死がまもなく来ます

I remember back when I was in elementary, I was friends with a Japanese kid. I can't remember his name that well though...damn it,what was it? A... Adam, maybe? Well, it was something like that. For the sake of writing this, I'll just call him Adam.

So anyways, "Adam". He was about my height, kind of quiet, and I was pretty much his only friend. He talked sometimes with some of my other friends, but never really that much. He'd just say a tiny bit, then walk off.

One day, he told me he was moving. He looked pretty distraught about it, and he every time he mentioned it, he said the word "moving" weird. He'd stop on that word and pause for a second, whether or not it was at the end of a sentence. As he was leaving with his parents that day, I asked him why he had to leave. He quickly looked around the area worriedly before he handed me a scrap of paper. He got into his parent's car, and I haven't seen him since.

I was confused when he gave me the paper. He didn't say anything, he just quickly handed it to me without even looking at me or anything. He seemed to look off in the distance. Also, when he closed the car door, I almost thought I saw him cry.

Now, that piece of paper... It looked like it had been torn off in a hurry. On it was scribbled  Japanese symbols, kanji is what I believe it's called. I didn't know any foreign languages at that time, and the characters looked scribbled and hard to read anyway. But I remembered them well. If someone were to write them for some odd reason, I'd recognize them. The symbols were "死がまもなく来ます". But, as I said, I didn't know Japanese, so they pretty much meant nothing to me.

I few years later in high school, I remembered Adam and asked some of my friends if they remembered him. They looked at me as if I was crazy, and they all told me they never remembered anyone named Adam back in elementary. It was kind of odd to me. But remembering Adam made me remember the paper he gave me. I forgot where I put it, but I finally managed to find it. I took it out and read it. In my freshman year I got interested in Japanese culture  and I learned a little bit of the language.

I looked at the faded, crumpled, yellowed paper with the scribbled kanji on it. As I read the characters to myself, I went pale. "Death comes soon". What was this? Why would a child write something like this? Was something wrong? Was there a death in his family and that's why he had to move? But that didn't make sense. It said "Death comes soon", not "Death has come". I put down the paper and thought about it.

When I put it down I realized there was also writing on the back. I had never noticed it before, even though I had this paper for about 7 years. It was more kanji, but written much more clearly, as though he had taken the time to write this part. It said "青木ヶ原", or "Aokigahara". I Googled it, and apparently it's this place in Japan. It's a really big forest where a lot of people commit suicide.

As I was looking at that results on Google, I saw a video that was in Japanese, and I clicked it. Some guy had taken a camera with him into the forest to look around. At first, the guy just wandered around, and a short while later put the camera down. It was night time, so he put up a tent and went to sleep but he made sure to keep the camera running outside. I watched about 5 minutes, but nothing happened. Just as I was ready to go do something else, I heard sound in the video.

The camera was getting a lot of static, and there was something that sounded like whispering. Quietly at first, but it got a little louder after about fifteen seconds. The camera stopped having static, and the video became really clear. The guy shuffled around in the tent a little before he then came out of the tent. He looked like was in a trance, as if something was controlling him.

He turned towards the camera with tears rolling down his face. I noticed he seemed about my age, I hadn't realized earlier because he didn't show his face. Then, I realized something else: It was Adam! He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. "No..." I said to myself.

He put to his head.

"No!"

He cocked it.

"NO!"

He put his finger on the trigger and slowly started pulling it back.

Right as I closed my eyes and prepared for a horrible moment, nothing happened. The video was almost pitch black now, and there was no audio. I leaned in in curiosity. The audio came back. It was just loud, echoing laughter and whispering. I was horrified. Every whisper was a quite shout, each one saying the same thing: "死がまもなく来ます! 死がまもなく来ます!" over and over. Finally, the terrible video ended.

I was shocked. I looked at the comments, but there were none. I refreshed the page, but then my computer suddenly crashed. I booted it back up and checked my history. I scrolled through it, but I couldn't find the video again. It was like it never existed. Wait...that's weird. My friends acted like Adam never existed too. I pulled out the scrap of paper. As I put my hand into my pocket to get the paper, I closed my eyes tight and froze up. I pulled out the paper and quickly glanced at it.

In my hand I held a new, clean-cut, blank piece of paper. I brought it up to my face and looked at it very closely. I kept telling myself this can't be happening. I looked at it as close as I could and searched every inch of it. It was completely blank.

I slowly put down the piece of paper. Now, my computer screen was black except for some white words all over it...

青木ヶ原: 死がまもなく来ます