【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 21: Their Footsteps Became Mine | Haunted Kaidan Tales
Listen to the Full Episode
Listen to the horror story with narration and sound on Spotify.
Episode 21 – “Their Footsteps Became Mine| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
Prefer reading? Here’s the complete text of Episode21.
Episode 21 — Their Footsteps Became Mine
The room fell into darkness, and no one moved right away.
The story had ended, yet the air refused to shift.
In the dark, the echo of the previous tale still lingered in my ears.
After a moment, someone relit the candles.
One by one, the flames returned, and the outline of the room surfaced again.
That brief pause felt strangely long.
Even after the light came back, the unease inside me didn’t fade.
“…Can I tell one?”
Naturally, all eyes turned toward me.
We had repeated this ritual many times before.
“Not every night—but I saw the same thing several times.”
I wasn’t trying to scare anyone.
There was just something I couldn’t ignore.
“At night, I’d pass by a group in school uniforms.”
Aoi leaned forward slightly.
“Students?”
“Yeah. All of them wearing blue uniforms.”
The same color.
The same shape.
On its own, that wouldn’t mean anything.
“At first, I thought they were just from the same school. Maybe heading home together.”
It was the most natural explanation.
In a city, identical uniforms aren’t unusual.
“But I realized pretty quickly something was off.”
I chose my words carefully.
“The timing didn’t match. It was too late for regular dismissal, and too strange for cram school.”
They weren’t heading toward the station.
Not toward anywhere people would usually gather.
“Every time, they walked toward the darker side of town.”
The kind of direction you wouldn’t choose at night without a reason.
More fences. Fewer lights. Buildings thinning out.
“No one hesitated. No one stopped. No one talked.”
They followed a fixed route as if it had already been decided.
“I saw them several times. And the conditions were always the same.”
The time.
The number of people.
The color of their uniforms.
And the direction they walked.
“If it had happened once, I would’ve dismissed it.
Twice, maybe coincidence.”
But the third time, I couldn’t ignore it.
“I started paying attention.”
Keeping my distance.
Checking their direction.
Comparing them to the natural flow of people around us.
“They all walked at exactly the same pace.”
Not fast.
Not slow.
Just… synchronized.
“No one talked. No one looked around.”
It was a group, yet there was no individuality in their movement.
“What bothered me the most was the sound.”
They were walking, yet their footsteps were faint.
The sound didn’t stack the way it should have for that many people.
I could see them move.
I could see their shadows.
But the sound was missing something.
“That’s when I stopped.”
If I followed them, I could have gotten closer.
Close enough to confirm.
But I knew instinctively—
“I shouldn’t.”
I couldn’t explain why.
I just knew that if I crossed that line,
I wouldn’t be able to come back the same.
The group in blue uniforms continued into the darker end of the street.
And I stood there.
The candlelight flickered softly.
I glanced at it once, took a breath—
and continued my story.
After that, I stopped using that road.
It wasn’t a clear decision.
I just realized, at some point, that I had begun avoiding it.
It meant taking a longer route.
More traffic lights. More time.
Still, I thought it was better than walking down that street.
If someone had asked me why, I wouldn’t have been able to explain it properly.
I wasn’t scared.
Nothing had happened to me.
I just didn’t want to get involved.
That night—the decision not to follow them—
hadn’t really ended inside me.
If I didn’t pass that way, I wouldn’t have to think about it.
If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t have to care.
That was how I tried to return to normal.
And in fact, after that,
I stopped seeing the group in blue uniforms.
Even when I walked outside at the same time of night,
there was no sign of them.
At first, it felt almost anticlimactic.
Was it only that road?
Or had it simply ended?
I didn’t know which.
But the fact remained—I no longer saw them.
I decided that was enough.
Summer break kept me busy.
Meeting up with friends, wandering around without a plan,
talking late into the night.
That day wasn’t anything special.
I was just more tired than usual from walking around.
It was late when I headed home.
My body felt heavy, my thoughts slightly dull.
When I considered the route back,
I didn’t feel like taking the longer way.
The shorter way would do.
I just wanted to get home.
So I turned my feet toward it.
A few steps in, I realized.
It was that road.
For a second, I almost stopped.
I could have turned back.
But I kept walking.
I haven’t seen them anymore.
Nothing has happened.
I told myself that as I moved under the streetlights.
I kept my eyes on the ground.
Tried not to look around.
Even so,
a small unease lingered in my chest.
If nothing happens,
I can just pass through.
At the time,
I truly believed that.
For a while after I started down that road, nothing happened.
The streetlights were on as usual.
I could hear cars passing in the distance.
The air didn’t feel any different.
—It’s fine.
The moment I thought that,
I remembered that night.
How I had tried to follow them,
and ended up standing there instead.
That decision had been the right one.
I had believed that.
And yet, for some reason,
something stirred uneasily in my chest.
I hadn’t stopped walking.
I was just moving forward, lost in thought.
Then, in the corner of my vision,
I saw blue.
A line of it.
They were walking ahead of me.
Somehow.
It was the group in blue uniforms.
I wasn’t surprised.
I just thought, Again.
No questions came to mind.
Why were they there?
Since when?
I didn’t even try to think about it.
I simply found myself
walking behind them.
Not too close. Not too far.
Just the right distance to follow comfortably.
My steps. My breathing.
Before I realized it, they had fallen into rhythm with theirs.
There was no unease.
No fear.
That was the strangest part,
and yet at the time, it didn’t bother me.
I didn’t think to check where they were heading.
I didn’t think to stop.
I just felt
that I had to keep following them.
There was no reason.
No one had told me to.
It simply felt natural—
as if my body understood that this was what I was supposed to do.
Looking back,
maybe I was possessed.
But at that moment,
even that word never crossed my mind.
Footsteps overlapped.
Mine—
and those of the group ahead.
No.
Even that distinction
had begun to blur.
Which steps were mine,
and which were theirs—
The question slipped quietly from my mind,
as if it no longer mattered.
I just had to keep walking.
That was when—
A hand gripped my shoulder, hard.
The moment my shoulder was grabbed,
my body jerked violently.
“Hey, Soma.”
It was a familiar voice.
I turned sharply.
A friend stood there, wearing the same uniform as me.
“What are you doing? You spacing out?”
With that single sentence,
everything that had built up inside my head drained away at once.
I looked around.
Streetlights.
Asphalt.
The distant sound of cars.
The group in blue uniforms was nowhere to be seen.
“…What?”
The word slipped out, hoarse.
My friend frowned slightly.
“What do you mean?”
I couldn’t answer.
Just moments ago,
they had definitely been walking in front of me.
Heading in the same direction.
At the same pace.
And yet there was no sign of them.
No presence. No sound.
It was as if they had never existed in the first place.
“You okay?”
My friend leaned in, just a little concerned.
I gave a vague nod.
But inside my head,
the sensation from moments earlier hadn’t fully disappeared.
My own footsteps.
That perfectly synchronized rhythm.
If he hadn’t called out to me—
The thought sent something cold down my spine.
Without saying anything,
I started walking beside him.
I didn’t look back.
If he hadn’t called out to me that night,
what would have happened?
Soma fell silent after saying that much.
It wasn’t the silence of someone thinking—
it felt more like he was trying not to remember.
“To be honest, I don’t know.”
He said it first, then continued quietly.
“What would’ve happened if I had followed them.
Or maybe nothing would’ve happened at all.
Maybe I would’ve just kept walking.”
Either way,
he has no intention of finding out.
“The only thing I know is that, at the time,
I thought I was walking by my own will—
when in reality, I wasn’t thinking at all.”
Since then, he hasn’t used that road.
It’s inconvenient.
It means taking the long way.
In the daytime, it’s nothing more than an ordinary street.
“It’s still there.
Just a normal road.
I could walk down it anytime I wanted.”
Soma looked at the candle flame.
“But I don’t.”
If he were to see the same thing again,
at the same time,
in the same place—
There’s no guarantee
someone would call out to him next time.
Soma let out a slow breath.
“…That’s all.”
Then he leaned forward
and gently blew toward the candle in front of him.
—Fff.
Only one flame went out.
The remaining four candles flickered softly,
casting their light over the room.
No one spoke right away.
Next Episode
New episode drops on Tuesday, March 3rd .
📖 View All Episodes
Work in Progress
✍️ About & Follow
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?
Follow for more:
• Twitter: @KaidanTales
• YouTube: @HK_Tales
If you felt something… or noticed something, we’d be grateful if you quietly left a comment below.
Click here to leave a comment!This story was brought to you by Haunted Kaidan Tales.
Welcome to a world of Japanese ghost stories and eerie folklore.
Feel free to explore more chilling tales at your own pace.
Some stories were meant to be forgotten—
and yet, they still whisper to those who listen…