【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 9: Don’t Look Inside the House | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 09 – “Don’t Look Inside the House| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
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The Hundred Horror Tales —Episode 9: Don’t Look Inside the House
The faint scent of smoke still lingered in the air.
Grandpa Seikichi had just finished his story, and the extinguished candle’s smoke was still curling upward.
Breaking the lingering silence, Miwa clapped her hands with a smile.
“Well then! Grandpa’s stories are always quietly chilling, aren’t they?”
“This time, how about something that gives you a different kind of chill?”
She set down her teacup and leaned forward slightly, a playful smile on her face.
“You know, people may smile on the outside… but you never really know what they’re hiding on the inside.”
—There was a mom I knew.
Back when my kid was in preschool, there was this woman—A-chan’s mom.
She looked so ordinary. The kind of gentle, quiet mom you see everywhere.
But somehow… the air around her felt different.
At first, I thought I was just imagining it.
But the things she said always felt just a little off.
Like, she’d say, “Oh, you changed your hairstyle?” which is fine…
but then she’d add, “It looked sharper the old way,” with a sweet smile.
It wasn’t mean, exactly, but it stung.
She had an uncanny eye for detail.
“You added a garden ornament recently, right?”
Things most people wouldn’t even notice—she picked up instantly.
And yet, she never talked about herself.
One day, my kid said, “I wanna play at A-chan’s house!”
A-chan’s mom also invited me over with a cheerful, “Please, come by if you have time~”
So I baked some cookies and went along.
But the moment I stepped into the house, something felt… off.
It was the middle of the day, but the house was dim.
All the curtains were drawn tight with thick, heavy fabric—
not a sliver of sunlight could sneak through.
“We have a lot of furniture that fades easily,” she said, smiling as if nothing was strange.
But the way she said it… it felt like asking anything more was off-limits.
The living room, hallway, even the kid’s room—
every single window was sealed off with curtains.
It didn’t feel like a home protecting against sunlight.
No—it felt like a home hiding something.
That day, the kids were playing in A-chan’s room.
And of course—even there, the curtains were shut tight.
Not just blackout curtains… they were the kind that seemed to absorb sound too. There was something unnaturally heavy about them.
I tried to make small talk.
“Feels like you have to keep the lights on even during the day, huh?”
A-chan’s mom smiled sweetly.
“This is what feels most comfortable for us,” she said.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask anything more.
Normally, with all the curtains closed like that, the air would get stuffy, right?
But strangely, it wasn’t.
Actually… it felt more like the air was hiding some kind of smell—
like something unpleasant had been scrubbed away too cleanly.
A few days later, I casually brought it up during a get-together with our usual group of moms.
And right away—
“That house always has the curtains shut, no matter what.”
“Totally! My kid said, ‘A-chan’s house is sooo dark.’”
“And hasn’t it always been like that?”
—The comments came out in trickles.
But everyone… they all seemed eager to drop the subject before it went too far.
The mood just died.
Someone muttered, “It’s better not to talk about that too much,”
and another said, “She’s got sharp ears, you know?”
It felt like… someone was listening.
From that day on, I started noticing things.
Whenever I picked up my kid, I’d go out of my way to pass by A-chan’s house.
And every time—even on rainy days—the curtains stayed closed.
From the outside, they were pulled perfectly shut.
No gaps. Not even a layer of lace behind them.
Just thick, dark fabric—wall after wall.
Then, one evening when I came to pick up my kid, something strange happened.
A-chan came running from the living room.
“Mom~!”
And for just a moment—just for a second—
the curtain shifted.
I wasn’t trying to look.
But I saw something.
There was something behind the curtain.
I don’t know if it was human.
But… it felt like it saw me.
Eyes—or maybe not eyes—were locked onto mine.
No blinking. No movement.
Just… watching.
And even now, I can still feel that heavy, sinking pressure deep in my chest.
“…It was nothing, right?”
That’s what I told myself as I walked away.
But even after I got home, that feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away.
And then—
strange things started happening.
After that day, I started feeling eyes on my back.
While hanging the laundry.
While walking down the street.
Whenever I turned around—no one was there.
But I knew someone was watching me.
“I’m being silly,” I told myself.
And yet… something in our mom group started to change.
One of the moms I’d always been close with suddenly left our group chat.
After that, I’d see her at preschool drop-off, but she wouldn’t even look at me.
She just kept her eyes down, like she didn’t want to be seen.
The others, too—whenever A-chan’s mom came up in conversation, they’d go quiet.
Someone would always say,
“Let’s… not talk about that.”
Like they were afraid of being overheard.
Maybe… someone had seen something.
One afternoon, I ran into the mom who’d left the group, at the supermarket.
She looked terrible—pale skin, dark circles, hair a mess.
I called out to her, and she froze.
Then she said, almost whispering:
“You… looked, didn’t you?”
“You saw inside that house?”
“You shouldn’t have. You should never look inside. That thing—it’s not an eye, but once it sees you… it’s over.”
Then she walked away.
No shopping bag. No groceries.
Just walked—like she was running from something that was still following her.
On the way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
So I went by A-chan’s house again.
The curtains were still drawn, of course.
But that time… I saw it.
There was something inside, behind the second-floor curtain.
A shape—human-shaped, but wrong.
It was pressed against the curtain, like it had melted into the fabric.
Only the silhouette was visible.
But its neck was bent at an impossible angle,
its arms stretched far too long…
and somehow, it looked like it was part of the curtain itself.
The wind blew.
The curtain swayed.
And that shadow… slowly turned toward me.
In that instant, my whole body broke out in goosebumps.
I ran. I didn’t look back.
That was no human being.
I know that for sure.
And the very next day—
A-chan and her entire family… were gone.
After the whole family vanished, no one went near A-chan’s house.
It didn’t look like it had been put up for sale.
The nameplate was still there.
And the curtains—
They were still drawn. Always drawn.
A few months passed.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
If they’d really moved, surely someone new would be living there by now.
But more than that…
I couldn’t get that thing out of my mind.
One quiet weekday afternoon, I stood in front of the house.
No newspapers. No flyers in the mailbox.
The front door was shut tight.
And then—I noticed it.
The living room curtain…
It was open. Just a little.
Only about as wide as a fingertip—
just enough to peek through.
Almost like it was saying,
“Go ahead. Take a look.”
My heart was pounding.
But I couldn’t look away.
I leaned forward.
I peeked through the gap.
And then—
Something was looking back.
It wasn’t an eye.
But I felt it—
a gaze, reaching out from deep inside that house.
I locked eyes—
not with someone,
but with something waiting in the dark beyond that curtain.
…I don’t remember how I got home after that.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the sofa,
a bag of cookies slipped off my lap.
Time felt fuzzy. Blurred.
I couldn’t tell if it had all really happened or if I’d dreamed it.
But the sensation of that gaze—
that’s still burned into my back, even now.
That house still exists.
But no one goes in.
No one goes near it.
And somehow… that spot doesn’t even show up on maps anymore.
Or maybe… we’re the ones who stopped seeing it.
That curtain—
it’s not just fabric.
It’s a boundary.
A thin and heavy veil between our world…
and something else that lives just beyond it.
—Hey.
Your curtains at home…
Are they shut tight?
You didn’t leave them open, did you?
…Because what if something is watching from the other side?
“—Well then. That’s my story.”
Miwa smiled as she spoke,
then gently leaned in toward the candle.
She blew softly.
Fffft…
Another flame went out.
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The Hundred Horror Tales is an original Japanese horror anthology inspired by the tradition of Hyaku Monogatari.
Five storytellers gather around flickering candles to share chilling tales—urban legends, ghost stories, folklore, daily fears, and real encounters.
Can you endure until the last flame goes out?
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• Twitter: @KaidanTales
• YouTube: @HK_Tales
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