In 1991, a new religious facility was suddenly built in such a rural area.
The local residents were vehemently opposed to the project from the planning stage, and I remember that my parents often attended meetings opposing the project.
They submitted petitions to the mayor and prefectural governor, and tried to appeal to the local media, but the religious group presented "certain conditions" and the construction was forced to go ahead. There was a lot of speculation and rumors about the conditions, but the theory that the local government turned a blind eye to the voices of the residents by contributing a large sum of money to the depopulated city was the most likely explanation.
The religious facility was built on the edge of our community, and the site area was about the size of two or three Tokyo Domes.
Land in a depopulated rural area must have been cheap.
When the facility was completed in the fall of my second year of high school, my parents and school homeroom teacher told me, "Stay away from that place.
My parents and school homeroom teacher told me, "Don't go near there," and "Don't get involved with the believers there.
We went to see it with about 8 of our classmates,
Everything around us was surrounded by high walls, and there was a huge gate in front of it, with something that looked like Hannya with a scary face carved on the tops of both ends of the gate.
When my classmates saw it, they said, "Oh no! That is why we started calling that religion "Satanism" or "Hannya Organization" or some other incomprehensible nickname at school.
Sometimes, when I was free, a few of my classmates and I would ride our bicycles around the facility out of curiosity, interest, and to kill time, but strangely enough, we never saw any believers or anyone related to them. Since there was no sign of people and no particular problems occurred, everyone's interest gradually waned.
In my senior year of high school, the religious institution was no longer a topic of conversation, but one day, one of my classmates, A, started asking me if I wanted to go there for a "liverwurst.
A said, "I heard from my parents that a pretty woman goes in and out of the Satanic building. She comes to the store every day to shop."
A's parents owned the only supermarket in the area.
A's parents seemed to be completely grateful to "Satanism" for the 20,000 to 30,000 yen worth of purchases they made every day.
A said, "My parents said that the believers there are all nice and quiet.
They are not scary, so let's go there.
I and the rest of my classmates were bored every day because there was no place to play,
So we decided to go. So we decided to go and have a "gonadamekkai".
The members were myself, A, B, C, and D, five of us in the same class, and E and F, our juniors, all seven of us guys.
Seven members would not be scary, right? Everyone was in the mood to go with a light heart.
We met in front of an abandoned post office not far from the facility.
When I arrived, ABC and E were already there, but D and F did not show up after waiting for almost 30 minutes, so the five of us decided to go. We parked our bicycles near the facility and walked to the gate of the facility.
We talked about how scary it was at night and how we should have brought another flashlight.
When we came to the huge gate, we saw that one of the buildings on the grounds, quite a distance away from the gate, had lights on. We were talking lightly, saying things like, "Wow, the believers are still awake," and "Are they calling the devil in or something?
C said, "We can go inside. Then A said
A said, "I know. There is a small gate around the side of the building.
A said, "A, why didn't you tell me earlier? I said, "A, why didn't you tell me earlier?" I walked along the wall, turned sideways at the end, and walked a little further until I saw a small door on the wall.
A pushed it with his hand, and it opened on the other side. Five of us took turns passing through the door, which was barely wide enough for one person to pass through, and we entered the building. After that, we walked around the vacant lot with our flashlights on and off.
We chatted in low voices, saying things like, "There's nothing there," and "It's not safe to go near the building," but nothing was happening, so we decided to approach the facility.
The grounds were a long stretch of completely cleared land about 100 meters from the front gate, and beyond that were three large buildings. I don't remember much about them, but they were very odd looking and designed.
As I was sneaking around the facilities, I noticed a beautifully lit public restroom building between the facilities, and the area where the restrooms were located was paved with white, clean concrete and even had benches.
A said, "Let's take a break," and the surrounding classmates said, "What? It would be bad if we were discovered," and "Let's just circle around and go home. I said, "Let's just go home.
I also said, "If they find us, they might call the police, and we are so close to graduation, it would be bad if we get in trouble.
However, A sat down on the bench and started smoking.
We all sat down and smoked.
Then A said, "I'm going to the restroom," and went into the public restroom.
B and C said, "How can he pee in the toilet of a building he just entered?
After a while, A came out of the bathroom and said, "Hey, come here. Come here for a minute. I've got something interesting for you," he said in a small voice.
I crawled over to it, and A said, "Look, what do you think this is? B said, "It's a toilet," and B said, "Open the door," and B said, "What? B said, "Open the door." B opened the door and found a stairway to the basement.
A said, "That's strange. Along with the toilet bowls, this is the only staircase.
Finally, I realized that this situation was strange.
First of all, A's words and actions had always been puzzling to me: his sudden suggestion of a "liverwurst," his knowledge of the location of the side door, his deliberate opening of the toilet door, etc. I said to A, "You can't be serious.
I asked A, "You didn't really plan to take a shit in here, did you?" I asked A. She said, "No, yeah, I did.
A answered vaguely, "No, yes, I did. I naturally refused.
Naturally, I refused.
He said, "Don't be silly. Let's get out of here. You'll be found if you stay here.
I said, "You're scared, aren't you? You're scared just to go down a little bit, aren't you?
I thought this was a provocation by A. I thought it was a provocation by A.
I thought this was a provocation by A. I thought he was trying to lead me downstairs. B also said, "I don't want to go down there either. B said, "I don't want to go down there either. Let's go home. Let's go down for a while.
They agreed with A.
A was further provoking me and B by saying, "You guys are so brave," but B said, "I'm not going. B said, "I'm not going. You go on your own.
A said, "Then the three of us will get off first. You guys wait here for now.
A said, "Then the three of us will go down first. The three of us went downstairs.
B and I did not go out of the restroom, but waited inside.
Because the area around the restroom was sandwiched between facilities and had many windows,
We waited inside the restroom, thinking, "We don't know which window we will be found through.
B asked, "Hey, isn't A kind of strange?" B asked me, "Hey, what's wrong with A?
I said, "A is strange today. It's like he brought us here from the beginning." B said, "I thought so, too.
After that, B and I talked about tonight and what to do if we were found out, etc. After almost 5 minutes, "Isn't it a little late? and both B and I started to get annoyed.
B said, "Let's both go home now," but since A had taken both of the two flashlights down with him, we decided it would take a while to find that little side door in the dark, so we reluctantly waited.
Then I heard footsteps in the distance. Multiple footsteps, zzzzzzzz, were heard from far away. Both B and I instantly became nervous.
We whispered, "Oh no...people are coming. It's not good..." We whispered to each other.
The atmosphere turned tense. The footsteps were coming from far away, but we did not know which direction they were coming from, and even if we went outside now, we might be found because we did not know the direction or structure of the facility.
B said, "Oh no... it's getting closer... what do we do?" What are we going to do?" He sounded quite panicked. My heart was racing inside as I said, "There is no guarantee that they will come this way, and if they do, we should hide. But sure enough, the footsteps were approaching the bathroom where we were.
But the sound of footsteps was definitely approaching the bathroom where we were.
At that time, B suddenly put his hand on the door of the other private room for urination, which was not a stairway.
But it did not open. The next private room also wouldn't open for some reason.
B said, "Damn! It's closed. Oh, shit," he shouted in a small voice.
The footsteps were probably 15 meters closer. Intuitively, I was convinced at that moment that those footsteps were definitely coming to the bathroom.
I am sure that B had the same hunch.
Both B and I remained standing still.
B said, "...we have no choice. Let's get off. I replied, "What, seriously...?" I replied. I didn't like the idea of going down those mysterious stairs, but there was nowhere to hide in the bathroom, and I knew that if I started to run, I would be caught in the dark and in a place I didn't know very well.
Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the special circumstances of a religious institution in the middle of the night.
The sound of footsteps approaching the restroom,
B and I opened the door to the private room and descended the stairs to the lower level, stealthily following the sound of footsteps.
The staircase was a concrete staircase, and I thought it would be a long staircase,
Surprisingly, we reached the bottom in about 10 steps. It was pitch-dark, so I could not see anything,
B, who was walking in front of me, opened a door that must have been right in front of me at the end of the stairs.
Inside was a room. There were several orange bean bulbs hanging from the ceiling of the room, and the entire room was covered in a pale orange color.
B and I entered the room and gently and quietly closed the door. I looked around the room and saw an empty concrete room about 15 tatami mats (I don't remember much) with a large circular object hanging in the middle. It is hard to explain, but it looked like a huge iron hula hoop hanging vertically.
The hula hoop was so huge that it was attached to the walls at both corners of the room.
B and I were standing rigidly in front of the door, not caring about such things, when I asked, "Where are A and the others? I said in a small voice, "There aren't any...",
B said with a drawn expression, "I don't know, I don't know...".
Then I realized that the footsteps we had heard had entered the bathroom, just as I had foreseen. The footsteps echoed through the concrete from directly above us.
There were about three to four of those footsteps. We stood motionless in front of the door.
We could hear them mumbling something, but we couldn't make out what they were saying. It sounded like they were talking to each other,
It sounded like they were talking to each other, and it also sounded like they were mumbling something to each other.
B was staring down and had his eyes closed. I don't know how much time passed. I was trying to remember something fun, and I was desperately trying to remember the comedy show "Bakushow☆Prestige" that was popular at the time. Before I knew it, I noticed that the number of mumbling voices in the bathroom had increased from three or four to about ten.
I thought that the people up there must have known that we were hiding here.
I was getting scared and shaking. The mumbling and creepy talking was making me feel faint. Suddenly the mumbling disappeared and we heard two doors slam open in rapid succession, followed by another slam.
I knew immediately that it was the sound of a private toilet room opening, and I got goosebumps.
'I think the other private room was occupied from the beginning.'
I don't know if B realized this possibility as I did, but since the door had been locked earlier, I assumed that someone had come out of the private room, not opened it from the outside.
Then I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I was at my limit.
It would not take more than 15 seconds to go down the stairs. I grabbed B's arm tightly.
When the footsteps down the stairs reached about the halfway point,
B shook off my hand with a pathetic scream and ran to the back of the room. That's when B jumped that circular circle with a peep, and in an instant, B was gone. I was simply stunned.
I was more stunned than horrified that B had suddenly disappeared when he should have jumped over to the other side of the hula hoop-shaped circle.
I stood a short distance away from the door, between the door and the hula hoop.
I thought to myself, "I should apologize!" I thought. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
The door slowly opened. Through the gap in the door, only a face appeared, deliberately and suddenly.
An old man wearing something like a crown was looking at us with only his face peeking out.
He had a big smile on his face. I could not tell if it was a grandfather or a grandmother,
A wrinkled old man with long white hair and a crown was looking at me with a big smile on his face.
It was the most malicious smile I had ever seen.
I thought, "This is not a decent person.
I thought, "This is not a decent person," and that he was not someone I could talk to. I did not want to be seen for even a moment by the old man's inorganic smile,
"Hah-yah! I jumped into the hula hoop-shaped circle, just like B. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in a hospital room.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. My head was in a daze.
There was a needle in my arm and I was lying on my back.
It took me almost 3 minutes to get my upper body up.
I looked out the window and saw a beautiful sunset.
There was no one in the room and it was a private hospital room.
I couldn't think about anything and just zoned out.
I don't know how long I was in a daze. After a while, the door opened with a bang and a nurse appeared. She looked at me with a rather surprised look in her eyes and ran out of the room.
I was still in a daze. After that, my doctor and a few other doctors came and seemed to be talking to me, but I was still in a daze, apparently. Time passed and my consciousness gradually became clearer.
The doctor told me, "I called your family a while ago.
You have been sleeping for a long time. But you don't need to worry.
You'll be fine now.
After I woke up, I still didn't have a clear sense of time, but soon a person who looked like my mother and a young girl came into the hospital room crying.
It was not my mother. And my name is not XXX either.
The woman who claimed to be my mother was crying and happy, saying, "Good...good.
The young girl broke down crying as she said to me, "Welcome home, brother.... But I do not have a sister.
I had a college brother three years older than me, but I had no sister.
I said, "Who are you? Who are you?" I asked again and again.
The doctor said something like, "It's probably an aftereffect, but it will get better with time..." as if encouraging a woman who looked like my mother and a girl who looked like my sister.
He told me, "I'll be here all night, Mom.
I underwent various tests in my sleep, during which I told the doctor
I told the doctor, "I'm not a ____, I have a different mother, and I don't have a sister."
But the doctor tilted his head and said, "Well...I don't remember...ummm....
He said, "XX-kun, you were bedridden for almost two years. I think that's why your memory isn't complete yet," he told me. I did not even feel shocked when he said that.
I could not even be shocked because I could not swallow the reality of what was happening. The doctor was trying his best to encourage me, choosing his words carefully.
The person who looked like my mother was sobbing in shock at the memory loss.
I said, "I have to go to the bathroom," and went to the toilet. When I stood up, my legs were abnormally heavy and it was difficult for me to stand up. The doctors, nurses and a person who looked like my sister helped me.
As I went to the bathroom, I remembered that night for the first time.
It is strange, but I did not recall that liverwurst even once in the hours since I woke up. I was very scared of the bathroom, but I went in with my mother and sister following me and the doctor who was standing over my shoulder.
After doing my business, I looked in the mirror and screamed.
My face was not me. It was a completely different person.
I don't remember, but it seems I had a severe panic attack at that time and was in a lot of trouble.
I was hospitalized for almost a month after that. I kept telling the man and woman who claimed to be my parents, the girl who claimed to be my sister, my self-proclaimed friends who came to visit me, and the man who claimed to be my homeroom teacher, "I am not XXX and I don't know you.
I kept talking about A and B and my past and memories as much as I could remember, but they all dismissed it as memory impairment or amnesia.
However, everyone was very kind to me.
According to the doctors and others around me, I was found collapsed by my bicycle on my way home from school by a passerby and carried straight to the hospital room.
None of the information about this world that came to me was anything I had ever heard before.
For example, when I was told, "This is Kanagawa Prefecture," I had never heard of Kanagawa Prefecture, and there should have been no such prefecture.
I had never even heard of a currency unit such as the yen. I had never heard of Tokyo.
I don't know anything about Japan....
Each time, the doctor would ask me, "Well, what was it? I couldn't even remember A's name, and I kept trying to explain that he was a friend of my classmate, but everyone around me said, "There is no such child.
I tried to explain to the doctors that I was in that facility and in that hula hoop, but they kept dismissing my story as "it was just a dream I had when I was asleep".
But to my horror, I myself was told, "I am an amnesiac.
I was beginning to seriously think that my previous life and the world had all been a dream I had when I was asleep.
I began to believe that I had amnesia and that my memories of another personality and another world had been overwritten.
Either way, I had no choice but to live my life as a different person. After leaving the hospital, my father, mother, and sister took me back to their home.
My parents asked me, "Don't you remember?" My parents asked me. It was the first time I saw my house and the first time I saw the city.
I went to counseling and tried desperately to adjust to this new life.
The words and information that came to me were divided into those that I felt comfortable with and those that I did not.
I had never heard the names of all the prefectures and countries before, and I had never heard of old history or historical figures, but for the most part, I felt comfortable with most everyday vocabulary. Everyday conversation about TV, newspapers, chairs, remote controls, etc. is completely comfortable.
At first I did not fit in with the family, talking in honorifics, washing my own clothes, etc. because I did not like having my pants and underwear washed, but strangely enough, I began to think that we were a real family and that my previous life was a previous life or a dream.
However, I clearly remembered that last night in the religious institution.
I especially could not forget the face of the old man with the big smile on his face.
I got used to my new life, the counseling sessions became less frequent, and six months later I returned to high school. I was 20 years old and starting over from my senior year of high school. I had made friends and was having fun. The TV programs were also very fresh, as I had never seen them before.
It was in a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, so I remember really enjoying city life.
However, about four months after I returned to high school, the common thread connecting that world and this world appeared in an unexpected way. Just during summer vacation, I was looking for books at a bookstore for a homework assignment.
Among the books on display, I noticed the words ""○○○○"".
It was a book on religion. ○○○○"" was unmistakably the name of the new religion I had infiltrated on my last night.
I was astonished. I picked up the book and read it frantically.
I found out that ""○○○○"" is a rather huge religious organization in this world.
In the world I was in, it was an obscure new religious group whose name I had never even heard of, but here it was a global religious group. I then bought many books on the religion and read them all, but it was a pointless act.
It didn't change anything. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't bring me back, it doesn't prove anything about my past to anyone.
When I told people about it, I thought they would say, "That's just a dream I had about ○○○○ when I was unconscious."
I knew they would say, "That's just a dream I had about when I was unconscious.
Besides, I did not want to bother or worry my new family and friends who were kind to me. I felt sorry for those around me who felt relieved that I had returned to high school and had stopped talking about my past, and also for the pain of going to counseling sessions.
Seventeen years have passed, and I am now an ordinary salaryman working in Tokyo.
So why am I writing about this now?
Last month, I received a letter in sealed envelope at my home. The content of the letter, written anonymously, was
I apologize for the suddenness of this letter. I know you well.
I know you know me well. It took me a very long time and a lot of effort to find you. Your name is XXX, do you remember? I will surely send you another letter. Please do not tell anyone about the contents of this letter. Not even your fiancé. Best regards."
The contents of the letter were. The name "XXX" doesn't ring a bell with me anymore, but I have a feeling that it used to be something like that.
I felt neither fear nor expectation for the letter and felt it was more like a personal matter. Then, the person who sent me the letter sent me a second letter last week.
To summarize, "My name as you know it is __________.
You don't remember, do you? Apparently, you and I are the only ones here." And then it says
"I will be at XX in front of XX station on the 25th of this month at 7:00 p.m. You must come.
There is something I need to tell you ASAP. Please be sure to come alone.
I have no recollection of who XX is, but I am going to see him.
I feel like I have to go.
I don't think I would be able to remember who was standing there, but I know who the members of that night were if I could talk to them.
