【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 24: The Voice at My Door | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 24 – “The Voice at My Door| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
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Episode 24 The Voice at My Door
After Seikichi finished speaking and the flame went out,
no one in the room spoke for a while.
The eggplant offering that had rolled across the tatami
remained where it had stopped.
The remaining candle flame flickered faintly,
casting small shadows along the walls.
“Welcoming fires, huh.”
Shuji spoke as if to fill the silence.
“So even if you light one to welcome someone back,
you can’t really choose what comes, can you?”
Seikichi didn’t answer.
He simply sat there in silence,
staring at the next candle.
Watching him like that,
Miwa suddenly remembered something from long ago.
She had never invited it.
She had never called for it.
And yet—
something had once come to visit her.
“…Hey.”
My voice came out lower than I expected.
“Listening to that story just now…
it reminded me of something.”
All eyes turned toward me at once.
“This isn’t exactly the same kind of story
as a welcoming fire, though.”
After saying that,
I continued.
“It happened a long time ago,
when I was living alone.”
That alone was enough
to tighten the atmosphere in the room.
Back then,
I lived by myself.
It wasn’t a large apartment.
Just a quiet place where I came home from work
and spent my evenings alone.
No one was supposed to visit.
No messages,
no calls,
nothing.
That night was the same as any other.
Outside was quiet.
Even footsteps in the hallway
were rare.
—Ding-dong.
Suddenly,
the intercom rang.
My body froze for a moment.
Who would come at this hour?
Too late for door-to-door sales,
and if it were someone I knew,
they would have contacted me first.
“…Yes?”
Even after answering,
I didn’t feel like opening the door right away.
Instead,
I quietly leaned closer to the door
and looked through the peephole.
…No one.
The hallway light was on.
There was nowhere to hide.
Nowhere to run.
And yet,
the figure of a person
was simply missing.
Thinking I might have imagined it,
I looked again.
Still—
no one.
That was when it happened.
From the intercom,
a voice spoke.
“…Um.”
It was a woman’s voice.
Not too low,
not too high—
a calm voice.
“May I… talk with you for a moment?”
I didn’t recognize it.
And yet, strangely,
I didn’t feel alarmed.
She wasn’t angry.
She wasn’t impatient.
It sounded more like
someone who had simply stopped by
to check on me.
“Who is this?”
I asked.
The answer came
after a small pause.
“…I was worried.”
That was all.
As a reason,
it wasn’t nearly enough.
And yet
the word
caught strangely in my chest.
Worried.
Why would someone I didn’t know
come all this way
for that?
“About what?”
When I asked again,
her voice softened slightly.
“…Because it’s late.”
That was all.
No name.
No explanation.
She didn’t scold me.
She didn’t accuse me.
Just—
the distance of someone
who had come to check on me.
Almost like—
the way a mother might speak.
But there was still
no one outside the door.
All I could see through the peephole
was the empty hallway.
No presence.
No footsteps.
No breathing.
“…Who are you?”
I asked once more.
There was no answer.
The intercom
fell silent.
And yet,
the feeling that I had been speaking
with someone
remained.
I hadn’t invited anyone.
I hadn’t called anyone.
And still—
sometimes,
something comes to visit.
When I heard my grandfather’s story about welcoming fires,
this was the first thing
that came back to my mind.
Even after the intercom went silent,
I couldn’t move away from the door for a while.
I knew there was no one there.
No matter how many times I looked
through the peephole,
all I could see was the same empty hallway.
And yet,
I couldn’t shake the feeling that
“it was over.”
It didn’t feel like someone
was standing on the other side of the door.
But somehow,
I didn’t feel completely alone either.
I stayed there by the entrance,
listening carefully.
The hallway was quiet.
No footsteps.
No rustling of clothes.
No sound from the elevator.
Only my own breathing
sounded strangely loud.
—It’s just my imagination.
Thinking that,
I slowly reached out toward the lock.
Just to be sure,
I checked if it was properly locked.
It was.
The lock had been engaged from the start.
The doorknob hadn’t moved either.
There was no sign
that anyone had touched it.
After confirming that,
the tension in my shoulders
finally eased a little.
I turned around,
about to go back into my room.
And then—
—Ding-dong.
The intercom rang again.
This time
even clearer than before.
Instinctively,
I held my breath.
It was the same sound.
The same timing.
I didn’t answer right away.
Instead,
I looked through the peephole again.
…Still no one.
And yet,
from the intercom,
a voice spoke.
“…Are you alright?”
It sounded closer.
At least,
that’s how it felt.
The volume hadn’t changed,
but the distance
seemed to have narrowed.
Even though it was a question,
it didn’t sound like it was waiting for an answer.
It sounded more like
a confirmation.
Not someone asking
if I was okay—
but someone speaking
as if they already knew.
That unsettled me.
“…What do you mean?”
My voice trembled slightly.
Even I could hear it.
The reply didn’t come immediately.
For a brief moment,
silence fell through the intercom.
“…Because it’s cold.”
That was the answer.
The words made sense.
But as a conversation,
something about it
felt slightly off.
I hadn’t looked cold.
The windows were closed.
The room itself
felt normal.
And yet,
the voice spoke
as if it already knew.
Worried.
Late.
Cold.
All of them sounded like the kind of things
a close family member might say
when checking on someone.
Not the kind of words
a stranger would say
on a first visit.
I kept my hand on the door,
unable to move.
I had no intention of opening it.
But ignoring it completely
didn’t feel right either.
“…Who are you?”
I asked.
A little more firmly this time.
There was no answer.
The intercom
remained silent.
The voice
didn’t return.
The hallway outside
fell back
into the same quiet as before.
After standing there for a while,
I finally went back into my room.
Even when I turned on the TV
or played music,
part of my mind
kept drifting back
toward the entrance.
It probably won’t happen again,
I told myself.
And yet,
I couldn’t stop thinking about
what I would do
if it rang again.
That night,
I stayed sensitive
to every sound near the door.
Nothing actually happened.
And yet,
the feeling that
something had come to visit me
never completely disappeared.
“…Hey.”
Can I ask you something
for a moment?
Imagine this.
The intercom rings
at a time when no one is supposed to visit.
You check the door.
But there’s no one there.
And yet
a voice speaks.
Without giving a reason.
Saying things like
“I was worried.”
Or
“It’s late.”
…What would you do?
As for me—
by that time,
I had already gone back into my room.
I turned on the TV
and tried to go back
to what I had been doing.
I was trying
to pretend it had never happened.
—Ding-dong.
The second ring
sounded even clearer than before.
Maybe because
I was already inside the room.
The moment the sound rang out,
my body reacted before I could think.
I froze there,
still holding the remote control.
I didn’t answer.
At least—
I didn’t mean to.
But then
the voice came again
through the intercom.
“…Are you alright?”
The same voice
as before.
The volume
hadn’t changed.
And yet
it felt closer.
Not like someone
standing outside the door—
more like
the voice was coming
directly from inside the intercom.
“…Because it’s cold.”
When I heard those words,
the first thing I felt
wasn’t understanding—
it was discomfort.
I wasn’t even near the door.
I hadn’t gone outside.
And yet
the voice spoke
as if it already knew.
I thought about ignoring it.
But then—
“…Yes?”
Before I realized it,
the word had already left my mouth.
For a brief moment,
there was silence
on the other side of the intercom.
“…You locked the door,
right?”
That single question
sent a chill down my back.
The lock.
Why would it
ask that?
I hadn’t meant
to answer.
And yet—
“…Yes. It’s locked.”
I said it.
From the intercom,
I heard the faint sound
of someone exhaling.
“…I see.”
That was all.
Then
the sound cut off.
The voice
didn’t return.
Only the sound of the TV
remained in the room.
I sat there
for a long time.
I had meant
to pretend it never happened.
I had almost
gone back to normal.
But it felt like
it had only come
to confirm something.
I hadn’t called it.
I hadn’t welcomed it.
And yet—
I had answered.
That alone
was enough
to stay with me.
After that,
nothing happened for a while.
The intercom
never rang again.
No voice came back.
Little by little,
my days returned to normal.
I went to work.
Came home.
Ate dinner.
Went to sleep.
Just the same routine
as always.
And yet—
one evening,
as I stood at the entrance
taking off my shoes,
something felt strange.
The lock.
The lock I was sure
I had turned myself.
It wasn’t open.
But it had moved—
just a little.
Not broken.
Not forced.
Just slightly
out of place.
The moment I saw it,
that voice
came back to my mind.
“…You locked the door, right?”
My chest tightened.
Had that question
been a warning?
Or—
had it come
to check again?
I didn’t investigate.
I didn’t ask anyone.
I simply turned the lock again
and left it at that.
I hadn’t called it.
I hadn’t welcomed it.
But once
you answer something—
sometimes
that alone
is enough.
After telling that much,
I paused for a moment.
In the room,
only the quiet sound
of the candles burning remained.
No one
spoke right away.
“…Later on,”
I said quietly.
“I did try to look into it a little.”
I wondered
if there had been an accident
around that time.
If someone had collapsed
outside late at night.
Or if the place
had some old story
people didn’t talk about.
So I asked around
the neighborhood.
Carefully.
Casually.
But everyone said the same thing.
“I’ve never heard
anything like that.”
No incidents.
No accidents.
No deaths nearby.
Nothing
that could explain it.
So in the end,
I never found a reason.
I never meant to welcome anyone.
I never meant to call anyone.
But—
I was asked something,
and I answered.
That was all.
And yet somehow,
it still feels like
that was enough
for the conversation
to go through.
Listening to Seikichi’s grandfather’s story
about the welcoming fire,
one thought
crossed my mind.
Maybe it isn’t about
whether you welcome something
or not.
Maybe it’s about
whether you answer.
Even if you never meant
to invite it—
once you respond,
the other side
may feel that their visit
had meaning.
Whether it ends there
or continues…
there’s no way to know.
“…That’s the end
of my story.”
With that,
Miwa looked
at the candle in front of her.
The flame
had grown slightly lower
than before.
She took a breath
and gently blew.
—fuu.
The flame went out.
At that moment,
it felt as if someone
quietly inhaled—
as though checking.
But no one
said a word.
The remaining candle flames
flickered softly,
illuminating the room.
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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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