Mark of Death

If you would like to be notified of future posts:

*Follow Me on Twitter @Saya_Underworld
*Follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/saya_in_underworld
 

 

(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😊🌸🌸🌸✨