There’s a scary story that’s been going around at my school lately. It started off with the “Seven Mysteries” of the school.
1. If you go to school at night to pick up something you forgot, you’ll be able to get to your classroom like normal, but on the way back, the stairs leading down will go on forever. You have to go down the opposite side of the building, or you’ll get sucked into another world.
2. If you go to the gym and play basketball at midnight, an extra team member who wasn’t there before will appear. If you ignore them and keep playing, the ball will turn into the extra player’s head.
3. If you go to the computer lab when no one else is around, hands will reach out of the computers and try to drag you inside.
4. If you’re outside the music room at 4:44 AM when no one else is around, you’ll hear “Für Elise” being performed inside. If you hear the tune four times, you’ll die.
5. Sometimes, a strange lunchtime announcement will play, even when there’s no one in the broadcast room. If you don’t cover your ears as soon as it comes on, something bad will happen to you.
6. If you go to the bathroom on the third floor and knock three times on the third stall, a voice will say, “Who is it?” If you answer, you’ll be dragged into the toilet and die.
7. Anyone who learns the seventh mystery will die.
It’s weird for the seventh mystery in a list of seven to be missing, right? But this one friend of mine says it’s been that way ever since her big sister and even her mom went to our school. It says you’ll die if you learn about it, so we figured anyone who knew what it was must’ve died a long time ago.
Usually, when scary rumors start going around, it all goes back to this one kid, Miki. Miki’s…kind of strange and likes to talk a lot but has plenty of friends. About a month ago, Miki found out what the seventh mystery was. The other kids all wanted to hear about it, but Miki just smirked and said, “Nah, it’s too dangerous. It’s better if you don’t know.”
Of course, that only made everyone even more curious. But the more we asked, the more Miki stayed quiet, giving us that same cheeky grin. At some point, this rowdy group of boys said Miki was probably lying anyway. They argued about it, and the boys were all, “If you found out the seventh mystery, how come you’re not dead?”
Of course, Miki’s the kind of kid who has an answer for everything.
“I found a surefire way to prevent it. ’Cause I’m an expert.”
That didn’t convince the boys, though, and eventually, Miki got tired of being called a liar.
“Okay, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. Anyone who has the guts, come to the broadcast room tonight.”
I actually didn’t want to hear about it, so at first, I didn’t think I’d go. I’ve never really liked scary stories, and if the rumors were true, I might die just from hearing it. The only reason I went along was because I couldn’t say no. There’s this girl Ema, who always acts like a princess, and she said, “You want to hear it, too, right, Nanaka? You have to come. If you don’t, I won’t be your friend anymore.”
If Ema decided I wasn’t her friend, everyone else in class would ignore me. What was I supposed to do? But then when I got there, the only ones who showed up were the boys who’d called Miki a liar, Ema, and me. Why had she invited me specifically? Apparently, she hadn’t. She asked the other kids to come, too, but they all had some excuse not to, like needing to do chores at home or go to their grandma’s funeral.
I know it’s not very nice to tell lies, but I kind of wish I’d come up with something like that. But now I was there, I was getting curious, so I decided I might as well stay. Miki was an expert, after all, so we’d probably be okay.
This was the story we heard that night.
There once was a lady named Haruko who lived happily with her son, Taro. Her son was in the third grade at Aoba South Elementary School. One day, Haruko cooked Taro his favorite apple pie and waited for him to return from school. Normally, he came home right away, but it got to five o’clock, then six, and there was still no sign of him.
Haruko went out to look for her missing son. She asked any Aoba South Elementary kids she passed on the road where he was, but they all pretended not to know. His mom didn’t know it, but Taro was being bullied really bad, and everyone was too scared to get involved.
Eventually, she got to the school and ran to Taro’s classroom. There was nobody there. But the cleaning supplies locker had been tipped over, face down on the floor. Drawing on all her strength, Haruko managed to get it upright again. She opened the door, and within…was Taro.
His face was ghostly white, and he was just lying there like a broken doll. On the inside of the door, written in red, were the words SAVE ME MOMMY. Taro’s bullies had shoved him in the locker, where he’d died from the lack of air. The last thing he ever did was pry off one of his fingernails and use his blood to try and write a message to his mother.
Haruko went to the teachers and the police and begged them to find the bullies who had done this. But they refused to help, calling Taro’s death an unfortunate accident and nothing more. From then on, Haruko started to act strange. Every day when school got out, she would go to the school gates and ask the students for help.
“Help me find the boy.”
One day, on her way to the school, she was hit by a car and died.
That night, one of Taro’s former classmates—who we’ll call Kid A—saw Haruko in his dreams.
“Help me find the boy,” she said. Kid A tried to refuse, but inside the dream, he was powerless to resist.
On the first night, she told him to cross the road by Aoba Lake and look inside the church there. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the second night, she told him to climb the jungle gym in Northside Park and look there. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the third night, she told him to go to the pedestrian footbridge and search the third stairway from the right. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the fourth night, she told him to go behind the citizens’ center and search the big parking lot there. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the fifth night, she told him to search outside the convenience store on Taisho Street. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the sixth night, she told him to go around the back of the Ciel Candy Store and search the drain there. Kid A didn’t find anything.
On the seventh night, she told him to look inside his own house. Kid A didn’t find anything.
The next morning, Kid A was found lying cold and dead in his bed. As punishment for not finding Taro, Haruko had sent him to hell.
After that, Haruko showed up in the dreams of another kid, B. Just like Kid A, he spent the first two nights searching like she told him, but he never found anything. Kid B was so frightened that he told his friend Kid C about it before he went to bed on the third day. Kid B didn’t see Haruko in his dreams that night. Instead, Haruko showed up in Kid C’s dreams, making the same request as always.
“Help me find the boy.”
If anyone who was being haunted by Haruko told someone at school about it, Haruko would begin haunting them instead. But if they didn’t tell anyone, they’d eventually be sent to hell, just like Kid A.
Within a week of hearing this story, you’ll start to see Haruko in your dreams.
According to Miki, that was our school’s seventh mystery. It made me really scared. Unlike the other mysteries, this story was weirdly detailed. All the spots Haruko told Kid A to look were real places we knew. The reason I can remember everything is because Miki printed it out. I don’t know why, but Miki gave a copy to everyone who’d gathered there that night. Somehow, that only made things scarier.
The boys went quiet. They were going to throw their papers away, but Miki yelled that Haruko would curse them if they did. We kept hold of our copies when we heard that. We all went home without really talking about it.
But then—I think it was the day after the next day—Ema came up to me. She looked really worried, so I asked her what was wrong.
“I had the Haruko dream!”
I asked her if she was okay, but it was weird. She just wouldn’t settle down.
“And I already told Rui about it!” she said.
Rui’s a girl from the group Ema always hangs around with. That night, Haruko appeared in Rui’s dreams. Then she told some other kid about it. I was really getting scared. I couldn’t tell anyone about it. As scary as it all was, I didn’t want to pass Haruko to some other kid and risk sending them to hell in my place.
I’m not actually going to hell, am I? You told me in our Bible-study class that hell is only for devils and sinners. I might not always be a good girl, but I’m not a bad one, either. So…I won’t go to hell, will I?