【Japanese Horror】The Digital Priestess — Episode 16: This Is the Price | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 16 – “This Is the Price” (Full Text)
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The Digital Priestess — Episode 16: This Is the Price
The day after Tanaka returned.
Kenichi woke with a heavy weight in his chest.
(…Who’s going to disappear today?)
The notification from Miko Weather was still there:
“Something you hold dear will disappear.”
It hadn’t changed.
It hadn’t been overwritten.
It simply remained—quietly, inevitably.
There was no smell coming from the kitchen.
His mother was always an early riser, always preparing breakfast.
But this morning, there was no one.
The kitchen and living room were dead silent.
(…Maybe she overslept?)
Still a little uneasy, Kenichi sat at the table and picked up his phone.
First, LINE.
His message history with “Mom” was—gone.
He typed “Mom” into the search bar.
Nothing appeared.
No family group chat, no icon, nothing in his conversations.
(…No way. I never deleted it.)
He opened his contacts.
Scrolled down to M.
—Her name wasn’t there.
(What the hell… why?)
Thinking it was a phone glitch, he restarted the device.
Checked again.
Same result.
It was as if “Mother” had never been registered at all.
(…Photos—maybe she’s still in the photos.)
He opened his gallery and searched for family trips, birthdays.
Just like with Tanaka, maybe she’d be missing from them.
But this time, it was worse.
—The entire albums were gone.
The folders that had held family photos were just… missing.
Even the images and videos labeled “Mom” had vanished completely.
(…This isn’t right. This is seriously messed up.)
A cold sweat crawled down his back.
There was no movement behind the door.
No sense of her presence.
Even the traces of her daily life felt like they’d faded.
Kenichi couldn’t sit still.
He sent his father a message:
“Where’s Mom?”
The reply came back almost immediately—
and it was something he never expected.
“Mom? Who?”
He stared at the screen.
Was this some kind of twisted joke?
If it wasn’t—
Then reality itself had been rewritten.
He immediately called his father.
“…Hey, it’s me. Um… what’s going on with Mom? Is she sick, or—”
“…Mom?”
The voice on the other end was completely serious.
There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm or confusion.
“You okay, kid? Still half-asleep? It’s always been just the two of us, right?”
—Just the two of us.
That phrase rang out in Kenichi’s skull like a hammer.
“…You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
His hand trembled around the phone.
He couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear anymore.
In his memory, she had always been there.
Reading him stories as a kid.
Taking care of him when he had a cold.
Her warmth, her voice—everything.
(…This isn’t about “proof” anymore.)
The world had erased his mother.
Just like the shrine maiden’s message said:
“Something you hold dear will disappear.”
Kenichi leaned back against the wall and slowly sank to the floor.
He couldn’t breathe.
His head was spinning.
The joy of Tanaka’s return now felt like it had happened years ago.
The “yes” he said back then—
he finally understood what it had brought him.
But now, it was far too late.
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New episode drops on Tuesday June 10.
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The Digital Priestess is an original Japanese horror story about a mysterious app that starts off as a weather forecast — but soon, things go very wrong.
What would you choose?
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