This weekend, we’re heading to the Kanto  region, not to catch some Pokemon, but to share some terrifying tales from  perhaps the most well known area in all of Japan. 

First up, a young boy visits a  local shrine in Gunma with his grandmother, but when he tries to pray, she suddenly  stops him. This shrine, you see, will absolutely grant your wish… but at a great  cost. Is that cost really worth it? 

Find out in:

The Shrine That Grants Wishes.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was a  deeply religious person. When I was young, I used to visit her house in Gunma, and she would often take my hand and drag  me to visit a shrine in the mountains. There’s not a single place in Gunma where  you can’t see mountains. And right behind my mother’s family home there was  a mountain too. Graves of locals covered most of this mountain, and it was  covered in narrows paths like a spiderweb. My grandmother said this shrine was dedicated to  Konpira-sama. It had a log shrine gate, broken sliding screens, and a veranda that had caved in.  It was clear that it wasn’t maintained at all. And yet, my grandmother took me there many times, and  I followed her up the narrow mountain paths there. My grandmother was especially thankful to  this shrine. I think I was 7 or 8 at the time. “Today’s a special day,” my grandmother  said as she took me around to the back of the shabby shrine. It was my first time  seeing the back, and although it was daytime, it was rather dark, like evening  had already fallen. And there was a narrow path that was just big enough  for one person to walk on at a time. We climbed, we descended, and then finally we  reached an open area. It was a bright, strange place with a stone tiered gallery that almost  looked like half a Colosseum. Each tier of this gallery had lots of small mortuary tablets and  bamboo grass with long strips of paper attached. There was also origami, flowers, and windmills  that rotated in the wind. It made me happy. 

But when I tried to put my hands together  in prayer, my grandmother yelled at me.

“A powerful kami-sama resides here, so you  mustn’t pray for anything. If you do, your wish will no doubt be granted, but in return, the  kami-sama will require something from you too.” 

She took me there one more time after  that. It hadn’t changed and was still brilliantly decorated. It was a beautiful place. When I started junior high school,  my grandmother passed away. It was an accident. I was sad, but it was also  so sudden that I didn’t really feel it. As time passed and I got older, I learnt more  about my mother’s family from things she told me.

Right before my grandmother died, my  mother’s older brother quit his job at a car maintenance company to start his  own business. Because because Japan was going through a recession, he was  having a rather rough time of it. I was surprised. When I was in high school,  my uncle handed me 100,000 yen and told me not to tell anyone about it. That surely meant  his business was doing really well, right? According to my mother, before my  grandmother died, my uncle’s factory, which had been in the red all this time, suddenly  had a massive turnaround. I remembered that strange place my grandmother had taken me.  

Did my grandmother, perhaps, pray there? 

“I don’t care what happens to me, but please,  save my son’s company.” 

Something like that? 

That had to be it, I thought. I hadn’t  been back to that shrine for many years, but I started thinking that  I should go again. And so, next time I went to Gunma, I made  my way over towards that shrine. It had been a while, so I got a little lost, but  eventually I found the shrine. But this wasn’t the place I wanted to visit. It was “that place.” I  went around the back, just like we did that day.

However, there was no path. There was no  sign a path had ever even existed there. I couldn’t believe it, and walked around  and around looking for it. But there was no path. In disbelief, I asked my  mother, my uncle, my grandfather, and my uncle’s kids about “that place.”  But they all answered the same way. “I’ve never heard of such a place.” I was scared. Very, very scared. Even  as I remember and write this down now, I’m terrified. Ever since then, I  haven’t even been near that mountain, let alone the shrine on it. In fact, I’m now  terrified of mountain paths in general. I don’t want to think about how “that place” might  still be in the mountains of Gunma somewhere, but I feel like someday, I might  suddenly come across it again. At the time, I didn’t think there was any  wish I would want granted if it came at the cost of my own life. But now, I’m not quite  so sure anymore. Supposing I found myself in dire situation and found myself back at that  place, well, just the thought terrifies me. 

Next, we’re heading a certain railway crossing  in Tokyo that’s dubbed by the locals as the“Granny Crossing.”

Why?

Well, it seems that  particular spot is haunted by the ghost of an old woman who just won’t go away. But who is  she, and what does she really want? 

Find out in: 

Granny Crossing.

So, there’s this crossing they call the  “Granny Crossing,” and apparently long ago, an old woman was hit by a train there and  died. A friend of mine from high school lived near that crossing, and apparently it was  famous amongst the locals as being haunted. So, this old lady’s ghost… Apparently, when  the barriers raised after the train had passed, that old woman would rise up with them. When  you hear that, you might think it’s just a joke, and when I heard it, I burst out laughing trying  to imagine it. Like, why did the old lady have to go up with the barrier? Where did the old lady  go once she was up there? According to my friend, the old lady just disappears as  soon as the barrier reaches the top… Anyway, it’s a strange crossing where you can’t  really tell whether it’s a funny or a scary story, but the thing that makes it not funny is that  if you do actually see that old woman, then she’ll possess you. And once she possesses you,  you’ll be beset by misfortune after misfortune. Just recently, a woman who moved into the  area saw the old woman’s ghost one night, and after that she lost her mind and  was hospitalised. She then found out her husband was cheating and they got divorced. There were also several people from the area who  were possessed by her long ago and then apparently died. And even after trying to exorcise her  several times, she just keeps returning to that crossing. They even tried cleansing the crossing  itself, but it’s unknown whether the woman is just too strong, or the cleansing ceremony didn’t work,  but either way, it did nothing to get rid of her. And so, the locals don’t go near that  crossing at night anymore. My friend also doesn’t use it at night, even  though it’s extremely inconvenient. This crossing is a small one on a  private line on the outskirts of Tokyo.

And now, lets head over to Mount Kumotori, a  mountain that stands on the border of Tokyo, Saitama, and Yamanashi prefectures  and is said to be the highest point in all of Tokyo. When a climber decides he  wants to see the sunrise from the mountain, he ignores the rain and heads up in  the dead of night. But on the way, he encounters something so bizarre he literally  can’t go any further. But why? 

Find out in: 

Mount Kumotori –

This happened around 15 years ago when  I climbed Mount Kumotori in Nippara, Okutama. I climbed it one night so I  could watch the sunrise the next day (I was used to mountain climbing  so I could do it at night as well). That evening, I got off the bus  at Higashi-Nippara. Unfortunately, it was raining, but the top of the mountain  was often clear even when it rained, and so I kept going. It’s still the same now,  but once you pass the village at Nippara, there’s not a single streetlight. And  because rain means clouds, that means no moon or starlight, so if you don’t bring  your own light, you really can’t see a thing. Well, it’s not quite that bad maybe, but it’s like this mass of darkness  just surrounds you. Think of it as like, depending on the direction you shine your  light, it’s like you lose your own arm or leg. 

To put it bluntly, it’s scary. Even though I said I’m used to  climbing mountains at night, that’s usually when it’s clear weather, and  you can still kind of see the lights from Tokyo. But this time was different. I really  couldn’t see anything but darkness. And so, I proceeded up the forest path shining my  light on my own feet every now and then… ‘Huh?’ Just now it looked like I didn’t  have any arms or legs… This time, I looked more closely at the end of my long  sleeved shirt, shining the light on it. My hand was gone. 

“Eh?!” 

Honestly, the situation was more confusing than  it was frightening, but I fell on my backside. I came back to my senses as the rain soaked  through my raincoat and into my pants and I tried to get up… But I couldn’t. When I shone the  light on my lower body… I was missing my feet.

 …….?!?!?!?! 

I couldn’t do anything, and so  I had to spend the rest of the night just sitting there (I had a  foldable umbrella in my backpack, so I could at least protect myself from some  of the rain, but it was too cold to sleep). When the sun rose in the morning and it  got bright… My hands and feet were there, like nothing had ever happened. What  on earth happened to me that night? 

That story of Mount Kumotori reminded me  another terrifying story I heard in the past. It was probably 20 or so years ago now, but three  guys climbed Mount Kumotori one night to watch the sunrise without telling their parents about  it. But in the end, only one of them returned. They triumphantly climbed the mountain as  the sun set with just their torches on hand, but the darkness on the mountain at night was  just so dark that they started trembling in fear. They fled to a makeshift farming cabin  they found, but just like that other guy said, the darkness was perhaps just too much and  one of them went crazy. He raised the blade he brought with him simply to look cool  and then threatened the others with it. One of the men pushed him away, then ran out  into the darkness, leaving the other friend and all their stuff behind. 

The next morning,  the police and locals went up to the cabin, not quite sure what to expect, but the man with  the blade and the other who had apparently gone to sleep in his sleeping bag was just gone  (his shoes and such were still there). They had both disappeared, leaving all their stuff  behind. There were no traces of blood either. They conducted a rather large search to find  them, but by the time I heard this story, they still hadn’t been found. It wasn’t like  they slipped and fell or got separated from each other either. Even thinking about it now  gives me chills. It’s such a strange story. 

Sticking with the mountains, the  climber in this next story injures himself and takes refuge in an emergency  shelter for the night. But while there, he encounters something perhaps not of this  world. 

What really was it? 

Find out in: 

Plea For Help.

There’s a mountain pass by the name of I in the  Kanto area that has an emergency shelter on it. In early autumn, the year before last,  I visited a nearby mountain by myself, but I sprained my ankle on the way  up. I had planned on just a day trip, but I was forced to spend the  night in that shelter instead. I put some newspaper on the ground,  used my jacket as a blanket and I drank some Jack I got from the  convenience store before going to bed. That night, I heard a frantic banging on  the door, followed by a man’s shrill voice. “My friend fell down Mount H!! Please help!!”  he said… Or at least, that’s what I thought he said. I was still drunk and half  asleep, so I didn’t really understand what was going on. I told myself I was just  imagining things and went back to sleep. The next morning, the swelling had  gone down enough for me to walk, and so I left the shelter. When I looked at  the front door, I saw a notebook hanging from

it. I spent an hour or so flicking through  it, and then found the following entry. “XX year, XX month, XX day. 2 a.m. I have decided  to go to Mount H to rescue a climber in distress.” It was the final entry for the day.  What happened to the person who wrote it? Thinking about it was too frightening, so I  decided to head straight back down the mountain. Leaving the mountains, but sticking with heights, lets head on down to Yokohama… the Landmark  Tower in Yokohama in particular. The woman in

this next story works on the 40th floor,  but one night when she’s working late, she encounters something she can’t quite  explain. What’s really going on? Find out in: Landmark Tower Emergency Stairs You can find the Landmark Tower in Minatomirai, Yokohama, right? And above a certain floor  you can find all sorts of offices. One of my friends from university works for NTT,  and her office is on the 40th floor or so. Anyway, being a high-rise building,  the floors are accessed by elevator. Even if you want to go down just one  floor, you use the elevator. I think it’s actually the fastest elevator  in the world. It’s pretty damn fast. That being said, of course there are emergency  stairs too. These stairs are in the centre of the building, and to reach them you have  to open a heavy door from the corridor. Apparently people who aren’t close to the  elevators use these stairs to go down floors. I heard you can only use those stairs until  8 p.m. though. After that, although you can enter the stairs from the corridor, as soon  as the door closes, you can’t open it again.

So if that happens, you’re kinda screwed. You  have to call a friend to open the door for you, but in the unfortunate case where you don’t  have a phone with you, then you half to walk all the way down to the first floor to  leave through the service entrance there. So my friend stupidly used those  stairs after 10 p.m. one night, but by the time she realised it, it was too late.  The door had already shut behind her. And so, she prepared herself for the long  walk down to the first floor. By the time she’d gone down 10 floors or  so, her legs were starting to wobble and her heart pound. She was already feeling faint  and she still had another 30 floors to go, but then, she heard the emergency  stairs door opening on that floor. ‘I’m saved!’ she thought, and she ran towards  the sound. “Excuse me!” she called out, and as she thought, the door was ajar like  someone had just passed through it and it was beginning to close again. She rushed over  and stuck her heel in before it could shut, just managing to get there in time. Thankfully, she only had to walk 10 floors before  she could get back to the corridor again.

The door had damaged her heel, but she was too happy that she had gotten back inside  to care. But then, fear gripped her. First, somebody had just opened the door, but she  couldn’t see anyone in the hall… Well, it was true there were lots of office doors in the hall, so  maybe the person had gone into one of the nearby ones… That person had no doubt thought to enter  the emergency stairs, realised the door wouldn’t open again behind them, and then went back.  There were plenty of reasonable explanations.

At any rate, she had to get back to her own floor,  so she started walking down the dimly lit corridor towards the elevator. But at this point, she  realised something strange again. Her office floor apparently had a nameplate in the hall  that said “41W1 NTT Higashi Nihon.” 

However, she couldn’t find any nameplates  identifying the companies here… Was this floor empty? The economy was in a slump,  after all… No no, then who opened the door just now then? Come to think of it, the lights on the  floor of the hall weren’t on! Well, at any rate, she had to get to the elevator… She was so scared  by that point that she ran as fast as she could. Finally, she reached the elevator hall.  It was truly a modern sight with eight elevators lined up on both sides. In a  tall building like the Landmark Tower, the elevators were divided by floors, like, 3rd  floor to 35th floor, 35th floor to 45th floor, etc, so at different floors you had to  get off and change to another elevator. ‘Um, if I want to go to the 40th floor,  then I have to go down to the 3rd first…’

And so she pressed down “down” button, but  there was no response… She pressed it over and over, but nothing happened. She pressed a  different button, and still nothing happened. No way… By this point, she was  almost crying. Still she kept pressing the buttons, this time trying  up, but still there was no response. Fear closed in on her from all directions, and she felt like she was about to lose her  mind. There was only one thing left that she could do. Return to the emergency stairs and  walk all the way down to the first floor…

By this point, she actually was crying. But as  she cried, she found herself a little less afraid, and so she went back to the emergency stairs.  And so, she descended the dimly lit stairs. She didn’t feel tired this time though. Down her  feet went, one after the other, floor after floor. She wanted to scream, but she kept her reason  and instead held the screams back with tears. According to her, if a floor isn’t  unlocked, then you need a special employee card to get the elevators on that  floor to move, otherwise they won’t work.

She thought it was all a bunch of coincidences  that happened at once. In modern buildings like that, when there’s nobody on a floor anymore,  the elevators will detect when the doors are locked and won’t work, even if you push  the buttons. It’s for security reasons. The person who opened the door must have hurried  out because they were the last person there… When I asked her why they would have  opened the emergency stairs door, however, she had no answer for me.  She had just convinced herself that there was some reason for it, even if  she didn’t know what that reason was. 

If  you work at the Landmark Tower, then you should be careful as well. Moving to Saitama, there’s an old legend of a Nue, a creature said to have the head of a monkey,  the body of a tanuki, the legs of a tiger, and a snake for a tail that lives in a nearby  cave. 

But is it really just a legend? 

Find out in: 

Nue Mound

 Long, long ago, around the upper  reaches of the Arakawa Dam in Chichibu,there was a small settlement roughly  three houses large called Itsuzami. The residents of this settlement, who had been  ostracised, took part in open air burials, which had been banned around the start of the Showa  era. There was a legend that a Nue cleanly ate the flesh off the bodies left for open air burial in  a nearby cave, leaving behind nothing but bones. They also had a custom of gathering those bones,  washing them, and then putting them in an urn. Around the time Japan entered its period of rapid  economic growth, rumours spread of a creepy voice you could hear from an air shelter that was  used during the war near where my father lived. One day, three young men who had  been drinking decided to visit that air raid shelter for a test of courage.  When they returned, they brought with them the carcass of a large mysterious  beast. They showed it off to the locals, claiming they had exterminated the  monster and this was its true form. But a few days later, the man who  delivered the fatal blow suddenly died. They held a funeral for him and  then cremated him, but for some reason,there were no bones left. He turned entirely  to ash. 

Rumours spread that it was a curse, and unable to watch people fighting over it,  a powerful local man announced that it was a mistake by the crematorium and gave the  grieving family some condolence money. But after that… Powerful locals then  built a small mound next to that air raid shelter dedicated to the beast.  The locals called it the “Nue Mound,” but after it was sunk in the dam,  nobody ever spoke of it publicly. I heard this story before my father passed away,  and I thought it sounded rather superstitious, so I didn’t really believe it. But after my  father passed away, I realised something during his funeral. At the funerals of relatives  from his side of the family, we had never once taken part in the ceremony to collect the  bone remains after the bodies had been burnt… 

A family in Chiba find something odd in their  grandfather’s yard when cleaning up his belongings after he passed. Something they still  can’t quite explain. 

Find out what in: 

Jizos in the Garden-

About three years ago, my half-senile  80-year-old grandfather died. He was a stubborn old man who said he refused  to accept help from his son and his wife. Instead, he lived alone in a house that was  also around 70 years old or so. Because they were going to tear that house down after he died, we  went there to sort out all of his belongings. The yard was an absolute mess. There were so many  weeds that it was hard to take stuff out of the house, so first, I decided to deal with that. And  as I was pruning, I kicked a stone and fell over. ‘What the hell?’ I thought, and as I stood up,  I looked at the stone peeking out of the ground.It seemed to have ears. Looking closer,  it wasn’t just ears. It had a whole face. Digging around the stone, it turned out that  it was a really, really old Jizo statue. But there wasn’t just one. I ended up digging out  six in total from this honestly rather small yard. Everyone was kind of creeped out by them, but my mother alone was staring at the forehead  of one of the statues. Then, he face went pale. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “This Jizo, my name is carved on its forehead…” We wiped the dirt off them and, looking closer,  they really did have all our names on them in hiragana. The carving was kind of messy, so  it was no doubt Grandpa himself who did it. But recently, I’ve been thinking that there was no way that old man could carry and bury  this many Jizo statues all by himself. And as a side note, my grandmother died two  years after giving birth to my father. And even though she was buried when he was young,  her grandchild’s name was on that statue. I just don’t get it… It’s not like anything in  particular happened to us after that though. And although it no longer exists  anymore, that house was in Chiba.

A young man on his way home  from the club notices a woman who also seems to be on her way home. She’s staggering around  like she’s drunk and heading for the train just like him. But is she really drunk, and is  she, perhaps, even really human?

Find out in:

Early Morning Scary Story

This happened to me around one year ago. I was on my way home from a club in Chiba  during the summer. I had to catch the first train of the day, so I left the club a little  earlier than everyone else and walked towards

the station. The sun was just starting to rise,  and there were almost no cars or people around. About 10 metres ahead of me, there was a woman  who was maybe on her way home from the club as well. She was staggering around like she was  drunk, and I continued to walk behind her at a safe distance. She had only one shoe on, and  her footsteps sounded like that of a mule. She must have been drinking and dancing and then  she left just like that, I thought, and when we reached the station, suddenly the woman took off  running and disappeared. She had been walking without a shoe for quite some time, so I wondered  if she was okay as I climbed the stairs. When I reached the platform, there were two or three  people there, but I didn’t see her amongst them.

“Uwah… Was she a ghost…?”

Worked up, I called my friend and was like,  “I just saw a ghost!!”

We laughed about it as I waited for the train, and when it finally  arrived, I hung up and got on the middle car. As soon as I stepped on board, a surprised  gasp escaped my lips. That woman from earlier was there. She was already on the  train. She lay draped across the seat, looking at the ground with just one shoe  on and her hand resting on the handrail. I was too scared to move, but I tried  desperately to get off the train. However, all the doors then closed. I was  honestly, honestly terrified. I decided to get off at the  next station and wait for the next train there. I didn’t know  if that woman was alive or a ghost, but I sat far away from her and sent  my friend a message with shaky hands. “What does she look like?” my friend replied,  but she was looking at the ground with her hair hanging down, so I couldn’t see. Plus, I  was too scared to look properly anyway. I decided to call my friend to talk directly  to him, but then, suddenly, the woman hit her head against the window. When I turned to  look at her, she was staring right at me. She had lifted her head and was looking at me  with her mouth half open. She was sitting about five metres away, but we were the only people  on the car, so I knew she was looking at me. Her mouth opened and closed, almost like  she was an announcer practising how to speak quickly. We continued looking  at each other, and looking closely, it seemed something like blood and saliva  were dripping from the corner of her mouth. ‘No doubt about it, she’s dead…’ I thought.  More and more blood dripped from her mouth, and with her chin was stained red,  blood dripped from her nose too. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I silently chanted, my breathing  becoming ragged and tears filling my eyes. “Now arriving at OO. Please  change here for the OO lines.” As soon as I heard the announcement, I  jumped off the train. I quickly turned around and looked inside, and that woman was  still staring at me. Then, the train left. Something felt strange, so I looked  down and saw I was holding a shoe in my left hand. And on the train, that woman’s  devilish face was stuck to the window, her mouth gaping like a fish as she looked  at me. I fell to the ground on the spot.

I later heard an interesting story. “If  you see a strange woman on the train, you must not look her in the eye. If you do,  then you will definitely run into her again.”Meaning, you will apparently be possessed…

This time, let’s head to Ibaraki.

A man on  a business trip hears a terrifying scream while at his hotel, but it seems only one other  person there also notices it. But who screamed, and why did no-one else hear it?

Find out in:

Origin of the Scream

Seven or eight years ago, I visited Shimotsuma  in Ibaraki Prefecture for business. I stayed in an area a short drive from the business  district. They had hot springs and local beer, and everything was new and clean  as though it had just been built. After soaking in the hot springs and drinking  some local beer, I was feeling really good, so I watched the live baseball game  on TV in the lobby. There were another four or five people there also doing  their own thing. But then suddenly, I heard what sounded like a woman’s  scream. It didn’t come from the TV. ‘What the hell?’ I thought, looking  around, but I couldn’t see anything amiss. But something else was weird. It seemed  nobody else had heard that scream. Confused, I looked around again, and then  I locked eyes with a woman.

‘Did she also hear it?’ I wondered as  she stared at me. I silently nodded, and then the woman walked over to me. “What was that?” she whispered. “It  doesn’t look like anyone else heard it…” I mean, I had no idea what that was either.  “It seemed to come from over there,” I said, pointing to the car park outside. The scream  really did seem to come from over there, but the car park was rather large. And although  there was lights, it was still quite dark. The woman peeked at it from the lobby  before asking something unbelievable.

“Do you want to… check it out?” Unfortunately, the woman was young and beautiful, so it wouldn’t be very manly of me to  scream that I absolutely did not want to go outside… And so, with an ulterior  motive in mind, we went outside together. The parking lot was on the other side  of a road that passed between it and the hotel entrance. Nervously, we crossed  the road and walked over towards it. Then, the woman pointed towards something. “Over there!” she said. I turned to look and there was an RV  in the car park. “A car?” I asked. “…No, beneath it. …What’s that?” Looking closer, there was something under  the RV. Something… human?! It looked like a person lying on the ground,  struggling. That scream we heard, was it this person being attacked? Thinking  they might be injured, I rushed over. “Wait!” the woman called out before  I had gone too far. I turned around, and she seemed to be trembling. “What… What is that?” My eyesight is pretty bad, so I couldn’t see it  clearly, but the person seemed to be lying face down. ‘I have to hurry,’ I thought, picking  up the pace. But after four or five steps, I stopped. That person was crawling towards me, but  at a glance, the way they moved wasn’t very human. ‘This… This isn’t right…’ I thought, and then the  person on the ground lifted their face to look at me. Instinctively, I knew that I shouldn’t look  them in the eye, so I fled back towards the hotel. On the way, I grabbed the woman’s hand as she  stood there frozen and dragged her inside with me. Inside the hotel, nothing  had changed. If anything, a few people turned to look at us as we  ran in out of breath and that was it.

“Did it follow us?” “I don’t know…” Nervously, I turned around and looked  through the glass of the automatic doors, but I couldn’t see anything. Relieved,  the two of us sat on the ground right then and there. Exhausted, we  then each returned to our rooms, but I was too scared to sleep, so I left  the lights on and watched TV until morning. Around 8 a.m., I made my way to the  front desk to check out, and there, I saw a staff member wiping the door  with a confused look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked, and he  said there were handprints on the outside of the glass that he just  couldn’t get rid of. Looking closer, there were some sticky handprints  on the bottom half of the door. Remembering what happened the night  before, a chill ran down my spine and I checked out as soon as possible. But  it wasn’t until later that I realised I had forgotten to ask that woman for  her contact details. Ah, what a waste…

A young man shares  a tale from his hometown in Gunma that parents tell their children to get  them to go to sleep at night. But it seems this one might not just  be a fairy tale… 

Find out why in: 

10 O’clock Monk

When I was in my 20s, a man from  Gunma started work at the same place as me. I had worked there for the  longest, so I was generally in charge of assigning work to the part-timers  and helping them get used to the job. During a break one day, the man who  had washed in from Gunma suddenly told me his life story. He said that his family  were once rather wealthy silkworm farmers, but times had been tough and so the family  members basically all gone their separate ways. As for him, he found an apartment in Tokyo and was  drifting from job to job. I sat there and listened as he told me about all his worries with having  no family around. And then he told me a story that his mother used to share with him before bedtime  each night. A story about the 10 O’clock Monk. Apparently people in rural farming  villages in Gunma go to bed really early. He said this is because  there’s nothing to do at night out there. And so, if he also didn’t go to  bed early, then his mother would warn him.“Once the clock hits 10, the  10 O’clock Monk will appear.” It was a silly threat that didn’t have  much of a lasting effect, and that night, he stayed up late hidden under his blanket. But  then, as the old grandfather clock struck 10, one of the boards in the dark ceiling  cracked open, and a pitch black figure slithered down the nearby pillar. Then,  he spoke to my colleague in his bed. “Well, it’s 10 o’clock. How can I help you?” He was so scared that he apparently just trembled in fear under his blanket. And as he  did, the man then slithered back up the pillar and then disappeared into  the dark hole in the ceiling planks. 

The next morning, he told his mother about the  terrifying experience he had the night before. “See, I told you, he takes children who don’t go  to sleep into the ceiling with him,” she said, but she refused to elaborate any more than that. After that, he started going to  bed early, but after a while, he grew more and more curious and what that thing  really was. He needed to know. He asked his mother and grandmother about it whenever he could, but  they refused to ever tell him anything relevant.And so one night, he decided to stay up late to  see the 10 O’clock Monk again. 

Then, finally, the grandfather clock struck 10. He  stared at the ceiling, and then one of the boards creaked open. Once again, the  10 O’clock Monk slithered down the pillar, and then as he looked right at  my colleague, he approached him. “Well, it’s 10 o’clock. How can I help you?” And so, he decided to try  something. “I want sushi,” he said. And the 10 O’clock Monk returned to the  ceiling without saying or doing anything else.The next morning, they received a sudden visitor, and that evening, they had some  sushi delivered to the house… 

So that’s it for now. Stay safe, and I’ll see you  again next one for even more ‘True’ scary stories.

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