Blood Snow

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(Translated and arranged by Saya)

It snowed so hard all over Japan this time, didn't it? 

Usually, it doesn't snow that much in my hometown (it's a village in the middle of nowhere), but this time it snowed a great deal. 

My story took place two years ago, when it snowed just as heavily as today. 

That day, I was sleeping alone in my room on the second floor. 

My parents were poor farmers. The three of us --- Dad, aged 50 years old, Mum and me ---  lived together under the same roof.

It was still well before dawn, but in my half-awake and half-asleep state, I heard the sounds of Dad getting ready and leaving the house.

The weather forecast had said there would be a heavy snowfall that day. My father must have been worried that the roofs of the greenhouses might cave in under the weight of all that snow, and must have gone to check if they were alright. 

Life can be tough for office workers in large cities, but it can be quite tough for farmers too, especially at a time like this.

That being said, there was no way I was going with him. 

I felt a little bad, but I couldn't find the strength to leave my warm, cozy bed.

However, after a while, I heard quick footsteps creaking on the snow and approaching the front door, which were followed by the sound of the door opening and heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs.

"...Yes! On the *** bridge. Ambulance!"

Dad was sputtering into the phone. "A young woman's cut her own throat and wrists, and her blood is everywhere...!"

Something really serious must have happened. I ran downstairs, and Dad, pale from shock, said, "I'm going out again. There's a woman who is trying to commit suicide on the bridge by cutting her own throat."

After hurriedly donning a coat over my sweatshirt, and plunging my feet into wellington boots, I stepped out with Dad into the still dark and snowy outside.

"Dad, explain to me what happened. I still don't understand the situation," when I asked, Dad started telling me the following story:

As I had guessed, Dad went out earlier to check the greenhouses.

To get to the greenhouses, we had to go across an old concrete bridge near our house that hanged over a small river which was a little more than a stream. And since we lived out in the sticks, there was maybe only one street lamp per every kilometre, so it got really dark around there.

It may be hard for city folks to get this, but the darkness in the countryside is really, incredibly dark.

Anyway, as Dad approached the bridge, he saw, under the dim light of the sole street lamp that stood in the area, an unknown person crouching by the bridge-rail.

When he drew nearer, he could see that it was a long-haired woman clad in a coat. 

Dad wondered what she could be doing at this time of day at such a place, but as she appeared to be suffering from pain, he became worried and asked her, "Are you alright?"

At the same time, Dad looked down and saw a blackish pool of liquid spreading out from under the woman's feet. 

Startled, Dad crouched down next to her, but just then, the woman groaned in pain and raised her head. 

Her eyes were wide open, and smears of blood marked her mouth and neck. She held a razor in her right hand. 

She groaned in pain once again, and held the razor against her throat. And before he could stop her, she swiftly drew the blade across it.

Blood gushed out, steaming in the cold air,  painting her torso and the snow below her in dark red. 

Dad was horrified, but he still managed to wrest the razor out of her grasp and threw it down the river. 

"Don't do anything foolish!" He yelled at her, and ran back home to call an ambulance.

But when Dad and I finally reached the bridge, after much struggle through the deep snow and darkness, we found no such woman under the feeble light of the street lamp.

"Hey ~ ! Where are you ~ ?" 

Dad called her but there was no answer. 

I strained my eyes and looked around in the darkness, but couldn't see or feel any presence near us. 

And the odd thing was that I could see only Dad's footprints around the spot where the woman was supposed to have been crouching.

"River."

I thought that the woman might have jumped into the river, and was going to go down the snowy river bank and search for her, but gave up after seeing that it was too dangerously dark to go down. 

In the meantime, an ambulance came struggling through the snow, and the village policeman also arrived, riding precariously on his scooter.

Dad explained the situation to the policeman. Luckily, the sky was now growing lighter which allowed us to see our surroundings better. We all began searching for the woman again.

But still, there was no sign of the woman anywhere. She was found nowhere near the bridge, nor could she be seen in the river which was only knee-deep.

There were no footprints left by the woman, and not even a tiny droplet of blood soiled the snow on the bridge.

Even after the sun had completely risen, we continued to search the area, but we failed to find any traces of the woman.

 

Since we weren't getting anywhere, the ambulance left the scene.

Dad and the policeman decided to go back to the police substation, because the policeman said he needed to hear more about what happened from Dad, so he could write a report on it.

I felt an indescribable weird feeling in my stomach, as I walked back home alone.

When I got home, Mum was preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

I was chilled to to the bone and immediately slid under the kotatsu (a heated table), and while warming myself in there, I told Mum what had happened.

Kotatsu 

"That's creepy," Mum remarked as she prepared miso soup, but then she suddenly looked out the kitchen window and called me, saying, "Look, isn't that the woman you were talking about?"

I ran to the kitchen window, but all I could see from there was a heavy snowfall.

"I thought I saw someone...," ignoring her confused mutter, I turned to get back inside the kotatsu, when I saw a woman leaning against the widow of the 6-jo room where the kotatsu was, and our eyes met.

The woman's thin, pale face was framed by long hair, and there was blood all over her mouth and neck.

My body froze and my mind went completely blank for a while; but when I recovered myself, she had already disappeared out of my sight. 

I quickly opened the window and looked out, but she was gone and there were no footsteps on the snow either. 

After some hesitation, I decided to make a call to the police substation.

I debated whether I should report what I saw because I was afraid that the policeman would think Dad and I were both out of our mind, but the truth was that I saw her, even if she was some kind of hallucination.

There were a few rings before the call was answered by the familiar voice of the policeman.

As soon as I spoke my name, he said, 

"What? Don't tell me you saw her again," which made me lose the desire to report to him what I had just seen. So I only asked instead, "Is my father still there?"

He said that Dad had left the substation about 30 minutes prior to my call. 

I waited with Mum for Dad to come home.

I figured that if he started walking home 30 minutes ago, he would be home soon. 

But he was taking a long time. 

"Maybe he has gone to check the greenhouses."

Mum said, as we ate the breakfast that had gone cold.

But when the clock struck noon and he still wasn't home, I decided to go out and look for him.

As I came near that bridge, I noticed one set of newly-made footprints on the snow, which continued up the bridge.

I followed the footprints with my eyes, and saw that they progressed until the spot where that woman was said to have crouched before, and disappeared there. 

The snow on the bridge-rail above it was half-melting.

I went closer to the bridge-rail and looked down at the river beneath.

In the middle of the river, flanked by white snowy banks, there was a man wearing a black jacket and long boots, lying face down in the shallow flowing water.

I ran down the bank and got into the river.

The man lying face down was Dad. 

I pulled him out of the water but he was not breathing and his heart had already stopped.

Dazed, I looked up in the still falling snow, and saw, standing on the other side of the river, the long-haired woman in coat, with her mouth, neck and chest bright red with blood.

She soon vanished into the thick whiteness of the snow. 

I still live with Mum in the same house I lived then, but ever since that incident, I have never been outside my house on snowy days. 

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Snow in Japan (not scary) :