THE FACELESS WOMAN

Mujina 'Nopperabou'

'This japanese urban legend is called 'No Face', about Nopperabou, a creature from Japanese folklore.

Though they look like normal people, the nopperabou's distinctive feature is their face, which lacks eyes, a nose, or a mouth. Instead of normal human features, nopperabou have only smooth skin. People who encounter nopperabou usually do not immediately realize that they are talking to something that is otherworldly, as the creatures are able to create the illusion that they have a normal human face.

A nopperabou will wait for the right moment before causing their features to disappear, scaring the person they are speaking with. People usually run into nopperabou at night in lonely rural settings, although they can appear anywhere as long as the area is deserted. The nopperabou primary purpose is to scare humans, but beyond that they do not seem to have any sort of agenda.

One famous nopperabou story is Lafcadio Hearnfs Mujina. The story is short and deftly describes an encounter with a nopperabou, but it is also the source of much confusion. In the story, Hearn refers to the creatures as mujina, which is actually a different type of creature altogether (a sort of badger). This mistake has caused a lot of Western readers to mix up the names for nopperabou and mujina, and even today you will run across authors and scholars that are using the wrong name. Regardless, the story itself is a very typical tale of nopperabou mischief.'

The Mujina of the Akasaka Road

On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-

zaka, ---which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it

is called the Slope of the province of Kii. On one side of this slope you

see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to

some place of gardens; ---and on the other side of the road extend the

long and lofty walls of an imperial palace.

Before the era of street-lamps
and jinrikishas, this neighborhood was very lonesome after dark; and belated
pedestrians would go miles out of their way rather than mount the Kii-no-
kuni-zaka, alone, after sunset.
All because of a Mujina that used to walk there.

The last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Kyobashi quarter, who died about thirty years ago. This is the story, as he told it : --- One night, at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, when he perceived a woman crouching by the moat, all alone, and weeping bitterly. Fearing that she intended to drown herself, he stopped to offer her any assistance or consolation in his power. She appeared to be a slight and graceful person, handsomely dressed; and her hair was arranged like that of a young girl of good family.

"O-jochu," he exclaimed, approaching her,---"O-jochu, do not cry like that!... Tell me what the trouble is; and if there be any way to help you, I shall be glad to help you." (He really meant what he said; for he was a very kind man.) But she continued to weep,---hiding her face from him with one of her long sleeves.

"O-jochu," he said again, as gently as he could,---"please, please listen to me! ... This is no place for a young lady at night! Do not cry, I implore you!---only tell me how I may be of some help to you!" Slowly she rose up, but turned her back to him, and continued to moan and sob behind her sleeve. He laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder, and pleaded:---"O-jochu!--- O-jochu!---O-jochu!... Listen to me, just for one little moment!... O-jochu!--- O-jochu!"... Then that O-jochu turned round, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand;--- and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth,---and he screamed and ran away.

Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before him. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller, who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any light and any human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself down at the feet of the old soba-seller, crying out, "Aa!---aa!!---aa!!!"... "Kore! Kore!" roughly exclaimed the soba-man. "Here! what is the matter with you? Anybody hurt you?"

"No---nobody hurt me," panted the other,---"only... Aa!---aa!"... "---Only scared you?" queried the peddler, unsympathetically. "Robbers?" "Not robbers,---not robbers," gasped the terrified man... "I saw... I saw a woman---by the moat;---and she showed me... Aa! I cannot tell you what she showed me!"... "He! Was it anything like THIS that she showed you?" cried the soba-man, stroking his own face---which therewith became like unto an Egg... And, simultaneously, the light went out.

A Girl Ghost

I don't know what this is but looks pretty eerie..

Click here to see " A Girl Ghost"!
Be careful of the volume, there will be sound!!!

Cursed Video

Yet another video rumoured to be cursed.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

The Red Room

*The following story is fairly well-known and exists in several different versions.



Late one night, a taxi driver picked up a girl. When he asked her where she was going she replied she was going home.

“Please
go straight down this road,” “turn right there,” she instructed him as
he drove on. During the journey the driver sometimes gave furtive
glances at her through the rear view mirror; the girl had beautiful
shiny hair and seemed pretty, although he couldn't see her face clearly
because she sat with downcast eyes. He also found her quiet and demure
manner attractive.



Before long they reached a lonely, deserted
hillside. The girl said, “You will see a house straight ahead.” And
sure enough, a small, old cottage emerged from the darkness. The girl
got off, and the driver stayed and watched her go into the house. It
was odd that a young girl like her should live in such a lonely, old
place, seemingly all on her own. He was intrigued and instead of
leaving straight away, got out of the car too and crept up to the
house, feeling an urge to know more about her and see her face
properly. He felt he was behaving improperly but could not help himself.



When he got close, he saw all the curtains were drawn and there was no way to see inside.

He
circled around the house a few times but there was no attempt from
inside to lift the curtains. He thought if he stayed any longer the
girl might notice him, so he nearly gave up and left when the front
door caught his eyes. The door had a large keyhole, which looked as
though it would work just as fine as a peephole.

He looked through
the keyhole; but found, much to his dismay, all he could see was the
colour red, and there was no sign of either the girl or any kind of
furniture in the room. Now matter how long he kept at it the scenery
remained the same.



He gave up looking, but still could not
forget about the girl, so he stopped by the small restaurant he'd seen
on the way to her house, thinking he could make a few inquiries about
her there while having a meal at the same time.

He told the
restaurant owner what had happened, even revealing (although he was
terribly embarrassed) that he had a peek through the keyhole.

“I looked through the keyhole, but all I could see was something red…I know it wasn't a proper thing to do.”



The owner, hearing that, looked at him strangely and said to him;

“You know that girl… she has some sort of disease and her eyes are both crimson red.”



*Did you understand what the restraunt owner's words meant? :)

The Monkey Dream

I was dreaming. Ever since I was a child, I was sometimes aware, when I
was dreaming, that I was in a dream. This time was the same. I was
standing on a platform of a dark, empty railway station. What a gloomy
dream, I thought. Then an announcement was made, in a dull, spiritless
voice of a man;
"The train is approaching. If you get on it something scarrrry will happen to youuuu." It sounded nonsensical.
Soon the train came in. It wasn't a proper train, but rather like a monkey train (*1) you might see in amusement parks, and there were some men and women seated on it in a row.

I
sensed something unusual about the dream, but I decided to get on the
train, just to see how much fear I could take. If I really found it too
much I could always wake up. I was able to make myself wake up whenever
I wanted, but the only time I could do that was when I was aware I was
dreaming.

I settled into the third seat from the back. The air
around me felt so realistically warm it was hard to believe this was a
dream at all.

"The train is deparrrtiiiing,"
said the announcement, and the train started moving. My heart was
pounding hard with both anxiety and expectation. The train entered into
a tunnel soon after leaving the platform. The tunnel was illuminated
with a mysterious purple-ish light.

This
tunnel - I thought - is like the tunnel I saw on that "ghost train"
ride in an amusement park I once went when I was a child. This thing
I'm on too is just a monkey train. After all, this dream, like any
other dreams, is just made up of pieces of my own memories. It doesn't
feel scary at all.

Just then there was another announcement. "The next station is, Ike-Zukuri, Ike-Zukuriiii(*2)."
Ike-zukuri?
You mean like a fish? While I was still wondering, a loud scream broke
out from behind. When I turned around, I saw the man in the last seat
was surrounded by four ugly midgets ( 3*) dressed in rags.

Before my eyes, the man was cut into pieces with sharp knives and it was really like an ike-zukuri.
An overpowering stench filled the air, and the man screamed and
screamed until my ears began to hurt. Bloody intestines and various
organs were pulled out of the man's body and scattered all around him.
Immediately behind me sat an ashen-faced woman with long hair, but she
seemed totally uninterested of what was happening behind her, inspite of the ghastly din it was making.

I
for one was certainly unprepared for this turn of events, and began to
feel scared. I thought I would wait a little longer and see what
happened next, and then try to wake up. Before I knew it, the man on
the last seat was gone, leaving behind only some dark, reddish blood
and chunks of meat. The woman behind me was still looking straight
ahead with a blank look on her face.

"The next station is Gouging Ouuut, Gouuuging Ouuuuut," the announcement said.
This
time two midgets appeared and with something that looked like serrated
spoons they began to gouge out the eyes of the woman behind me. The
woman's face, which had been a total blank only a moment before, turned
into a mask of great fear and pain; then came from her a piercing
scream, which nearly shattered my eardrums. I saw her eyeballs pop out.
The stench of sweat and blood was unbearable. I bent over, trembling
with fear. This was it. I couldn't bear it anymore. Guessing from how
things had been, the next would be my turn, since I sat in the third
seat from the back. I was going to wake up - but not, I decided, before
I check what the announcement would be next.

"The next station is Mince Meat, Mince Meeeaaaat."
This
was the worst I could possibly expect. I could easily imagine what was
going to happen. I focused all my energy on waking up from the dream.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up....." This intensive praying was usually
enough to escape from a dream.
Abruptly, I heard something buzzing
and wheezing close to me. A midget crawled up into my lap and held up
some sort of device and waved it towards me. It must be a tool to turn
me into a mince meat. Still, all I could do was close my eyes tight and
pray frantically "come on, please, wake up! Wake up wake up wake up
wake up...!" The buzzing sound was getting closer and closer. Finally
it got so close that I felt the wind pressure on my face. And just when
I thought it was the end of me, everything became quiet and still.

I
managed to escape from the nightmare. I was wet all over with sweat,
and tears were streaming down my cheeks. It wasn't until after I went
to the kitchen and drank tons of water, that I was finally able to calm
down. The dream was real - too real; but it was just a dream, nothing
more, I told myself.

The following day at school I told my
friends about the dream. They just found it funny. It was only a dream,
they said, and that was all.
Then four years passed and I became a
college student. I kept myself busy with studying and working. So much
had been going on in my life that by that time I had completely forgotten about the dream.

But one night, it started again.
"The next station is Gouging Ouuut, Gouuuging Ouuuuut,"
the dream began from that scene. Immediately, my memories came flooding
back. Things carried on exactly in the same way as before. The two
midgets were gouging out the woman's eyes. I started praying straight
away ."Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

But this time, for some reason, I couldn't wake up as easily as the last time. "Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up....."

"The next station is Mince Meat, Mince Meeeaaaat,"
said the announcement. The time was running out. I heard the familiar
buzzing, and it was getting closer and closer. "Wake up, come on, wake
up wake up wake up!!"

A dead silence descended. I somehow
managed to escape again. With a huge relief I was about to open my eyes
when I heard: "you are going to run away agaiiiin? But the next time is goiiing to be yourrr laaast." It was the voice of that announcer in the dream. When I opened my eyes I was back in my own room.

The last voice wasn't a
part of the dream. I heard it in the real world, there are no mistakes
about it. Why me? What things have I done to deserve this? Since then I
have not had the same dream again; but I know that if I ever
dream it again, I will die, probably by a heart attack or something. It
might appear to be a heart attack in the real life, but it will be a
"mince meat" in the other world.....

-----------------------------------------
Notes:
1* - A "monkey train" is how some people call a toy train in Japan. There used to be a famous toy train in Ueno
Zoo in Tokyo, run by a monkey (actually the monkey did was just sit on
the train and nothing else). You can see a picture of the original
monkey train here. The monkey train of Ueno
Zoo was banned after people started vociferating about "animal rights."
The monkey train is now gone, but the name lives on by itself.

2* - Ike-Zukuri (or iki-zukuri)
could be literally translated as "live-making or live-arranging." It is
a fish served alive and whole, slices of flesh having been cut and put
back in place (kensyusha's new college Japanese-English Dictionary, 5th edition). Go here to see what it looks like.

3* - I've got nothing against little people. In fact, I measure only about 5ft that I might be called a midget myself.