'm now working for a temp agency.



___________________________________________________________________________
*1 - Okubo (大久保): a town in Tokyo.
*2 - Seibu-Shinjuku Line (西武新宿線): A railway line running from Tokyo to Saitama (Wiki).
*3 - Ramen (ラーメン): A popular Japanese noodle dish (Wiki).
*4 -Osaka (大阪): One of the major cities of Japan, located in the west of Japan's mainland and very far away from Tokyo. (Wiki). For Fukushima Station see Wiki
*5 - M or H: The original Japanese words are ま or ひ (pronounced "ma" or "hi"). I translated them as M or H because if I write  "ma" or "hi" they won 't be "one-letter."

Some people guess that the author might have been suffering from "fugue state."

Comments

blackrealm said…
Slenderman was in Japan
Oji said…
ms.saya!!!! been waiting for updates on your blog, gonna enjoy reading your posts again xD

oh, btw, can i have your permission to repost on fb some of your posts that i really liked? i'll make sure to credit you of course..,you can visit me on facebook, just search for Shinichi Tsujiyoshi..i just want to share your blog more :)
ryuu said…
@SAYA - hey the follow by email worked (.^_^.)
about the story if it was not the fugue state then he was a secret agent and M(ma) and H(hi) are also fellow agents hehehe.. well maybe..
BlueRio said…
lol i don't understand the story...
>.>
@HN3: That may be it! :D

@Oji: My dear friend, I'm flattered that you like my posts so much that you want to share them on your fb. However, I generally do not allow people to repost my posts. Of course you can put a link on your fb to each of my post, but please do not copy and paste them on there.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I hope you can oblige my request. Thank you again for asking me fist and for your understanding.

@ryuu: Thank you very much for helping me, ryuu! I'm relieved to
know that it's working! (^0^)♪
Secret agents? That would have been cool! hehe
Leonslaught said…
!!!

Hi Saya! I've been a long time lurker of your posts, and I love them all, especially your near-perfect (if not perfect) translations!

I was actually trying to find out how I'd get access to your blog when you set it on private, but now I can see it again, I'm really really really happy! Thanks Saya! Keep doing your best!
I liked this story! (*^ω^*)
I wonder what the person did while they weren't themselves...
I'd never heard of Fugue state before this story, it was interesting to read about.
ryuu said…
@SAYA - you're very welcome.(^-^)b
Diogo Valverde said…
It might have been Fugue, since the story does seem to describe a textbook case of Fugue. Nevertheless, even if it's not paranormal, that doesn't make it any less scarier, as the story does a great job at conveying the idea that it could happen to any of us, at any moment. It's a little unnerving, thinking that you or any of your loved ones could simply vanish for months.
Daisy said…
Hey Saya,glad to see you're back,i missed your stories^^.

They'r creepy and i absolutely love them as well as my friends.I want to translate them in my native language(romanian)and post them on my site(something like blog,i don't remember how it's called though)with the source link,of course.....may i? :3
Unknown said…
Nice story~! ^ ^

It is really possible that she experienced suffering from "fugue state". Maybe this is the reason why I didn't find this creepy at first.

But then, when I finished reading it again, I think the thing about those strange numbers & names in the contact list is what makes this story creepy, in my opinion.

As always, thank you Saya for posting this~ I'm looking forward for more of your posts! :D
Wow I've got so many comments! This gonna take me sometime to post replies to all of them!

@Leonslaught: Hello, how are you? Is this the first time you're commenting?

It's good to hear that you like my translations! As long as they can convey well the basic creepiness of the stories, I'm satisfied!

Yes, sorry about how I shut down the whole blog before. I've sworn to everyone that I won't do it again, so no worries now! :)
Thank you for your comment!
Sadae said…
Dissociative fugue is the most obvious and logical possibility. Still, I like to fantasize...
What about alien abduction: when the person returned from the abduction, his memories were damaged. Could the person have been possessed by a spirit who did things in his/her place? Maybe the person is a secret agent who had his/her memories erased...hehe, who knows.
blackrealm said…
I imagined slenderman with one of those wod hats and a long fu man chu moustache.
@Jasime: it's good that you like it! :D

I wonder where I heard about the fugue state. I must have got it from 2 channel too, but I don't remember... I actually translated this story before my last disappearace from the net, so it was a long time ago!

@Diogo: that's right, the thought that it could happen to any of us makes the story scarier. When I first read the story it gave me chills!

@Black Rabbit: I've just written in the blog's FAQ that I don't usually allow people to translate my posts either...but well, you know, I actually feel OK about letting you translate them. How strange. Ummmm... I guess, you're not just reposting my works so it's not too bad. And you seem to be a very nice person too. Alright, please be free to translate them. I appreciate your offer to put the source links too. Thank you very much for asking, Black Rabbit!

@Kurisu: Yeah, that's right, those strange numbers and names.. they're the ones that add strong flavour to this story. Strange details like that make you feel really intrigued.

@Sadae: yes, certainly, other explanations are also possible. "fuge state" is just one possibility. I love stories that leaves you room for imagination.

@HN3: I searched the net and found lots of creepy pics of Slender man! He's scary!


THANK YOU GUYS FOR YOUR COMMENTS!
Leonslaught said…
@SAYA: It was my first comment. Funny how I read all your posts first (except video ones. No creepy videos for me) before commenting, but at least I got to tell you how I appreciate your work now! Better late than never!
Oji said…
ohh, i see..very well then..i'll just paste the link of your posts Ms.Saya..,i'll do just that, keep up the good work! :)
Zanyuki said…
That does seem like long-term amnesia, but it also seems a little closer to the conspiracy theories of Project MKUltra, the mind-control experiments of the CIA during the 70s. According to urban legend Project MKUltra was, though publicly condemned and dismantled, actually a success, and there are a lot of "Manchurian Candidates" running about.

These Manchurian Candidates (from the book and the film) are actually brainwashed sleeper agents who have no idea that they are assassins, who will then encounter an innocuous-looking "trigger" that will make them remember their mission. In the film, this was a Queen of Diamonds playing card. They will then carry out their mission, and afterwards lose memory of it all after it happened.

The recent theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado (during the showing of The Dark Knight Rises) is said to be an MKUltra conspiracy. James Holmes, the perpetrator, looks brainwashed and forgetful.

This would explain a year-long amnesia and the strange contacts in the narrator's phone.
arshvein said…
hmm, this is really interesting... Even if it's a fugue state, no one knew (even the author) what s/he did in that one year, except maybe those strange contacts.

Maybe, juust maybe, the author wanted to get some escape from his/her current life, so the brain fulfilled that request for a year.

I mean, sometimes we want to get a different, radical changes to life, right, even if it's only in our subconscious? ^^

Anyways, i really like this Saya. ^^
mogiru said…
This certainly is interesting
loner said…
hello saya, I remembered the 1st time I read your blog, it was about a man kept pulling a prank on his friends by saying there was s.o with them and since then, i got hooked with your blogs and it literally saddened me so much when you shut down yours.
As I stumbled on tumblr, I saw s.o posted sth like '' saya is the few good blog out there has good stuff about japanese bizzare weirdness and I will track and hunt any one of you if I know that the real season why she closed her page bc you little f*** stole her work'' and I was like, damn yes, I'm with you haha

Anyway this story was really good.It somehow reminds me about the train station you once posted.The thing bothers me is that it seems like she's taking a leap. Imagine the time when she was under s.o else's identity and actually lived and acquainted with others.They're sure gonna miss her when she's gone.You know, look on the contact list on her phone, ppl just simply can't vanish without any traces.What if s.o is waiting for her s.where and they got abandoned and forgotten :( that is really sad
@Leanslaught: I see. Well, it's extremely nice of you to drop a warm-hearted message like that, dear. Thank you very much. :D

@Oji: Thank you dear. I'm sorry again to have disappointed you.

@Zanyuki: I've never heard of Project MKUltra or Manchurain Candidates, that's very interesting, dear. You know a lot of things! Thank you for that! :D

@arshvein: that's very possible, dear. If I remember correctly, the stress of life is said to be something that triggered Agatha
Christie's disappearance too? I think that's what some people said. I'm glad you like this story, as I do! ;)

@mogiru: glad you find it interesting, dear!

@loner: Very sorry that I made you sad, dear.
Oh, did someome post something like that on tumblr? haha, that's funny.

We hear stories like that, where some people lose memory and gain a new identity, but then after a time they regain their original memory and forget about everything that happened when they had that new identity, and just go back to the old self. Strage how the mind works!

Thank you for your comment, loner!
Tia said…
Dissociative fugue is nothing to be trifled with...This wasn't as scary but it was nonetheless interesting for me... A distant cousin of mine had a severe psychological trauma after his lover died in a car crash. He was the lone survivor and he never ceased to blame himself to this day.Therefore he tended to go missing for days, not remembering how he vanished in the first place... I honestly pity my aunt, a lonely middle-aged woman can only tolerate so much... :(
Anonymous said…
Maybe he had a mental illness from the very start and just thought that he had a memory loss instead. Kinda like schizophrenia or something like that. Mental illnesses are scary stuff.
@Tia: I'm really sorry for your cousin, dear. I hope he gets better :( Your aunt must be suffering a lot. He needs someone to talk to so that he can get the whole thing off his conscience.

@Anon (21 May 2013 08:50
Delete): We don't know whether it was really a matter of mental illness, or there was some other force at work.. But even if the cause was the former, it's still creepy! Yes, he may have been ill right from the start. Speculation abounds!


Thank you friends, for your comments!!
Unknown said…
Hi Mrs. Saya. I'm from Vietnam and I really like your blog. Your stories are so interesting. Could I translate your stories into Vietnamese and post them on a Vietnamese website? I will be very happy if you say "Yes" :)
@Bao: My dear, did you not read my instruction? Did you not read FAQ?

Anyway, thank you very much for asking first, it's very nice of you. However, I have already given permission to quite a few Vietnamese people to translate my works, and I think there are now plenty of people doing it.

You can't be THAT desperate to translate my works, right? There are so many great creepypasta in English out there which you can translate. You don't really need to translate mine.

So I hope you will understand when I tell you that you can't translate my works at the moment.

Unknown said…
@SAYA: OK, I understand. Thank you anyway :)
Unknown said…
An interesting story and a very strange and terrifying thing to happen. A year of your life you can't even remember. That is scary! I hope nothing bad happened to the person in the story during that year. It sounds like she made another, rather shady life for herself.
~桔子~ said…
that actually happened to me before :x