How to Go to Another World by Using Closet

Hi, everyone! Happy Halloween! :D

〔How to Go to Another World by Using Closet〕*1

What to Prepare:

• A piece of paper with your name on it
• Two cups: one filled with water to the 7th of its capacity, and the other empty
• A cardboard box large enough for one person to sit in and still have a bit of extra space

Note:

• The material of the paper can be anything, but its size should be small enough to fit inside the cup.
• Use a brush pen*2 when you write your name.
• The cups should be the ones you always use; prepare two cups of the same kind. It's best if they are made of glass.

After you've finished all the preparation, get inside the closet and pull the cardboard box over your body.
Make sure the closet doors are shut tight so no light can penetrate inside.


Below is what you should do while inside the cardboard box:

1. Put the paper with your name on it in the water-filled cup.
2. Close your eyes, and count up to the number that is the square of your age, in time with your heartbeat (e.g. If you're twelve count 144, if twenty-two count 484 and so on.).
3. When finished counting, open your eyes, and transfer the water and the soaked paper to the other cup.

Now step out of the closet -  and you will know.

Caution:
Take an extra care NOT to crack or lose those two cups.

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*1 Closet - In Japan, we have two names for closet: one is kurozetto (クローゼット) which is a transliterated form of the English word closet, and the other oshi ire (押入れ).  The former conjures up a more modern western-style closet, while the latter refers to a type of built-in closet in a traditional Japanese home. The original text uses oshi ire, not kurozetto.  
Pictured right: a typical example of oshi ire. 

*2 Brush pen - called fudepen in Japanese (Wikipedia). They're talking about these kind of stuff.

The Meadow

This story has been translated from Japanese into English by Saya.

source

This is not a scary story... but I want to share it with you.

It happened when I was about 7 years old.
When I was a child, I often had strange experiences.

The town in which I lived was called Shio-iri, in Yokosuka City.
It is the place with the one long slope. *1
On that particular day, we were playing hide-and-seek.

Chikoku-saka (source)

I had a hard time finding a good place to hide, but in the end decided to hide behind my friend's house.
The moment I ran to the back of the house, the scenery changed in an instant.
Before I knew, I was standing in the middle of a large meadow.

Where am I....?

I was stunned and at a loss about what to do. Then I saw ahead of me one flower rising from the ground, and also a little vase beside it.

Without thinking, I picked up the flower and put it inside the vase.
Soon, I spotted a small hill not far away, so I picked up the vase with the flower and walked towards it.

Then, young as I was, a sudden understanding dawned on me - that this hill was someone's tomb.
I put down the vase with the flower, closed my eyes and prayed.  (It wasn't like a proper form of prayer. I just closed my eyes and pressed my palms together...lol)

Next moment I was back behind my friend's house again.
I was so startled that I was just sitting there in a stupor when I heard my friend shout,
"I found you, Ai chan!"*2

What was it just now...? A dream...?
That was what I thought.
Maybe I just daydreamed, but ever since then, strange things started happening to me even more frequently.


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*1 One long slope: This could be Chikoku-Saka (pictured second from the top). Chikoku means "to be late." The slope is so named because the story goes that the soldiers stationed there used to ran up the slope, in order not to be late for the curfew after being out downtown.  
*2 Ai chan: Ai is the narrator's name, chan is a suffix indicating endearment. Judging by the name and the form of suffix, the narrator is probably a girl.

Jigsaw Puzzles

This story has been translated from Japanese into English by Saya.

A cryptic story.
Easy peasy!

As I have started living by myself recently, I decided to decorate my room with jigsaw puzzles.
Those are the type that, after receiving light, glow in the dark, and I really like the soft light they give off.

The other night when I returned home, the puzzles were glowing faintly in the dark,
and seeing that made me feel instantly warm and fuzzy inside, because it was as if the puzzles were welcoming me home.

I'm already itching to work on another set of puzzles.
Next time I might buy one that's the same size but has 2000 pieces.

Accident at Construction Site

Translated from Japanese into English by Saya

A cryptic story for you! :)

I was out for a walk when I heard a woman's loud scream.
"Aaaagh!"

 Startled, I ran to the place where the scream came from and saw a woman sitting on the road in front of an iron plate measuring around 2m in length, 2m in width and 50cm thick.

I tried to talk to the woman but she was too stunned to talk.
A man dressed in construction worker's clothes came up to me and explained what had happened.
It seemed the iron plate was dropped to the ground while they were working overhead on the building.
It looked like nobody got hurt. The woman just fell to the ground due to shock.
But I felt shivers run through me as I looked at the black iron plate on top of red tiles.

I went home after that, but in the late afternoon before the sunset, I visited the scene of the accident again.
The iron plate was still there. Probably due to its very heavy weight they hadn't yet been able to remove it.
The area was cordoned off with a security guard standing in front of it.

The woman I had seen earlier was still there. I went to talk to her.
"What happened earlier must have been quite shocking."

The woman replied,
"Yes, I was so shocked. Especially when I heard the scream."

On the Train

Translated from Japanese into English by Saya

A cryptic story.

On working days, I always use the train.
Today too, when I was on the train, suddenly a woman appeared in front of me.
God, not again. It makes me feel so depressed.

A Video Tape Found in the Attic

WARNING: A Potentially Cursed Video!

I posted this article once back in 2007, but afterwards the video got deleted, so I had to take the article down.
But today I found it again! And just now I uploaded it on my youtube channel so it won't ever get deleted again! Hurray!

Enjoy watching :D
-------------------------------------------------
The Introduction at the beginning:
This man says his girlfriend found a strange video tape in her attic. Ever since she watched it she has had strange things happen to her, including getting unknown bruises on her body and her hair falling out. Perhaps the video is cursed?

The video in question begins at 0:30.

The Muderous Intent

 This story has been translated from Japanese into English by me, Saya.

"I feel so tired these days but I can't get any sleep at all...."
It was 10 days ago that I heard these words uttered by my girlfriend.
Then the day before yesterday, she said, "It seems I'm really tired. When I was lying down on the bed yesterday I had sleep paralysis and couldn't move my body at all (she laughed weakly)."
Certainly, as a construction worker, her work demanded more muscle than my work.

It was this same girlfriend who gave me a call past 11 in the evening. Looking back, she sounded quite strange.

"N (←my name)! Come over here right now! Please!"
Her place was an apartment complex, about 10 minutes from my house by drive (she lived alone).
"What's the matter? OK, I'll be there in a heartbeat."
 Two or three minutes into driving, I again received a call from her, but she was being way over-the-top hysterical:
"(Sobbing) Where are you?? Hurry!! Please!!"
"I'm nearly there. I'm hanging up."
I tried to hang up (well, it's illegal to use a phone while driving) but she continued, "Don't hang up! Please keep talking to me until you arrive at my place... (she was sobbing like crazy)"
"What's going on? I won't understand a word you're saying if you keep on crying like that. Have you had a nightmare?"

And so on and so on. We kept on talking until I finally arrived at her apartment complex.
Her room was on the 7th floor. I immediately got on the elevator and pressed the 7th floor button.
The door closed and the elevator started moving ー

"WHAT?"

The elevator's door was partly glass and therefore I could see through to the other side; and I saw my girlfriend standing there with a mobile phone pressed to her ear.
In a panic I hit the "open" button again and again. But the elevator had already started going up, so of course it wouldn't open.

And later I was glad it didn't.

The second floor: My girlfriend, standing there with the phone pressed to her ear, was looking at me with glazed-over eyes.
The third floor: My girlfriend, standing there with the phone pressed to her ear, was glaring at me.

I saw her on every single floor until it got to the 6th floor, each time wearing a different expression on her face.

But all I heard from my phone was the sound of her crying. As you would expect, I was speechless...
When I arrived at the 7th floor, there was no one there.
Relieved, I got out of the elevator and went to her room; she was still crying.
I asked her why she was crying, and she told me the reason:

She said that yesterday (right now that's already the day before yesterday), while she lay on the bed she had sleep paralysis, and saw a woman standing by her side who smiled at her and said "I'll kill you" and disappeared.

Then before she called me (that's yesterday) and just after she turned off the light she heard,
"I'll kill your boyfriend! I'll go over to him right now and kill him!" The loud voice echoed throughout the room... (I was shocked)

I stayed at her place until the next day. Then, because it was time for me to go to work, I went back to my place first where, on arriving, I discovered numerous scratch marks on my front door. 
I was in a hurry so I couldn't do anything about it then, so I just went off to work.

On the way back from work, my girlfriend called me and told me something very disturbing...
"Today around noon, I saw a strange woman who glared at me and clicked her tongue as she walked past me."
A cold sweat broke out on my skin. Why me? Was it a so-called iki-ryo?**

Now I really want to go and tell the person that she must have been cursing a wrong guy....   


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**Iki-ryo (生霊): Literally, "living spirit." It is a spirit of someone still alive which may sometimes haunt other people.

The Tape Recorder

A cryptic story for you guys!

A man was found dead by a gunshot wound in his study at home.
He lay slumped over a desk, with a gun in his grip.

On the desk stood a tape recorder.
The detective pushed the play button:
"I cannot continue living anymore. I have no raison d'être,"
said the message, which was immediately followed by the sound of a gunshot.

As soon as the detective heard the message, he knew it wasn't a suicide but a murder.

(Bizarre) Ginormous Religious Buildings of Japan

Taken from a 2chan thread:

Most of these are buildings of NRM, while others are of more established religions.
(EDIT: And they freak me out. lol  I mean they look like freaky theme park buildings. It's alarming how there are so many weird new religions in Japan and how they hold enormous power over people.)


The Great Sacred Hall, Rissho Kosei Kai

Cryptic Pictures

Similar to the so-called "when you see it you will sh*t bricks" pictures.


1.

Six Murders

Please do NOT copy/distribute my works without permission. Thank you. (WHY?)


Put a curse on someone with the ritual "Six Murders."
 
Procedure:

1. Find a secluded place where you are not likely to encounter other humans.
(Somewhere without buildings around it is the best.)*1

2. Use your finger to draw a circle on the ground, and stand at the centre of the circle with bare feet, facing wherever you fancy.

3. Slit the tip of your finger with a knife or other such object, and let the blood drop to the ground.

4. Chant "one person is not enough, two people are not enough, three people are not enough...." and so on, until you get to five people.

5. Finally, say "I want six people" and chop off the finger you wounded before from its base.

6. Bury the finger inside the circle and leave.
(You must begin by walking 6 steps towards the direction you were facing before. After that you can go wherever you want.)  

7. After you leave the place, the sixth person who sees you (or hears your voice) will die within six days.

Note:

• Only the sixth person will be affected; nothing will happen to anyone from the seventh  onwards.
• Procedure from 3 to 7 must be done in silence. If you utter even one word you will end up dead yourself. *2
• Apparently you must not be seen by anyone while you perform this ritual, but it is not known what happens to you if someone actually sees you.

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*1 The sentence inside the bracket is ambiguous in the original Japanese text, as it can also be taken to mean "you should do it inside a building where you won't be seen."  But I think my interpretation is the more likely one.
*2 It probably means that all the chanting must be done inside your head rather than said aloud.

"Someone is Dead in Your Room " Phone Call Leads to Discovery of Mysterious Death

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An unsolved mysterious case that really happened in Japan last year (2013). It is intriguing as well as a little confusing.

"On the evening of 26th June 2013,  a 46 year-old man was found hanged in a public housing complex apartment in Sakai-city, Osaka."

At first glance, there seems nothing out of ordinary about the case.
However, the dead man was not the resident of the apartment, and the true owner of the room - a man aged 21 - is somehow missing.

Moreover, there was a "mystery man" at the scene who disappeared immediately after the body was found.
We also have a report of a "man with a Kanto accent"** who called the apartment's owner to inform him that someone was dead in his room.

There are many unclear circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, bringing to our mind the phrase "Truth is stranger than fiction."


The Persons Involved

A: 46 years-old. On the night of 26th his body is discovered inside B's apartment.
B: 21 years-old. The true owner of the apartment where A is found. As of 28th, he is still missing.
C: B's mother. She is vaguely acquainted with A.
D: C's common-law husband and the first person to hear from B about the "dead body" in his room.
E: C's daughter and B's older sister.
F: 24 years-old. E's husband and B's brother-in-law. He is the one who finds the body and calls the police.
G: F's co-worker. Together with F, he finds the body.
H: A man in his 40s. He is in the room when F and G find A's body. While the call to the police is being made, he disappears from the scene.

The image, captured from the actual news on TV, shows a policeman standing in front of the apartment in which the hanged body was found.

The Punishment

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A cryptic story!

When I regain my consciousness, I find myself in a strange room.
Then I hear a mechanical voice coming from somewhere.

"If you don't consume all the meats inside this room, you will be put to death as a punishment."

You must be joking, I want to say; but the dead bodies scattered around me are the proof that the voice means every word it says.

I look at a plate piled high with a mountain of meats, and think to myself:
Well, tough luck for you! I'm known to be a man of gargantuan appetite!

I empty the plate and declare,
"There, I've eaten them all up!"

The mechanical voice resonates again:

"Now the punishment will begin."

Hemi-Sync for Lucid Dreaming

Listening to this apparently puts you in the right state of mind to lucid dream.
It appears to have been created with a technique called Hemi-Sync that uses audio patterns containing binaural beats.

How to Listen:
Use your headphones (without noise cancellation or filter).
Set the volume low to the point that you can just barely hear the sound.
Lie down on your back, relax your body and hit the play button.
Then all you have to do is go to sleep and you will be able to lucid dream!

Links:
How to Lucid Dream 
The First Lucid Dream: How to Start Lucid Dreaming for Beginners 
10 Mistakes Made by Beginner Lucid Dreamers 
Lucid Dreaming FAQ

Some people have reported unpleasant side-effects from lucid dreaming.  
Possible Dangers of Lucid Dreaming
Dangers of Lucid Dreaming (discussion forum)
Is Lucid Dreaming Safe?
Is Lucid Dreaming Dangerous?
Lucid Dreaming and Mental Illness

Three Parallel Lines

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Last night I was out drinking.
By the time I arrived home it was very late and my family were all asleep.

Well, it was past one in the morning so that was to be expected - but something was off.
For one thing, the lights and stove were both on, and even the TV was on with its volume set very high.
Perhaps the lights and stove were left on out of consideration for me, but it was a little strange that the TV was still on. What was more everyone was sleeping on the floor*1 in the sitting room.

My parents sometimes sleep in the sitting room, but my little brother thinks he is all grown up now, so nowadays he insists he sleeps in his own room. But today he was sleeping in the sitting room...
Moreover, the three of them were sleeping neatly in three parallel lines.

When I saw that I couldn't help but feel a little creeped out.
Before something strange happens, don't you get a sort of "premonition"?
Those premonitions always turn out to be right. It's weird, don't you think?

To start with, I changed into my night clothes and went to the bathroom.
While I was in the bathroom I began to calm down a little, but the next moment I felt goosebumps break out on my skin. It was because all the lights in the house - and the TV - suddenly got turned off. And the stove turned itself off too.

For a moment I thought we had a blackout, but the washlet*2 was still working, so I knew something was off.
When I finished, I crept out of the toilet and felt my way into the pitch-dark sitting room, and turned the lights on.

Then, I again noticed abnormality. The sitting room was empty.
The mattresses that were on the floor had been put away too.
Up to this point, nothing extraordinary had happened, but I felt an agitation building up in me, perhaps out of uneasiness and fear. 

But the really scary part came right after this.


"Aaaaaahhhhhh!"
All of a sudden, I heard my little brother scream. When I rushed into his room he was shaking violently underneath the duvet.
And there I saw an unbelievable sight.

A transparent image of my family sleeping side by side in three parallel lines was floating in the mid-air.
Moreover, when I looked hard I realised they were all dead, with blood gushing from their mouth, and their faces frozen in the mask of terror.
I screamed too; I mean I had just seen a similar image in the sitting room. But what I saw in the sitting room weren't dead bodies.
By the time I uncovered my face and looked up again, the image had already vanished.
I shook the duvet inside which my little brother was sleeping, and said,
"Hey, it's gone now! It's OK!"
Then I pulled off the duvet but would you believe it, my brother wasn't there.
I felt cold all over. Then I went back to the sitting room right away.
And I saw there the three of them lying down side by side in three parallel lines.
I fearfully touched their hands, but they were all living humans.
What had I just seen? Too many things had happened to simply dismiss it as a hallucination.
In the end I couldn't bear the fear anymore; so I lay myself down beside the three of them and went to sleep.


Fortunately I didn't have any nightmares, but I fear that from now on, I will be too afraid to come home in the small hours of the night.
It's Sunday today, so I want to make sure I get rid of this fear before the day is over.

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*1 on the floor - I added these words to make it easier to understand the situation. As many of
you already know, Japanese people traditionally sleep on mattress on the floor. The picture on the right shows a bedroom in a Japanese hotel.  
*2 Washlet (ウォシュレット) refers to electric toilet seats with water spray feature for washing. You'll find these high-tech toilet seats everywhere in Japan, so make sure you don't push wrong buttons when you encounter one! (Wiki)

The Impossible Game

Please do NOT copy/distribute my works without permission. Thank you. (WHY?)

A classic urban legend

Four college students belonging to a hiking club became lost in a snowy mountain.
They walked and walked, until they caught sight of a little cabin in the midst of the raging snowstorm.

To protect themselves from the snowstorm, they went inside the cabin.
However, it seemed no one had been to the cabin for a long time, and there was nothing inside to warm themselves with.

As the night descended, the temperature began to drop rapidly.
If they fell asleep, they would freeze to death for sure.

It was then that they came up with a game which would ensure they stayed awake.
First, each person had to stand in each corner of the room.
Next, one person had to run to the person who stood in the next corner, and touch his body.
Then the person who was touched in turn had to run to the next corner and touch the body of the person there. The touched person of course had to repeat the same thing.
So they repeated this game on and on, in the darkness, until the day broke.

The following morning they were found by a rescue party and managed to go down the mountain.
When they returned to their college they met up with the other students in the club, and told them what had happened.
But after they had finished talking, they noticed that one of the students who had been listening to their story was looking very perplexed.

This student said to them,
"But...isn't that an impossible game to play? If each of you stood in one corner and the first person ran to the next corner, there would be no one left in the first corner. Then the game would have to stop there -  unless of course you had a fifth person."

The Public Toilet

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I went into a public toilet.
It was a Japanese-style toilet.**

I hate Japanese-style toilets, but there was nothing I could do about it; so I squatted down. Then I noticed a message written on the wall in front of me.
"Look Right!!" It said.
What the hell? I turned my head to the right and saw another message on the wall that said, "Look Left!!"
Wow so bossy! I thought, but I turned my head to the left as instructed, and this time it said, "Look Up!"
Nervously I looked up at the ceiling and saw a message written in large red letters that said,
"Don't Look Behind You!!"
With a pounding heart, I slowly turned my head around and looked behind me......

And luckily, there was nothing there.



------------------------------------
** See this link for the proper way to use it.
I actually hate Japanese-style toilets too. lol
But in the days when people wore kimono, this type of toilet was most appropriate.

The Rejuvenation Operation

Please do NOT copy/distribute my works without permission. Thank you. (WHY?)

A cryptic story! 

Elderly Man "Are you sure this thing can rejuvenate my body?"

Man "Yes. This machine our company developed will reconstruct, from your cells, the healthy body you had when you were at the prime of your youth, and then transplant your existing memories into it; so that your memories will remain the same while your body alone will rejuvenate."

Elderly Man "I see.... Then, please proceed."

The elderly man lies down on a bed, and gets covered over by a sheet.

A few hours later -

Elderly Man (He's sure taking long.....When is it going to start?)

Man "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

Young Man "Thank you very much. I had no idea it would go this smoothly.... By the way, what are you going to do with this old body of mine?"

Man "It shall be taken care of. We look forward to serving you again, sir."

The man wheels the bed to the next room.

Elderly Man (Oh. It seems the man before me had a successful operation. But finally it's my turn...)

Young Man "Thank you very much."

Mountain Road

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A cryptic story for you! Enjoy! :D

It is a dark, gloomy mountain road - no houses in sight, with neither moonlight nor streetlamps.
I am driving quite fast, wanting to get home as soon as possible.
Then suddenly a person runs out into the road in front of me.
I slam on the brakes and manage to avoid crashing into the person.
The person seems unhurt too, but he is saying something to me, his face contorted with anger.
I get scared somehow and speed away in full throttle.
I then glance at the rearview mirror, and see that the person is still glaring at me.
What a persistent guy. After all, it was his fault, wasn't it?

School Life

A documentary filming about a Japanese high school inadvertently captures something creepy.

See if you can figure out what is wrong with this video! :D
(No jump scares, so relax!)

The Newborn Baby

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A cryptic story for you! :D

A new baby was born in a hospital.

On the very same day at night, a nurse was making her rounds when, to her utter dismay, she found the baby had died.
The hospital, to cover up the death, immediately prepared a substitute baby.
The mother was unconscious when she gave birth to her baby, so she hadn't yet seen the baby.
Besides, the substitute baby looked exactly like the dead baby so that there was no way the mother would be able to tell the difference.

Next day, as soon as the mother saw the baby, her face immediately turned into an expression of horror and she screeched loudly:
"This thing is not my baby!!!!"   

Releasing the spirit from the body

 
 A short video showing a scientific experiment to release a spirit from the body.
(Edit: I must say this is a very strange video. No one seems to know from whence it comes.)


WARNING: CONTAINS SOME EXPLICIT IMAGES.
 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Grotesque

WARNING: EXTREME GRAPHIC CONTENT

Grotesque is a notorious Japanese splatter/torture porn film, made in 2009, written and directed by Koji Shiraishi.

Due to its extreme content, it's banned in several countries, including the United Kingdom.

BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) director David Cook explained:
 "Unlike other recent 'torture' themed horror works, such as the Saw and Hostel series, Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism. In spite of a vestigial attempt to 'explain' the killer's motivations at the very end of the film, the chief pleasure on offer is not related to understanding the motivations of any of the central characters. Rather, the chief pleasure on offer seems to be wallowing in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake."

The reception in Japan was initially less controversial, but after the notoriety of the UK ban, Amazon Japan decided to remove the DVD of Grotesque from its website.(Wiki)
 
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Plot Summary:

An unnamed doctor has always had everything he's ever wanted, but that has only made him develop more extreme and depraved needs. He kidnaps a young couple in the prime of their life together and forces them into a game of torment that slowly extinguishes their hopes for survival. (IMDb)
  

Going to Bathroom at Night

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This is a cryptic story!

When I go to the bathroom in the middle of night I don't turn on the lights, afraid that the brightness would make it hard to get back to sleep again. I've done it so many times that even in the pitch dark I can easily find my way. Often while in the dark I imagine what sort of things would scare me in a situation like this. For example, I imagine a pale face suddenly appearing out of the darkness.  Yesterday too, I was thinking that wouldn't it be funny if I saw a long-haired woman hanging upside-down from the ceiling, and in my dopey state I fancied I actually saw such a figure and that scared me, but it was probably all just my wild imagination.

However, it was right then that it went clank! and a sudden pain shot through my toe that I became breathless. It seemed my toe hit on something hard. Then I remembered that I had left a box of fruits, sent by my family, lying about on the floor. I managed to go to the bathroom, but even after I got back to bed the pain kept me wide awake. Next morning my neighbour said he heard a scream come from my place in the middle of the night. It must have been when I hit my toe on the box. I apologized to him. I was stupid not have turned on the lights. All my laziness got me was a pain, a sleepless night, and a proof to the neighbour that I'm a dumbass, screaming like a bitch in the middle of the night....

The Conversation

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A cryptic story!


I work in a pub in the evenings.
That day I had to work until late and couldn't catch the train I usually use. I had to get off half-way at an unfamiliar, near-deserted station.

It was the day before a payday, and I was broke. I went into a park and tried to get some sleep in there until it was time for the first train to come.
But it was so freezing outside that I began to have a pain in my stomach. I ran to the park's public toilet.

A short while later, someone came into the cubicle next to mine. It sounded like the guy was talking on the phone as he walked in.
Although there were traffic noises from outside, inside the toilet was very quiet, so my ears picked up bits of their conversation.


"What? Yeah, I know that. Hahaha! Oh, sorry, sorry. What?"

".....ber you.....di....no.......rec...."

"Aww, yeah, I see what you mean, man. Don't worry, you'll be fine. Huh? Yeah. Hahaha! No way, why? Hehe. Hmmm, is that true?"

"......ch.......t...again"

 "Are you sure? I see....damn, maybe you're right. Sorry, just a second!"

Crinkle crinckle... Just as I came out of my cubicle, I heard the dry noise as the guy pulled down the toilet paper, and at the same time I clearly heard the words that the person on the other side of the phone was saying.

A bolt of fear shot through me and I fled from the place. I made a full sprint to the station and waited there until the shutters opened.
I was creeped out to the bone. Even now whenever I think about it, I grow afraid of the night.

About the translated stories

Edited: Everyone, thank you very much for your kind, loving words! I was very sad before, but now I'm feeling so much better :D 
As I said on Twitter too, I will not let those haters to keep me from doing what I like.
Thank you for your support!

I have just received a very hurtful comment from someone who told me that I was a "c*nt" for asking people not to steal my works when I steal other people's works myself.

So I feel I have to say something in my defence again.

■Firstly, the stories I have translated were all originally written by anonymous authors, mostly on 2channel.
You see them copied/pasted everywhere on the Japanese internet, for people to share and enjoy.
As far as I know, the unspoken rule is that you can make use of those stories in any way you like, as long as you don't use them for commercial purposes.

■Secondly, because the process of translation inevitably involves interpretation on the part of the translator, no two translations are exactly the same.

Just compare my translation entitled "Please Tell Me the Way" with another excellent translation of the same story done by the blog "怖い話." (Click on the links below to read them.)

Please Tell Me the Way
Directions (from 怖い話)

Both stories were translated from the same story, yet they differ considerably in terms of diction and presentation.
So I do not think it is overly presumptuous of me if I feel that my works have some kind of originality in themselves, even though they are translated works.


And of course, as I made it clear before, I would be happy to take down promptly any of these translated works upon the request of the original authors.
But I do not believe I am defiling their works or doing anything against their wishes.



As I have stated over and over before, I put a considerable effort into translating these stories and making them enjoyable to read for English-speaking readers.

I do not take money from anyone, I do it just for fun and I am not hurting anybody.

All I am asking is not to use my works without my permission.
If you want to share these stories with others, you can click on any of the share buttons at the bottom of the posts, or simply provide them the links to the posts.
I do not see why you feel the need to steal them.

If, even after you have read all that I have written, you still don't approve of what I do - well, it still would NOT give you the right to call me names.
Also it would NOT justify your action if you decided to steal my works either.

Please, everyone, don't send me any more unpleasant and unintelligent comments like that.

If you have questions or doubts about what I do, you can say them in a nice way.
You do not need to be so hostile.

Well, obviously the person who sent me that comment has some serious problems.
She or he is probably not a happy person. I feel nothing but pity for her/him.


Anyway, thank you for your audience and have a nice day! :)

Twins

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A cryptic story.

Twin sisters (two little girls) were kidnapped.
Their eyes and mouths were covered with tape.

The kidnapper, in helium voice, whispered in the ear of the older of the twins:
"Stay still and don't try to run away, or else I'll kill your younger sister."

Then the kidnapper, in helium voice, whispered in the ear of the younger of the twins:
"Stay still and don't try to run away, or else I'll kill your older sister."

The Meals

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Omelette-rice, or Omurice

The story I'm about to tell concerns a very scary experience I had, which has nothing to do with supernatural stuff, but which freaked me out as nothing ever had before.
What you need to know, first of all, is that I was the lowest of scum bag at the time it happened.

I had a girlfriend with whom I had been going out for two years.
She was kind, modest, had a good sense of humour, was slim but curvy at all the right places, and always well-dressed and pretty.
We were getting on swimmingly even after we had been together for two long years.

It was my fault that we broke up. At the time, my work and many other things in my life were a complete mess; unfortunately, I dealt with the accumulating stress by bullying my girlfriend.
We never used to fight, but one day we had a big fallout.
And it was that fallout which eventually led to our break-up.

As usual I had been playing games on the Playstation console (I had been jobless for half a year), when my girlfriend returned from work. She soon started picking up and throwing away the rubbish, such as empty cans, that were strewn all over the floor.
By this time I had become such a jerk that I became irritated merely by listening to the noise she was making while she threw away the cans, and started verbally attacking her without a good reason.
"You think you're better than me, don't you?"
"You must be feeling good about yourself for taking care of me. Right?"
I was a real asshole.

She stayed calm (probably she was hiding her true feelings) and went on cooking.
Then after that as I watched her munching away in front of TV (although she was skinny she ate a lot, like she really enjoyed eating) somehow I grew irritated again.
"Look at yourself, eating like a pig! Well, it must taste really good, eh, to eat something you bought by the money you earned yourself!
"I'm so sick of you. I don't want to be with you anymore so can you just pack up and leave?"
So I went on and on, saying so many unreasonable things.

Oops, maybe I've said too much - I thought for a second then, but kept on eating.
She was looking down and sniffing. Even that behaviour pissed me off.
".....OK. I understood."
Finally she said, and gathering up her coat and bag, got up to leave.

"I'll come back on another day to collect the rest of my things. And also - "

Also what?
I had been sitting in a sort of daze in the now quiet room, when I received a text message from her.

"I want you to know that the meals I cooked for you - they were all made from recycled food."
???
Recycled?

Then she sent me a few more messages.
Below is the summary of what she wrote.

• She was suffering from bulimia.*1
• Too much money was being spent on food that she decided to keep the vomited food in the freezer.
• She reused them when she cooked things like risotto and omelette-rice *2

⇒ I ate them　⇒ "Wow, tastes great!"

That was what was happening everyday.... All those hamburger steaks and stir-fried dishes first went through her before coming to me.

In front of me was a dish of omelette-rice. I felt my mind go blank even as another message arrived.


"Today's dish used to be a bowl of chicken-and-egg rice."*3
Inside the omelette was some fried rice with chicken. I threw up.



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*1 Bulimia nervosa : An eating disorder characterized by binge eating and purging (vomiting), done out of an excessive concern for body weight. (Wiki)

Oyakodon

*2 Omelette-rice: Omurice (オムライス)  in the original text. It is an omelette made with fried rice and usually topped with ketchup (Wiki). See the picture at the top.

*3 A bowl of chicken-and-egg rice: Oyakodon (親子丼) in the original text. It is a dish in which chicken, egg and other ingredients are all simmered together in a sauce and then served on top of a bowl of rice. (Wiki)
See the picture on the right.

Fall-and-Die Village

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Dolls in kimono*1 source

Have you ever dreamt of "Fall-and-Die village"?

This type of dream is called the "collective dream"*2 and many people dream it at some point in their lives.
Most people forget about the contents of the dream immediately after they wake up. But there are still numerous reports about the dream collected from all over the country.

The dream begins with a scene in a farmers' village. The sun is setting, and there are blue-purple dead bodies lying around everywhere.
After a while, a few young girls in kimono come up to you and explain, "This is Fall-and-Die village." As soon as they finish telling you this, one of the girls trips over one of the dead bodies and falls.

As the girl screams, her body immediately turns blue-purple and stops moving.

There are several variations as to what happens next. Some people have reported that they got "chased by the girls and ran around the village like crazy," and some say they were "forced to  play on stilts,"*3 while others say "nothing particular happened" and they just woke up.

But somehow, there are no accounts of the dream from someone who actually tripped and fell in the dream.


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Photographed in 1926 (source)

*1 Ichimatsu dolls (市松人形) - a type of popular traditional Japanese dolls (See Wiki the Edo period section)
*2 Collective dreams - the use of the term"collective" suggests a link to Jungian collective unconscious
*3 Stilts - Takeh uma (竹馬) in the original text, where takeh means bamboo (indicating the material with which they are made), and uma a horse. 
Pictured right: An old photo of children in kimono playing on bamboo stilts.

I suspect all the chasing and walking on stilts in the dream are ploys to make you trip and fall.

Can you see your Guardian Spirit?

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Source

Close your eyes.

Imagine the staircase in your house; walk up and down those stairs ten times, slowly.

At your tenth time*1, turn around to look behind you.  There you will see your guardian spirit.*2

If your psychic power is too weak you probably won't be able to see it.
But if your guardian spirit has strong power you might still be able to see it even if your own power is weak.
If your guardian spirit's power is too strong, however, all you might see is just darkness.


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*1 I think it means when you've finished climbing the stairs for the tenth time and you are at the top of the stairs. It's not very clear even in the original text. (Edit: someone reported to me that she saw it after she climbed down the stairs for the tenth time and was at the bottom of the stairs.)
*2 The Guardian Spirit -  Shugo-rei （守護霊） in Japanese; sort of an eastern counterpart of the Guardian Angel.

Assault

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A cryptic story

My wife was assaulted by a man while at home.

I checked if she was alright, and apparently she managed to fend off the attacker with a knife she was holding.

When I went to pick her up at the police station, she said,
"I heard the doorbell ring and opened the front door thinking it was you when a man suddenly attacked me."

It must have been a very frightening experience. I held her tight in my arms and caressed her head to soothe her.

Phantom Voice

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Right after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a female voice was emitted from Hiroshima Broadcasting Station (the building of which was thought to have suffered an instantaneous annihilation) calling out to Osaka Broadcasting Station for help. 

"Osaka, Osaka, this is Hiroshima Broadcasting Station. Hiroshima has been annihilated and we are short of radio waves. Please, Osaka, Osaka, send us some radio waves...."

Everyone who heard her on the radio later remarked,
"It was a very beautiful and clear voice, like a voice of an angel." **



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**Angel - Tennyo (天女)in the original text. They are heavenly beings who often appear in Japanese mythology. (See Wiki)

The Piano at Night

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An urban legend.

If you leave four music scores open on the piano, at four minutes past three after midnight a girl ghost will come and start playing the music on those scores.

Apparently if you hear her play, a spirit will start residing in your ear.

Stalker

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This is a cryptic story!

Today I got yelled by my boss again. The boss is a baldy who is unpopular among female colleagues.
"What if my stalker turns out to be that baldy...." I think to myself, as I arrive home.
My home is a shabby old apartment, with only two rooms, namely a kitchen-sitting room and a bedroom.
There is only one window in the sitting room. The rent is cheap, so I won't complain.

As soon as I unlock the front door and enter the apartment, I'm greeted with a shocking sight. The wardrobe in the sitting room has been ransacked.
Then I remember that after I had breakfast this morning I left the house without locking the door.
Damn! The window is locked up tight so the person must have entered through the front door.
Ugh, so disgusting. Sick bastard. I hope he goes to hell.
I have no more energy left for today. I'll skip supper. I'll go to the police tomorrow to report.

After checking the front door again to make sure it is securely locked, I walk into my bedroom.

How to Check If There Is a Ghost in Your Room

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This ritual was originally posted on Twitter
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I heard this from a friend

〔Check if there is a ghost in your room by this method〕

1. Hold your mobile phone and stand in the middle of your room
2. Switch to the video mode (with the lens facing outward), close your eyes and slowly spin around once, and save the recorded video
3. Repeat the procedure 2 but this time with the lens facing toward you   

Note: Prepare your escape plan beforehand in case something happens.

My friend apparently does this every time when looking for a new house.
He's had a fair number of successes. (Before moving into the house he's living now, he went to see four different houses and recorded ghosts in two of them) 

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Apparently, this person in the photo tried this ritual and no one knows his whereabouts now.

He uploaded this picture immediately after he'd done the ritual with the caption"No ghost was recorded in the video! Don't be fooled into believing that ghosts exist!"

Suzuki

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This happened when I was still a high school student.
My friend Yamada (pseudonym)'s parents had to attend a Buddhist memorial service and they were away for three days.
It was a summer holiday but Tanaka (pseudonym) and I so far had had nothing interesting to do, so we decided to stay over at Yamada's place to just mess around.  (Saya's note: all three of them are boys.) *1

We got together in the evening and first cooked dinner together.
After that we started telling each other some ghost stories.
It was then that Yamada's old friend from junior high school, called Suzuki (pseudonym), came over to join us.
Suzuki was a quiet and serious boy. At first glace he looked like some pampered rich kid who was rather small built for his age. He didn't look like a high school student at all.
Tanaka and I met Suzuki for the first time, but Suzuki kept up with our conversation easily like we had known each other for a long time.

After Yamada told us some urban legend I started telling them my favourite creepy story, but Tanaka started acting like a wet blanket.
Even as I spoke he kept interrupting me with stupid remarks and tried his best to dampen our mood.
"You're just scared, admit it! That's why you are being such a nuisance."
"Hell, no! Don't blame me when your story is boring."
At the time we often became competitive about small things which sometimes led to a full-on fight.

Yamada wasn't about to stand by and watch us go into a scuffle, and he came up with an idea to pacify us both.
"Why don't you decide who is more brave, by trying a game of dare? "
Tanaka thought that was a cool idea, but I wasn't so into it.
"There's a storehouse around the ___bridge. I heard some reports of ghost sighting around there. My own friend from junior high school told me he and his girlfriend saw it with their own eyes. Let's do it there."

Suzuki said he would go home because it was getting late.
By the time the three of us left for the storehouse, it was already about 11pm.

About the Poll (Notice from Saya：UPDATED)

Edited: 7 April 2014

Dear Everyone,

Thank you very, very much for your thoughtful suggestions.
I have read all of your comments and, after giving it a long thought, finally decided against publishing stories written by other people -  for the moment.

I'll keep my mind focused on translating and publishing creepy stories that I discovered by myself as often as I can!

Many of you sent me such encouraging messages - as usual I really appreciate them from the bottom of my heart, as it is mostly your support that motivates me to continue this blog.

Take care :D,
Love, Saya
 


(VOTE CLOSED)

Some of my readers want to share their own stories. Would you like me to post these stories or not?
	YES
	NO
pollcode.com free polls

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Some of my readers want to share their own creepy stories and they have asked me whether I can publish those stories on this blog.

I thought I would first ask you readers whether you would like me to do that or not.

My concern is that this blog is meant to be a blog for Japanese horror stories and urban legends, and to publish the readers' stories would mean bringing alien elements into it.

I'm also afraid that I wouldn't have enough time to proofread. I'm the only person who is managing this blog and accepting readers' stories might prove too much for me to handle.

Anyway, I thought I would ask for your opinion on this matter first and take them into consideration before making the final decision.

So kindly please take time to vote in the poll that I've set up on the right hand side of the blog.

Thank you! :)

Love, Saya

The Bus Trip

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This is a cryptic story!

A family on the way to visit the grandparents' house took a ride on a bus.
Just as the bus was driving around the foot of a mountain, the child started throwing a tantrum, saying, "Mummy, I'm hungry."
So even though they still had a long way to go, they got off at the next bus stop and went into a restaurant nearby.

They had just finished their meal when they saw a breaking news on TV that said that the bus they had just gotten off got crushed by a rock slide and every passenger on it was thought to be dead.

As soon as the wife saw the news, she uttered, "we should never have gotten off the bus..."
Hearing this the husband at first got angry, but soon he said, "oh, I see," realizing what she meant.

Snowy Roads are Scary!

(29 March 2014) I just remembered why I didn't put a warning up for this video.
It's because the video itself already has a warning at the beginning.
So please, make sure you pause the video for one second and READ THE WARNING. It will give you a clue about what's going to happen next.

Get out your studded tires!

Unknown Phone Call

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One rainy afternoon I went home. I saw mum busy getting ready to go out.
"What on earth are you doing? Your uncle's passed away. Get ready, quick!"
She said.
What? What uncle? I wondered, but I was going to get ready anyway as she had asked me to. But then the phone rang.

"Hello? Who is it?"
 Behind me I heard mum muttering something to herself and felt her scurrying to and fro.
"Hello!? It's me. Don't panic and listen...!" The person on the other side started speaking like he was in a great hurry.
Hmmm...who could it be? It was a strange tone of voice to use if he was simply letting me know about the death of the uncle. And it also sounded somehow familiar....

"Mum is the one who died! Don't turn around, alright!? Don't dare turn around until I come to you!"

Oh...It's my big brother. Now I knew it was the voice of my big brother who had died last year in a motorcycle accident.

My body went stiff and I couldn't move. What's going on? It had all gone quiet behind me and I no longer heard noises like before.

"What are you doing....? Quickly, get ready....to die...."

A voice whispered into my ear and I passed out. I had no memory of what happened next but later I was found lying in front of the telephone. Mum shook me awake and told me she had been out with her friend.
Then who was that person in the house? The voice was definitely the voice of my big brother - who is already dead.



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Click "Read More" below to read Saya's comment!

The Telephone Ritual

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Things You Need

• A mobile phone
• Some salt
• A flashlight
• An amulet

How to Play

• First, make sure you have prepared all the necessary things - a mobile phone, an amulet (for protection), a flashlight, and some salt - with you.
• After midnight, when you are alone, turn off all the lights in the house.
• After you have made sure it's all dark, lock yourself inside the toilet (before you go in, scatter some salt around the toilet door so that spirits cannot enter the toilet)
• Next, use the flashlight to light up the water inside the toilet.
• Keep looking at the surface of the water
• Then use your mobile phone to call your home number.
• Let the phone ring and don't hang up half way through (if it gets cut off half way through, call again)

Most important:

• If you see a change in the surface of the water or hear noise from somewhere inside the house, hang up straight away and scatter salt around those places where strange things occurred.
• If someone answers your call, hang up immediately. Then come out of the toilet and scatter salt around the house telephone. If you do that you will be safe for the moment.
• To be on the safe side, scatter salt all around inside the house even if nothing happened.

WARNING:
Please bear in mind that this ritual is very dangerous and it should be done with great care.

Some people say that the ghost of the ancestor or some spirit that haunts the house picks up the telephone.

A friend's experience in the elevator

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A cryptic story for you!


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

A friend told me this story.

He lives in a high-rise apartment building. 
Because he lives on the 14th floor he needs to use the elevator.

One time in the middle of the night he came back from work.
He got on the elevator and pushed the button for the 14th floor. Then just as the door closed and the elevator started moving, the button for the 8th floor lit up.
"Hmmm, wonder if someone else is waiting to get in?"
 Immediately after he thought that, he realised something and quickly pressed the buttons for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th floors successively.
 The elevator went past the 2nd floor, but luckily it stopped on the 3rd floor and then he impatiently forced his way out through the leisurely-opening doors and ran to the outside.

He ran down the stairs and left the building, and then spent the whole night reading magazines in the near-by convenience store until the day broke.
"Perhaps it was nothing, but you never know."
He smiled as he said it, but even today he still avoids using the elevator in the middle of the night. 

Parrot

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This is a cryptic story!

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I've just started living on my own.
To combat loneliness, I've also started keeping a parrot as a pet.

The parrot soon began to copy my greeting phrases.
Every morning it greets me "good morning," and every night it greets me "welcome home." 

It's such an intelligent creature.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

But more importantly,

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE ON NEW YEAR'S DAY?

You should be celebrating, not visiting an unhealthy blog like mine.

Press the go back button, or close the browser. NOW.




But you will still get LOVE from me :D teehee