Excerpt from S’s files—About the Stone 2:
A, a businessman in Nagasaki, experienced something peculiar at a high school reunion over the summer Obon holiday.
Three years had passed since A entered the workforce. He’d stayed in his hometown, but many of his friends had left. As time went by, they contacted one another less frequently, so the reunion was a good opportunity to catch up with old friends.
“I knew it’d be a big event. In the span of just three years, some people had already gotten married or were working themselves ragged in Tokyo. I was pretty much the same as always, but everyone else seemed really different. I felt a little awkward at first, but as we kept talking, I realized no one had really changed at heart. It was nice.”
A and the others had rented out a bar for the official party. When that was over, about half the group headed to a darts bar for another round. Now thoroughly drunk, they started to feel like they were back in high school. Spirits were high.
“By the time we left, it was after midnight. Some people took taxis home, but me and three of my good friends resolved to keep drinking until dawn. Since all the bars were closed, we went to a twenty-four-hour karaoke place.”
They ended up at a chain in Nagasaki City.
The person at the front desk looked annoyed with the drunkards but gave them a room all the same. After pouring into the booth, they started singing.
“We were all totally wasted. We sang anime songs and laughed until we cried. It was fantastic.”
However, the excitement didn’t last long. By three AM, A’s friends started to fade and fall asleep on the table.
“The other guys all lived in Tokyo, and the long trip must’ve tired them out. I was the only one still awake.”
Not in the mood to sing songs by himself, A scrolled through his phone. But sleep eventually overtook him, too.
“I don’t remember it, but I caught myself nodding off and realized I’d been sleeping.”
He woke to find the other three still passed out. Groggy from drinking, A was checking the schedule for the first train that morning when he realized there was something strange about the room.
“It had gone completely silent. Even when you don’t have a song queued up, the TV is still playing music videos or interviews for whatever singers the labels are promoting. And that’s exactly what was on when I fell asleep. But when I woke up, the room was totally quiet.”
A turned to the screen and saw a peculiar image.
“It was weirdly pixelated, like a home movie from a few decades ago. There were lots of people just standing around silently.”
There in the dark room, he stared at the image, captivated.
It looked like a group photo. There were about ten people standing in a line in front of a forest, with a strange object right in the center. There were both men and women, elderly folks and children not yet in school. Each person dressed differently: Some were in suits, while others wore farm clothes. They represented a wide range of ages and appearances, but all of them stared at A with blank, emotionless faces.
In the center of the image was a platform, about as high as an adult’s hips, supporting a large stone set atop a cushion.
“On our school trip to Osaka, some friends and I took a picture around the Billiken statue. The image reminded me of that. It looked like a commemorative photo taken at some tourist attraction. But no one seemed to be enjoying themselves.”
None of the people moved, so at first A assumed the screen was showing a still image. But as he watched, he noticed the tree branches and leaves in the background swaying.
“I thought it was a preview for a horror movie or something, but it was pretty avant-garde for a trailer. I watched for a couple of minutes, but absolutely no one said anything.”
But just as A started to lose interest, someone in the image spoke.
“Please pass through.”
The words weren’t what surprised A, though. It was what the other people did.
“The ones not speaking opened their mouths really wide, like some kind of signal. But their facial expressions never changed.”
Then another person spoke.
“Please come here.”
The whole time, the others kept their mouths opened wide.
Then another person spoke. This time it was a young child.
“You need to do it.”
It felt like when a whole class gives a shared speech at their graduation, each person standing up to contribute a few rehearsed lines.
“I don’t have a sixth sense, but I broke out in goose bumps. I knew something was wrong.”
He ran to the TV and turned down the volume. He tried to switch off the screen, but he was too panicked to find the button.
“I knew I had to do something, so I picked up the room’s phone and called the front desk.”
It rang for a while, but no one answered. As he waited, A found his eyes drawn to the video against his will. He couldn’t hear it anymore, but the people were still taking turns speaking.
More than ten rings later, someone finally picked up.
“Please come quickly.”
The voice on the other end belonged to an elderly man.
At that moment, someone fitting that description was speaking on the television screen. The words coming through the phone perfectly matched the movements of his mouth.
A hurried out of the room.
“I’m not sure why I did that. I think I just wanted out of there.”
But as soon as he got into the hall, he froze.
The doors lining both sides of the passage were all half open, and people were leaning out, watching him with blank expressions.
“Men, women, children, older people. They were all staring like they’d been waiting for me to leave the room.”
A stood rooted to the spot as all of them began to open their mouths wide.
That’s when he dashed back inside the room.
“I woke up everyone, half-mad, almost in tears. But by then, the screen was showing the regular feed of videos again. Everyone was really worried about me because I was in such a panic.”
One of A’s friends called the front desk again. An irritated staff member picked up and asked if something had broken.
“There was still some time before the first train, but I told everyone we needed to get out of there.”
The four of them left and walked down a quiet street lined with bars, under a hazy, predawn sky. A related every last detail of what had happened.
Just as he finished, everyone’s phone rang.
“All the calls came from the same number. Isn’t that strange? How can one number call four different phones at the same time? And it was just past four in the morning.”
No one answered. Their phones rang for a long time.
“Later, I went through my call log and checked the number online. It matched one from an abandoned retirement home in the Kanto region. The place had been on the news a while back because of a mass suicide. If that was really where the calls came from, I’m glad none of us picked up.”