If you’re planning to go on a vacation soon, please read this story. We made a mistake of trying to be adventurous and it cost more than we thought it ever would. My name is Liam, I’m 18 years old. I worked part time jobs ever since I got into high school to be able to afford a vacation before going to college.
The reason I wanted to do this was because, once I left for college, I’d be either stuck in my room studying, or going to low budget college parties, neither of which sounded great. Three of my best friends from high school also had the same idea.
A small Asian guy named Seth, his parents immigrated to America from Japan. One of the friends I never thought I would have, Sarah. She was a caucasian daddy’s girl, she was spoiled and always got what she wanted. And a tall black guy named JJ who was chill and loved to crack jokes to make people laugh.
The 4 of us decided we wanted to go on a vacation together, it would cost us less and we could spend more time with eachother before we went our seperate ways.
We were thinking of where to go when Seth suggested we should go to Japan.
“You’re always talking about how you would love to see Japan, so why not go there? I’m sure my parents would love it too if I visited Japan.” He said, smile on his face. He always wanted to impress his parents, but he was right, we did want to visit Japan and he would help us navigate because he could still speak Japanese.
We all agreed and after we graduated we booked tickets for a flight to Japan on Friday morning. We spent next couple of days packing up our stuff and JJ said he had some camping equipment we can take there in case we decide to go camping.
When Friday morning came we were all waiting in the airport, excited to go on a vacation and explore. After a while we got on a plane and the flight went smoothly, I was asleep for most of it.
We landed in Chuo and went to a hotel so that we can get ourselves rooms. We spent the rest of the day exploring the city and trying different street foods and before we knew it, it was time for us to get back to our hotel rooms and call it a night.
Next day we woke up feeling refreshed and ready for a next day of exploration. We were at one of the street food vendors that sold Dango when we decided to ask if there were any interesting locations for camping.
He said that there was a forest known for people commiting suicide in it. The name was Aokigahara, but he told us we weren’t allowed to camp in there, only visit for tours.
Being dumb and adventorous teenagers that we were, we decided we’d go there camping. Not our first time breaking the rules and we would find a nice secluded spot in there so that no one would bother us or even know we were there.
Seth was against the idea at first, saying how we should respect the dead and not do what we were not supposed to, but he quickly agreed after he saw that we were not letting that opportunity go.
We rented a car, bought some booze, fire starting kit and a survival knife in case anything attacked us. As the evening came we started making our way to the forest. The drive took about 40 minutes so it wasn’t too bad, we had a lot to talk about.
We got there as it started getting dark and we quickly made a fire and set up our tents in which we were going to sleep.
Next couple of hours we spent talking and drinking and generally having fun. We shared scary stories we came upon in our life and soon the time came for us to go to bed.
We put out the fire and I got into my sleeping bag and dozed off. I woke up in the middle of the night. As I rubbed my eyes I decided to see what time it was. The clock read 2:48am and I realized I needed to pee really badly.
As I left my tent and made my way a bit deeper into the woods I thought I saw a figure of a person but as I blinked again it was gone. I shrugged it off as me being hangover and just seeing things.
I finished my business and made my way back to the tent. I fell and once again I was awoken but this time I could hear something. It sounded like a muffled voice speaking in Japanese.
Thinking it was Seth speaking with a park ranger or something I got out of my tent and I could see Seth at the edge of the forest. Based on his posture I figured he wasn’t peeing so I thought he may have been sleepwalking.
As I approached him the voice became more loud and clear indicating that it was indeed Seth speaking.
“Hey man what are you up to?” I asked expecting him to either not answer because he was sleepwalking or be embarassed that I caught him talking to himself in the middle of the night.
Seth did stop speaking but he didn’t turn in my direction. He was looking out into the woods not saying anything. As I moved few steps forward he turned towards me in a speed I never thought was possible.
He made a jerked his hands a bit which were placed on the left side of his abdomen as he let out a groan.
“Are you okay?” I said moving towards him.
That’s when I noticed what he was actually doing. He plunged our survival knife deep into his abdomen. He looked at me with a satisfying expression as he slid the knife horizontally across his abdomen.
I was frozen in fear, standing still as my friend bled out in front of me. After I gained some control of my body, I screamed, my lungs burned as I screamed again and again.
JJ and Sarah woke up to see what was happening and once they saw Seth, they too screamed at the top of their lungs.
“We need to get the fuck out of here!” I said as I ran back to our camp to pack our stuff up.
Not even 10 seconds into the packing I could hear JJ scream.
“No! Sarah! Where the fuck are you going?!” He yelled and as I turned my head I could see Sarah running into the woods.
“Fuck! We need to go after her, we can’t leave her in this forest alone!” I exclaimed nodding my head to the direction in which she ran.
JJ just nodded his had as we ran after her, adrenalin pumping in our veins. We ran like that for 5 minutes until we saw Sarah climbing a tree, already almost at the top.
“Sarah! Get down! Please, you don’t want to do this!” I said with worry and panic enveloping me.
As she climbed the tree she looked at me and JJ once again with a smile and a look of satisfaction on her face as she let herself fall down on top of her head.
The sound of bones snapping as her body fell limp and lifeless. We didn’t say anything, we simply looked at the ground for 5 minutes… 10 minutes… I’m not even sure how long. We just sat there our gaze meeting the ground beneath us.
As we were looking down JJ pulled out a knife which was already covered with Seth’s blood… I didn’t even try to stop him. No I was waiting for him to do it so I can have my turn. Just as he was about to pierce his abdomen, a figure emerged from the bushes next to us and shoved JJ who in turn dropped his knife.
The man said something in Japanese as he picked JJ up and made a gesture for us to follow him, and we did.
We followed him back to what we assumed was his house. He made us some tee as he started to speak.
“How many? How many have passed?” The man said bluntly.
Me and JJ looked at eachother as we said “2” in unison.
“This forest makes people want to end their lives, it’s not known for suicides for no reason, every time someone spends more than 6 hours in the forest, the forest makes them commit suicide.” He paused meeting our gaze to make sure we were still listening.
“The reason it does this is because there was a tribe living there hundreds of years ago, after they were defeated and about to be wiped out, their shaman put a curse on the forest, making anyone who stayed there for a prolonged periods of time end their own life.” He said as me and JJ looked at eachother and finished our tee.
“I suggest you leave now, leave to wherever you came from and don’t come back.” He said as he got us back to town.
It was already dawn at this point. When we got back, me and JJ packed our stuff, got a refund from the hotel for the next 2 nights and got on a flight back home. We didn’t dare say a word to the police, we didn’t want to stay in that cursed plave any longer.
2 weeks have passed since that incident and I just got news that JJ commited suicide.
As I’m sitting here about to post this, with a gun in my right hand, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.