【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 11: The Sound That Never Stops | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 11 – “The Sound That Never Stops| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
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The Hundred Horror Tales —Episode 11: The Sound That Never Stops
—Scratch… scratch…
The sound of a match striking echoed softly through the darkness.
One by one, the candles were lit, casting their flickering glow across the tatami room once more.
“That makes five again…"
Aunt Miwa murmured quietly. The flame’s gentle light shimmered on her face.
No one said anything. All eyes were fixed on the candles, until someone spoke.
“…That’s ten stories now, huh. We’ve told quite a few."
“But we’re not even halfway, right? This Hundred Tales thing’s pretty long."
Aoi spoke innocently, shrinking into herself a little.
Even though the candles were burning, the room felt somehow darker than before.
“So… whose turn is it now?"
When someone asked, Sōma slowly leaned forward.
“…I’ll go next."
His voice was calm as always, but there was a chill to the end of his sentence.
Everyone could feel the air shift—just slightly. It always did when he spoke.
“This is something a friend of mine experienced… back when he was living in a dorm."
The room fell quiet at once.
“A friend, though he’s a bit older. He’s working now, but this happened during college—
He used to live in this super cheap student dorm.
Old wooden building, doors that wouldn’t lock, parts of the hallway ceiling sagging…
Still, the rent was dirt cheap, so he couldn’t really complain."
The flickering candlelight lit the side of Sōma’s face.
“He had two alarm clocks. Simple reason—he was terrible at waking up."
“But… one day, something strange started happening.
An alarm started going off—at a time it shouldn’t. Every night.
At exactly 3:07 a.m."
“At first, he figured it was just a mistake. Maybe he set it wrong.
But when he checked, neither of the clocks were set to that time."
Sōma gave a small, dry smile.
“If that were all, you could chalk it up to a glitch.
But then—he realized something weird.
The sound wasn’t coming from the desk where his clocks were.
It was… on the other side of the wall."
“And the room next door? It was supposed to be empty."
The air in the room seemed to turn just a bit colder.
“And the weirdest part?
He said… he never remembered turning it off.
He’d wake up, hear the sound,
and then—without doing anything—it would just… stop."
Sōma gazed into the flame, his voice quiet.
“Doesn’t make sense, right?
The sound would come.
No source. No reason.
And then… silence.
Every single night."
“At first, he thought it was just a coincidence.
Maybe he was tired, or maybe… he’d just dreamed it."
The guy—his name’s Naoya-senpai—was a pretty rational person.
He never believed in anything supernatural.
But people like that… when something happens they can’t explain,
they get weirdly obsessed with figuring it out.
‘…I’ll check everything again,’
he said the next day.
So he reviewed all his alarm settings carefully.
He made sure nothing was set for 3:07 a.m.
He even wrapped both clocks in towels and turned their volumes down low before bed.
Still—
that night, the sound came again.
Chiri… chiri-chiri…
He said it felt even closer than before.
Like it was right next to his face.
He reached out reflexively, but both of his clocks were quiet.
One lay wrapped in a towel, completely still.
The other glowed faintly, but made no sound.
“So then where… was that sound coming from?"
He sat up and looked around the room, but of course—nothing.
The dorm was dead silent.
Only the pale light of the moon trickled in through a gap in the curtain.
The air felt bone-cold.
‘It’s nothing. Just a dream,’
he told himself.
He crawled back under the blanket.
But he couldn’t fall asleep.
The next day, Naoya-senpai went to ask the dorm manager—just in case.
“Hey… the room next door—it’s empty, right?”
The manager tilted his head.
“Hm? No, I think a new student moved in about a week ago.”
Naoya-senpai froze.
Because that room had been completely silent.
No footsteps.
No doors opening or closing.
Not even a faint sign that someone was living there.
And from that day on, the sound’s location started to shift.
First it was the next room over.
Then the hallway.
Then the opposite wall.
And then—one night—he said it came from underneath his bed.
…Chiri-chiri… chiri…
Always at the same time.
3:07 a.m.
Like clockwork.
And just like always…
it would stop.
He never remembered turning it off.
The sound would just vanish—
as if swallowed by the dark.
“Getting close to three o’clock started making my heart pound,”
he said.
“Just thinking, ‘Is it going to ring again tonight?’ made it hard to breathe.”
And with that, Naoya-senpai lowered his gaze.
And after that… it just kept happening.
Every night, at exactly 3:07 a.m., the alarm-like sound would start again—
sometimes from inside the room,
sometimes beyond the wall,
sometimes from under the bed…
Once, he even said it came from the ceiling.
“No one lives above me,” he said.
“But from the ceiling, I could hear it—chiri-chiri…
like the ticking of a clock’s hands, scraping together,
creeping across the plaster.”
Still, Naoya-senpai tried to believe it was just a faulty alarm clock.
But both his clocks worked perfectly.
He checked them again and again. There was never anything wrong.
Then one night—
something different happened. Something he couldn’t shake.
That night too, it came at 3:07.
He said his eyes were closed,
but he could feel the sound entering his head.
Chiri… chiri-chiri…
It wasn’t his eardrums.
It echoed from deep inside his brain.
He heard it clearly—yet it wasn’t coming from outside.
Even when he covered his ears, the sound continued.
Even with his eyes shut, it was like the noise rang behind his eyelids.
—Something was trying to come in.
“It wasn’t a sound,” he said.
“…It was a presence. A presence that was ringing.”
Naoya-senpai stayed frozen under the blanket.
All he could do was wait for the moment to pass.
He didn’t dare move.
He felt like if he opened his eyes—he’d see it.
So he just held still, and waited.
When the sound finally stopped—
His entire body was drenched in sweat.
The room was quiet.
Outside the window, the sky was still dim with pre-dawn darkness.
But right next to the futon…
he felt it.
Like someone was standing there.
So close.
Too close.
After that night, he got rid of the alarms.
Both of them.
Just threw them away.
And still, the sound kept coming.
For the first few nights, it would ring again—
chiri-chiri…
just like before.
Right at 3:07.
But over time… it started to fade.
The sound grew fainter each night.
Not gone.
Just distant—
as if it were slowly leaving.
“Eventually, I noticed…
one night, it just wasn’t there anymore.”
That’s what Naoya-senpai told me.
And as he said it,
he gave this strange little smile—
relieved, maybe…
but also like he missed it.
“Ever since then, Naoya-senpai hasn’t used an alarm clock. Not for years now.”
Sōma said that quietly, lifting a teacup to his lips.
The soft flicker of the candles filled the silence for a while.
“…I thought that was the end of it,”
he continued, exhaling slowly.
“But the night I heard that story—
I had a dream.”
“In the dream, I was sleeping in my own room,
and suddenly, an alarm went off.
I remember thinking, ‘Why?’
Then I grabbed my phone—still dreaming—and looked at the screen.”
—3:07 a.m.
“When I woke up, I knew it had been a dream…
but I was drenched in sweat.
And that sound—chiri-chiri…—
it still echoed somewhere deep in my ears.”
The candle flames wavered faintly.
“…That’s when it started for me.
Ever since that night, I can’t stand alarm sounds anymore.
Even when I set one, I wake up before it rings.
I don’t know why.
But it scares me.”
He paused.
The flickering light reflected in his eyes.
“…So lately,” he said, almost to himself,
“I just stopped using alarms altogether.”
Sōma’s gaze never left the fire.
“…Well.
It was probably just a dream.”
Sōma said that with a soft sigh.
“But still—
there are nights I catch myself wondering…
‘What if it wasn’t?’”
No one replied right away.
The candle flames wavered gently, casting long shadows across the tatami floor.
“Time… we take it for granted,”
he murmured.
“But what if certain times—specific moments—
are like… windows?
Windows to something on the other side.”
Aoi instinctively scooted a little closer to him.
Her fingers hovered over her phone—
then paused, and slowly pulled away.
“Well then…
that’s the end of my story.”
Sōma leaned forward.
He exhaled softly toward the candle in front of him.
Fuu…
Only the sound of the flame vanishing remained in the dark.
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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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