Excerpt from S’s files—About the Stone 1:
“This is about something my friend saw.”
That was the first thing A said.
A goes to a university in the Kansai region.
His school is a famous private institution, and students come from all over Japan to attend, but A was one of the locals.
With good grades in high school and no desire to move to Tokyo, he followed the same path as many of his friends and chose the well-regarded local university. Though it was close enough for him to commute from his parents’ house, A moved out with a little financial help from his folks, relishing the chance to live on his own for the first time.
“The kids who come from far away all study really hard. But I just went to college because it’s what you’re supposed to do after high school, so I wasn’t really like them. That’s why I wound up hanging out with other people from Kansai.”
A spent lots of time with two other local kids. We’ll call them B and C.
“B and I had a bunch of the same classes, and we often ended up eating lunch together. Our conversations weren’t deep or anything. B was just a really outgoing guy. Our major was full of introverts, so we kind of became friends by default. One day, B showed up with a girl. That was C. He said she was a friend from his club, but I could tell right away that they would end up dating.”
They all started talking, and A found C to be an endearing person who laughed easily. She and A hit it off, and before long, the three of them had formed a tight-knit group.
Then, last year during the summer, something happened. The trio had skipped their afternoon classes and were chatting in the cafeteria when B made a suggestion.
“He asked if we wanted to go see a pretty night view that evening. B lived with his parents, and they let him use the family car. He had just gotten his driver’s license and wanted us to tag along for some driving practice.”
B suggested a spot well known among locals.
An hour’s drive from the university, on the side of a mountain pass, there was a little clearing. It didn’t have a viewing deck or anything like that, and it had never appeared in any magazine. But it boasted nice, panoramic views of the city, and it was a popular spot among couples and driving enthusiasts looking to take a break.
“C and I were up for it, but I had work that afternoon. So we went our separate ways, and B came to pick me up later.”
When A, who worked at a restaurant, finished up and stepped outside, he found a small, boxy kei car waiting. B sat in the driver’s seat, beaming at him through the window. C waved in A from her spot in the back. He climbed inside, and the car drove off. It was almost midnight.
“None of us needed to attend our morning classes the next day, and we chatted excitedly the whole drive. We put in a CD B had borrowed from someone and cranked up the volume, then we all sang along.”
They arrived a little after one AM. It was a weeknight, and the overlook was deserted.
After parking the car in the clearing, they took selfies in front of the distant city lights. In between, they would lean against the fence, chatting about nothing in particular and just enjoying the break from their typical routine.
“At first, all three of us were talking, but after I went back to the car to get a cigarette, I noticed the two of them making eyes at each other. I was kind of put out, but I know when to give people space, so I hung back and took a smoke break by the car.”
A little irritated, A watched his friends’ silhouettes against the city lights.
B began to lean closer to C, but just as their shoulders were about to touch, C suddenly looked away and started pointing. It seemed she’d noticed something.
“She was gesturing toward the edge of the clearing. B turned and seemed to notice it, too. I could hear them talking about something.”
The little clearing had a small parking area and a space to enjoy the view. At the edge, there was also a spot to sit and rest.
“It was kind of like a little gazebo. It had a roof and four benches set up in a square. That was what C was pointing at. I figured they were going to make out over there while I was gone.”
Just as A suspected, B and C began to move toward the gazebo. Annoyed, he clicked his tongue at their shadows, then lit another cigarette and gazed down at his phone.
“I messed around on my phone for a while, but then I heard someone yell, and I looked up to see them both bolting toward me. They were practically in tears.”
A glanced over at the gazebo. Squinting into the darkness, he saw something strange.
But before he had the chance to say anything, B yelled for him to get in the car. B and C practically shoved him into the back seat, then C climbed in next to him, and the car sped away.
Just as they exited the clearing, A started to say something about what he’d seen. But C yelled at him to stop.
“Shut up! Don’t say anything.”
A had never heard C shout like that, and he fell into silent confusion.
In the driver’s seat, B looked deeply troubled.
The car tore down the mountain road. As a strange silence spread through the vehicle, they started to hear something.
“It came from outside the car. Weird voices that might have been screaming or laughing. We kept hearing them from the woods on both sides of the road. It was like they were following us.”
There were multiple voices, loud enough for the car’s occupants to hear them clearly through the closed doors. It sounded like a huge group of people, all shouting in different voices.
“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”
“Hee-hee-hee-hee!”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Hee-ha-ha! Hee-ha-ha!”
At first, A thought they might be animal sounds, but he was quickly proved wrong by the sheer variation. He could almost see them—men and women of all ages screaming at random.
A was terrified as C muttered beside him.
“They found us. What do we do?”
At that, B exploded.
“What is all this?! These voices! And those people!”
Wondering what B meant, A started to speak. But C gave him a look, and he closed his mouth. Then she turned to B.
“Did you see something, B?”
Gripping the wheel tightly, B sounded irritated.
“What do you mean? You saw it, too, C! We went over there because you said you saw something! There were a bunch of people around some weird rock up on a stage. They were all jumping and talking.”
The voices outside seemed to grow louder.
C desperately pressed him to elaborate.
“Talking? What were they saying?”
B sounded perplexed. “You heard it, too, C. It sounded like a chant. Like ‘Ruki emu…’”
B began repeating what he’d heard, then suddenly stopped.
C urged him to continue, but he didn’t answer.
A looked at the rear-view mirror and saw B, expressionless, his mouth shut tight.
He was just gripping the wheel, as though he’d forgotten all the fear and panic of a few moments earlier.
The random voices outside continued. The loud chanting sounded like it was coming from right next to the car.
B suddenly pressed the play button on the car stereo, resuming the pop song they’d been listening to on the way there. He hadn’t touched the volume, so the music blasted from the speakers.
The voices outside mixed with the music, turning the car into a cacophonous hell.
A twisted to face C, trying to understand what was going on. She looked tense.
Suddenly, B shouted.
“Everyone, listen up. We’re gonna pass through this together! Yeah! Hey, hey, hey!”
A jumped at the unexpected declaration.
“After that, B started shouting some sort of chant or sutra. He was so loud that his voice drowned out everything else. He just kept going. I couldn’t make it out from the back seat, but it sounded like he was chanting along to something rather than repeating something he’d memorized. That’s when I realized he was hearing something other than the pop music.”
Unable to stand it anymore, C started crying. A panicked.
As B continued to chant, A grabbed his arm and yelled at him. But his words were drowned out by the noise.
He shook B’s arm, causing the car to swerve.
Just as he bent forward, bracing himself, the car screeched to a halt.
Terrified, A peeked out the window. The car was stopped diagonally across the mountain road, half its body in the opposite lane.
Just then, A noticed the voices from the forest, the music inside the car, and B’s voice had all gone quiet.
Then, seemingly back to normal, B started the car.
Silence reigned both inside and outside the vehicle, as though the previous commotion had been a collective dream.
A asked B what he’d been doing.
“Oh, I felt a kind of weird just now,” he said casually. “Sorry about that.”
“We made it home safely that night. But starting the next day, B began to act a little strange. His personality didn’t go through any drastic changes, but whenever we’d hang out, something felt off. He would speak to me normally, then suddenly go blank. It was like a part of him was somewhere else.”
At some point, B quit his club and began devoting all his time to a bizarre spiritual organization in town. After a while, he stopped coming to school almost completely. B had never acted like that before. He urged A and C to join his new group, but they refused. The whole thing sounded creepy to them.
The two gradually distanced themselves from B.
“I think it all started with what we saw that night. C has something of a sixth sense, so when she heard the voices outside the car, she decided we should pretend not to have seen anything. She thought that might help us escape. I’m glad I didn’t say anything. I saw something, too, but not what B described. It was far away and it was at night, so it was only a vague shape in the darkness. But it wasn’t a stone.”
If A didn’t see a stone, then what did he see? When I asked, he just shook his head.
“I’d prefer not to say. I don’t want to draw their attention by talking about it. C might have seen something different, but we try to never mention it. This story is only about my friend seeing something strange and then becoming strange himself. C and I just happened to be there. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.”
Sharing this secret strengthened the pair’s bond.
A short while later, C confessed her feelings for A.
They’re now dating.