Ghost Stories From Japan Episode 46 : Who was the girl playing with me ?

I like dolls, but I had one scary experience with one of them.

Since I was a little girl, I spent most of my time alone.

My mother was already a single mother when I can remember.

She was a nurse, and worked irregular hours, so we lived different lives.

Sometimes my grandma came to visit me from the next town over, but we only saw each other about once a month because of her limp.

Furthermore, I myself was shy and reserved, so I had no friends.

The only people I had to play with were my dolls.

Even so, I never felt lonely.

I think now that I was so absorbed and absorbed in playing with my dolls.

Playing with the dolls was mainly "playing house".

There were various types of dolls, each with its own role.

I prepared the houses, schools, etc., and even though I was the one who moved them all, I never got tired of the human characters depicted in the dolls, to my own credit.

There was a world that existed only for me, and I was intoxicated by it.

One day, when I woke up in the morning, my mother was still sleeping, but there was a meal on the table.

I reheated it and finished it while watching TV, and it was the time to go to school.

I called out to my mother before leaving for school, but she sometimes woke up and sometimes not.

As I was walking along my usual route to school, I noticed that there were more things than usual left at the garbage dump.

I think it was the day to collect oversize garbage.

Among them, I saw only the head of a doll lying there.

The body was completely broken or not there.

The doll's head must have been about 3 cm in diameter.

I was concerned when our eyes met, but I couldn't take it with me because I was about to go to school.

After school, I was on my way home.

I found the oversize trash still there, and the doll's head was also still there.

When I saw it, I did not hesitate to pick it up, took it home, and added it to my family.

The doll's forehead had a few scratches, but I didn't care, because it was just a character of the doll.

Since it only had a head, I played with it as it was, but the sudden addition of a new friend excited me as if a new student had arrived.

And I became even more enthusiastic than usual about playing with it.

Suddenly I wanted to go to the bathroom, so I went.

But when I returned to my room, I froze, because there was a strange girl in my room.

She said to me, "can I play with you ?"

She was probably about my age, she had long hair and I had never seen her before.

Normally, this would be an impossible situation, but it was normal in our area at that time.

Grandma would enter the house without permission, and neighbors would often come and go as well, I also sometimes ate at other people's houses, and I guess that was the way it was in those days.

I couldn't refuse her, so I had no choice but to play dolls with her.

However, this was more fun than I had expected, and by the time I realized it, it was getting dark outside.

"I'm hungry, do you want something to eat ?"

I asked her, and she nodded.

So I went to the kitchen, grabbed some food from the fridge.

And when I returned, the girl was gone.

I wondered, but I thought, she just went in there without permission, so she must have left on her own, so I didn't pay much attention to her.

But I was so excited that I could hardly sleep at night.

After that, the girl started coming over to my house often to play with me.

Her name was Rika, but she didn't tell me where she lived and would suddenly appear and disappear, but I remember that I enjoyed playing with her so much that I didn't care.

"She seems to have brightened up lately."

My mother and grandmother often told me that after I started playing with Rika, maybe I myself became confident that I had made a friend.

From then on, I naturally started to make more friends.

Playing with Rika was becoming a daily routine.

One day, I said to Rika, "I'm hungry."

And Rika replied, "well, do you want some of this ?"

And she took out two Japanese traditional cakes.

"We have two, so let's eat them together !"

"Really ? Thank you !"

I was so happy to have something sweet on an empty stomach that I finished them in a flash.

But Rika, who was watching me smiling, did not eat.

"Did you like it ?, You can have mine."

"What ? You don't mind ?"

"Sure ! I'm not hungry !"

I felt bad, but I decided to take it as a favor.

As soon as I put it in my mouth, I noticed something strange.

It was cake, but instead of being sweet, it was so bitter !

I reflexively tried to spit it out, but Rika quickly moved to cover my mouth with her hand.

"If you're my friend, you will eat it, right ?"

I tried to brush it away, but the force of her hand was so strong that it didn't even budge.

Cake and the vomit that came up, I finally couldn't even breathe.

Rika was grinning at me as she watched me, and I felt myself fading away.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on a hospital bed.

"What have you done !?"