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)

Comments

I translated this story before I got busy. I'm not sure when next I can update.

Anyway I like this story for its surreal quality :D
Unknown said…
First comment :D
Now this one is creepy...
Also kind of remind me to an old story back to my childhood where a family who sleep in "dead-man position" found all dead by the morning (In my places, a dead man should be buried in certain position, like the head on the north side, feet on the south side, facing left, etc. I know it's weird, but that's the tradition). The only one left is their youngest daughter, and she's scared as hell.

Anyway, thanks for your hardwork Saya!!! I found your blog recently, when searching for Hitori Kankurenbo (And I'm glad I did't do that :D), and have been finished reading all of your post!! It was such amazing work, so Thank You!!

PS: Sorry for my english, this isn't my mother language :)
BlueRio said…
i guess he's drunk?? since he said that he was out drinking...however this is hell scary...i miss this kind of story..T.T
Nunu. said…
Omg.. that was really scary. If it's me, I'll probably stay outside the house in a place with traffic or lock myself in my room.

And how come none of narrator's family member heard him screamed and checked on him? Could be his family not at home and the ones in the sitting room are ghosts too.

I heard once that in a group, we are not encouraged to sleep like zippers; 2 rows and all feet in row 1 facing feet in row 2. (Or is it heads?) Never knew why, but probably to avoid the same thing that happened to the narrator.

Nunu
Unknown said…
That guy is drunk, isn't he?
Did he really come home properly?
I mean, he's not got into wrong house, right?
Anonymous said…
Now that's creepy!
I guess the family have something weird going on before the OP came back home. That's why they are sleeping together on a same room.
Good things nothing happen to OP, but I'm afraid this might be a premonition of what will happen...

[I just have a thought on my mind... What if the OP kills their family and lay they down like that...? This might be a story about a mad men who didn't remember s/he kills their family... ._. ]
hollow.nerd said…
This situation kinda reminds me of the old idiom in my country which can be roughly translated as '' Bad luck lurks around when you're out all night '' - means when you spend too much time outside late, you may get yourself a bad/might-be-good secret admirer :c.This could be that some ghosts are obviously bored and want to pull some tricks on him.


My other theory is he could be sleep deprived and still tipsy so the alcohol just simply take its toll on him
Brina said…
This story gave me goose bumps, especially the part where the author said that there was a sudden blackout. If this were to happen to me I'll be scared shitless.
PandoraHearchu said…
The best part is that you posted this story on Friday the Thirteenth.
Most people would think it's bad luck, but it happened to fall on my birthday~! (^^)

But what I think is weird is the fact that the stove was still on.
I get it if they left the lights on or if they were watching TV and fell asleep in front of it(but with the volume on a very high setting it seems... weird), but the stove?
bilzbilz said…
okay now this is scary.. :)
btw i've been following your blog since about a month ago and i've read all your article and its really awesome you really did a great job! :) btw can i request article ? i always interesting to 2chan incident :) so can you add more something like that ? and before of that thanks alot :D
SS said…
He's going to kill the family, hence "get rid of this fear" at the end. The premonition is thus fulfilled! Bwahaha.
Unknown said…
wow, so bizarre.. i guess the scariest part of horror stories is that sometimes they just can't be explained? what a weird vision to see, though.
i really just wanted to say you shouldn't feel guilty for not responding to every message! you must be pretty busy.
Unknown said…
I have a feeling SS might be right.. why else would the whole premonition thing be mentioned? A chilling story indeed.

Also, I think you should know that the title is missing the "A" in parallel.