It's Dangerous to Go Alone.

A Japanese Urban legend.

Sohara Kishimoto is walking down the a lonely foggy street in Kyoto. She has just left her middle school and is walking home. A small gust of wind causes her long black hair to flutter. She tightens her grip on her black leather book bag. Sohara hates how she has to walk home all by herself. The thick fog and empty streets creeps her out. She remembers when she was little her grandmother always told her to never go alone. If she did, Kuchisake Onna would find her. But Sohara never got to listen to that whole story because her mother always interrupted the grandmother. Sohara was never scared of urban legends. Myths are myths she would always tell herself. Through the fog, Sohara can see an outline of a person sitting down in the middle of the sidewalk straight of head of her. She can make out that the person was sitting down with their knees up against their chest. As Sohara walks closer to the unknown person, she can start to see that it is an young woman with long black hair. Once Sohara was about a meter away from the unknown woman, she can see that the woman is wearing a surgical face mask. The young woman turns towards Sohara. Sohara shivers when another gust of wind blows past her. She gets a bad feeling from this woman. Something doesn’t feel right about this woman.

The woman in the surgical mask stands up and starts to move towards Sohara. Sohara frantically starts to move back away from the woman. Sohara shrieks as she trips over a large crack in the sidewalk and falls down onto her butt.

“Dō shiro tte iu ndesu ka?” (What do you want from me?) Sohara asks the unknown woman.

“Watashi wa nanika o shitte iru hitsuyō ga arimasu ka?” (I need to know something?) the woman replies.

“Nan jigoku anata ga shiritaidesu ka?” (What the hell do you want to know?) Sohara asks her.

“Watashi wa kirei?” (Am I beautiful?)  the unknown woman asks.

‘Jigoku wa nani ga okotte imasu ka? Jigoku wa, kono josei ga machigatte imasu ka? Dōyō ni, watashi wa kanojo o torinozoku koto ga dekiru yō ni, kanojo wa utsukushī to kanojo o thell kanōsei ga arimasu.’ (What the hell is going on? What the hell is wrong with this woman? Might as well tell her that she is beautiful so I can get rid of her.) Sohara thinks to herself.

“ H-hai, anata wa utsukushīdesu.” (Y-yes you are beautiful.) Sohara responds.

“Watashi wa hontōni amu?” (Am I really?) the masked woman replies to Sohara’s response in a dark tone.

The masked woman then rips off her surgical mask. Sohara’s body turns ice cold from terror. The only warmth that she felt was the urine soaking up her school uniform skirt. The woman’s mouth was slit ear to ear. She gives Sohara a sickening smile that shows the woman’s jawbone. Then she pulls out a giant pair of scissors.

“Watashi wa ima utsukushī nodesu ka?” (Am I beautiful now?) the woman asks with her sickening smile.

Sohara just lays there in her puddle of urine. She doesn’t know what to do or what to say. This was Kuchisake Onna, the slit mouth woman. She wasn’t a myth or an urban legend after all. She was real. Her grandmother was right, it was dangerous to go alone.

“Watashi wa kirei?”(Am I beautiful?) Kuchisake Onna asks Sohara for the second time.

Sohara quickly gets up and starts to run through the thick fog. ‘Herupu o mitsukeru koto ga dekimashita.Herupu o mitsukeru koto ga dekimashita.’ (Got to find help.) Sohara thinks over and over again.

Sohara blinks and stops dead in her tracks. Kuchisake Onna is right in front of her. Sohara tries to turn around but Kuchisake Onna grabs her shoulder.

“Watashi wa kirei?” she asks Sohara again.

“Masaka! Īe, anata wa utsukushīde wa arimasen.” (No! No, you are not beautiful.) Sohara yells at Kuchisake Onna.

Kuchisake Onna laughs out loud then stabs Sohara in the mouth with her large pair of scissors. Sohara’s body jerks when the tip of the blood covered scissor blade exits the back of her head. Sohara’s eyes rolls back and she starts making gurgling noises has her mouth throat fills up with blood. Kuchisake Onna starts cutting Sohara’s head in half. The sound of flesh, blood, bone being cut by scissors fills up the foggy street.

So next time you are walking alone, remember this. It’s dangerous to go alone. Cause if you do, Kuchisake Onna will get you.

Author's Note

Hope you enjoy.

Reviews

[unspokenpain]

good beginning, middle, and end. If I were to critique I would switch the romanized letters into katakana. (not kanji as it's spoken and not in the format that makes kanji pop.) That's just more me than really a critique lol. I guess for an edit I would say that when writing in romaji to add desu ka to the end of every question. In japanese it doesn't make sense unless "desu ka" is there. anyways it was a good story and send me a review request for the next story you write. good luck and keep writing!

[Tsubaki Kuro]

thanks a lot for reading my piece. I will be updating this story in a few weeks. My next story will come in a few weeks too.

[unspokenpain]

cool beans!

[Writing Angel]

Literally wow....I have no other words

[Tsubaki Kuro]

Hahahah. Thanks.

[Lexi Wilkins]

This was lovely! Well written.

[Lilian Christine Colby]

This is very good, but there are a few places where you have extra words or need a grammar check.

[C.R. Fritz]

awesome, can't wait to read more!

[Eisho Shu]

It is kind of depressing that Sohara dies just like that. It does gives me the scare and felt unusually realistic. Very good work on this piece of horror.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

Thank you Eisho Shu. I am really depressed that Sohara dies too.

[Star Angel]

Nice story. I always like reading Japanese myths and legends. They're really cool.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

I love them too. I am currently making a series of Japanese Urban legends

[Star Angel]

Sounds like I'll be reading all of them then :)

[Zoë]

Alright, really good story! I didn't understand why it was horror at first, and then I got to the end. Good, graphics by the way, but I do have a few notes.

Before I continue I want to say that none of my comments are meant to be rude, I'm just telling you what I was thinking while I was reading the piece. So feel free to disregard my comments if you want, but I do hope they help point out things that could be improved.

- I'm not really fond of third person present, but that's just me. I find that it makes the story harder to read because we're used to reading in it. I would suggest changing it into into past tense, but like I said, that's just me.

- You've got some grammar problems. There's not a ton, but there are a lot that I think could be fixed. Again, that could just be me because I'm not used to reading or editing stories in present tense, but there were lines that really bugged me while I was reading them. If you want I can go through again and pick out all the lines that have problems and suggest solutions to them.

- You seem to be afraid to use commas... Some of your sentences come off as repetitive because you're splitting up things that could be one complex sentence into two sentence fragments. You may have intended to write it that way, but it doesn't flow very well and it makes it harder to read.

- The story doesn't flow very well in general. It jumps all over the place and is a little confusing on the first read through. First were walking home from school, then Sohara is remember a story that her grandmother told her (though we don't get the whole story so there really is no effect for me), then we run into a random lady who Sohara treats rudely for no apparent reason, then the lady is a monster, then Sohara get's killed, then there's a warning about walking alone. I would love it if you added more into the story so that it flows better instead of jumping from one topic to another with no transitions.

- Character development, there's basically none. All I know about the main character is that she seems like a jerk and she has a family. She comes accorss this random lady and, even though the lady is a bit weird, treats her quite rudely. The lady just asks if she can ask a question and Sohara responds with "what do you want" and "what the hell do you want to know". This rudeness generally puts me off from liking the main character, so it doesn't bother me when she dies, because as far as I'm concerned she may have deserved it. While yes, it's sad that someone died and that it was in such a gruesome way, I don't really care about the character because you haven't given me anything to care about.
I would love it if you added more depth into Sohara. Give me a better look into her character, show that she has deep bonds with her family, do something that makes me want to care about her and see her live. Right now it seems like she's just there so you can make a story about a myth, but what makes stories enjoyable is not always the tale they tell, but the characters they create. Which is why I want you to do more with her. It's a horror story after all, and a horror story can become much scarier if we actually care about the character.

- The plot is also very lacking. You give us the moral of the story a mere 7 sentences into the story, when the moral really should come at the end. On top of that, the main plot of the story is that there's a creepy lady that kills the main character. That plot is pretty shallow considering you haven't added much else to it, other than the general myth about Kuchisake Onna, which isn't much to go on. Which is where character development comes back into play, a major part of any plot is watching how a character changes over time, and there's not much of that here. Even if it's a short story, character development still plays a major roll in both creating an character and advancing a plot.
Which is why I think it's be good if you went back and gave more personality to Sohara as well as added more to the gerneral plot of the story. Maybe add in a reason why she's walking alone. Add in a back story about how she used to believe her grandma but doesn't anymore. There's honestly just so many places you could take this because of how open the myth is. Also, you should probably add in a reason for why her mother always stopped the telling of the story, you don't really cover that, so it seems a bit weird.

I know I'm being harsh for such a sort story, and as I said above I'm sorry if any of this offends you, but I feel like there was a lot you could've pulled out of this piece that you really didn't touch on. You're a great writer and you have amazing ideas for stories, which is actually why I'm being really nit-picky. But I would really like to see more put into the story. Overall, this was an amazing piece and I'll be happy to review anything of yours in the future, just let me know :)

[Tsubaki Kuro]

Hahahahahaha I feel the same way with most of these points you make. I created this story in 30 minutes. I just wanted to post a story, because I haven't posted one in a long time. I am actually making the updated version right now.

[Zoë]

Nice, glad I could help! And let me know when the update is posted, I'd love to read it again

[Tsubaki Kuro]

for the character development part, There still might not be any because this is a short piece. Sohara is just a poor girl who became a victim of Kuchisake Onna. I can try to add some character development, but don't expect it to be outstanding. It's hard to do character development to a character who is destined to die.

But I will make the plot flow better, way better.

[Zoë]

I know it's hard to do, but caring about a character that dies can actually make a story much scarier (Because you're actually concerned about the character), which is why I pointed out the lack of development. It doesn't even have to be anything serious, I'd just like to see Sohara as more of a human being instead of a blank slate.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

Ok, I understand now. Thanks a bunch. :)

[Zoë]

No problem :)

[Autonomous]

Baka, sorry had to get that out of my system. Anyway, I loved the story although Japanese urban legends scare the s**t out of me.

[Tsubaki Kuro]

they scare the s**t out of me too. I have been doing hours of research on them, and by doing that I have had very little sleep. You were calling Sohara a baka right? :)

[Davidgeo]

God damn do I love Japan.