【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 35: The Other Me | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 35 – “The Other Me| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
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Episode 35 — The Other Me
Darkness deepened by one shade.
The thin trail of smoke from the candle Sōma had just blown out wavered gently before fading into the ceiling.
“Don’t trust yourself.”
That line still felt like it was lingering somewhere in the room.
No one spoke right away.
After a moment, Shūji let out a quiet breath.
“…Yeah. I think I kind of get that.”
Sōma looked up.
“Get what?”
“That feeling… of there being a version of you you don’t remember.”
He meant to say it lightly, but his voice came out lower than expected.
“I had something like that happen once. People told me I did things I never did.”
Aoi leaned forward.
“What? Like what?”
“…I still don’t really understand it myself.”
Shūji lowered his gaze slightly as he said it.
“This was a long time ago.”
Back when he was younger.
Dumber.
The kind of time when he and his friends would go out at night just to look for trouble.
There were four of them that night.
They decided to do a little “test of courage.”
The place was a small shrine halfway up a mountain.
Locals didn’t go near it much.
The only reason anyone ever gave was simple—
“It’s an Inari shrine.”
No one really knew anything beyond that.
The torii gate had once been bright red, but the color had long since faded.
Stone fox statues lined the steps.
One of them had its nose chipped off.
They climbed the stone steps laughing, swinging their flashlights around.
More excitement than fear.
They rang the bell, tossed in some coins, took a few pictures.
One of them even started mimicking a fox, making the others laugh.
But in the end—
nothing happened.
No wind.
No sound.
The mountain was completely still, as if only their voices didn’t belong there.
“That was underwhelming.”
“Total waste of time.”
They headed back down in less than fifteen minutes.
Nothing strange on the way back either.
They stopped by a convenience store, grabbed some drinks, talked about nothing important, and went their separate ways.
Shūji paused for a moment, staring into the dark.
“Things started getting weird…”
“…the next day.”
I was at the station when a guy I knew from back home called out to me.
“Hey—where were you yesterday?”
His tone was casual. Nothing unusual.
“In the mountains. That shrine we talked about.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. I mean after.”
“After?”
Something about the way he said it caught me off guard.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were in front of my place.”
For a second, the words didn’t register.
“I wasn’t.”
“No, you were. Around eleven. Leaning against a utility pole.”
He wasn’t joking.
“I called out to you, remember? You looked at me and said, ‘Be careful.’”
That didn’t sound like something I’d say.
And at that time, I was already home.
“You probably saw someone else.”
I shrugged it off, but he shook his head.
“No. It was you. We didn’t make eye contact, though.”
That part stayed with me.
We didn’t make eye contact.
A few days later, someone else said something similar.
“I saw you at the supermarket the other day.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were. Just standing in the meat section, not moving.”
That day, I had been at work.
The timing didn’t match.
“I thought about calling out to you, but… something felt off.”
Again.
The same thing.
Something felt off.
No eye contact.
Still, they were sure it was me.
At first, we laughed it off.
“Maybe you’ve got a double out there.”
That’s what I said.
But by the end of the week, one of the guys who had gone to the shrine with me brought something up.
“Hey… my boss said something weird to me.”
“What?”
“He asked why I ignored him yesterday.”
“Ignored him?”
“He said he called out to me at the station, but I just walked past him like I didn’t hear.”
“…Did you go?”
“No. I was home the entire time.”
He said it firmly.
“And he told me… ‘It looked like you, but your eyes were dead.’”
It wasn’t just him.
Another guy said the same kind of thing.
“My girlfriend said I showed up at her workplace.”
“You didn’t go?”
“No. But she said I was just standing outside.”
None of us remembered going anywhere.
But multiple people had seen us.
In different places.
At different times.
And yet—
it all started right after that night at the shrine.
There was only one thing all the stories had in common.
No eye contact.
No response when spoken to.
And still—
they were there.
Standing.
None of us had seen our own double.
But someone always had.
And somehow—
that made it worse.
The jokes stopped, one by one.
The moment that made it real…
was when it happened to me.
That day, I ran into one of the guys who had gone to the shrine with me.
We met near the station.
We were talking about everything that had been happening.
“Something’s definitely off.”
“Yeah… this isn’t just coincidence.”
We stood there talking for about ten minutes.
Then he glanced at his watch.
“Alright, see you.”
He turned and walked toward the ticket gates.
I headed the opposite way.
It couldn’t have been more than twenty meters.
Just as I turned the corner—
someone was walking toward me.
I recognized the face immediately.
It was him.
The same guy I had just said goodbye to.
For a second, my brain refused to process it.
“…Why are you coming from that direction?”
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He stopped, looking confused.
“Huh?”
“You just went toward the station, didn’t you?”
“No. I just got here.”
A chill ran down my back.
“We were just talking. For like ten minutes.”
“What are you talking about?”
He wasn’t joking.
Not even a hint of it.
I turned around.
The place we had been standing just moments ago—
was empty.
I looked toward the station.
No sign of him.
“…Forget it.”
That was all I could say.
That night, something strange showed up in our group chat.
One of the guys sent a message.
“Hey… I saw Shūji today.”
I was at home at that time.
“Where?”
“Near the station. I called out to you, but you ignored me.”
I’d heard that before.
Too many times.
But then, right after that—
another message came in.
“Same here. I just saw him outside a convenience store.”
I checked the timestamps.
They were almost identical.
The station and the convenience store were at least five minutes apart on foot.
And yet—
I had been seen in both places.
At the same time.
I couldn’t type anything.
I’d already heard stories like this.
But this was different.
I had just seen him—
the same friend—
twice.
So which one was real?
Or—
were neither of them?
From that day on, something in our group changed.
The jokes stopped.
Even when someone muttered, “Guess we got tricked by a fox,”
no one laughed.
None of us had clearly seen our own double.
But we all started to feel it—
that there were moments
when something else
was taking our place.
It wasn’t like anything was wrong with our bodies.
We weren’t having nightmares.
We weren’t seeing things.
Nothing that obvious.
But there was one thing—
something all of us had started thinking about.
What if…
that thing—
that “other version” of us—
did something?
So far, it was small things.
Being seen.
Standing somewhere we weren’t.
Not responding when spoken to.
But what if it escalated?
What if it picked a fight with someone?
What if it hurt someone?
What if it got caught stealing?
Whatever it did—
it would be done with our faces.
That’s when it stopped being funny.
One day, when we got together, one of us said it.
“…Maybe we should get this cleansed.”
No one disagreed.
Up until then, we had half-jokingly said,
“Maybe we got tricked by a fox.”
But now—
it didn’t feel like a joke anymore.
The shrine we had gone to was dedicated to Inari.
We’d all heard stories.
About things that could take on human form.
Borrow someone’s appearance.
“Maybe we should just go.”
In the end—
that’s what we decided to do.
The priest listened to our story in silence, all the way to the end.
“Inari, huh…”
He murmured it softly, then lowered his gaze as if thinking.
“There are stories… about things that borrow a person’s form.”
His voice was calm.
“But—”
He paused for a moment.
“It’s not a good sign… when the one being borrowed becomes aware of it.”
He didn’t explain any further.
“Stay away from that place.”
That was all he said.
There was no grand ritual.
No dramatic exorcism.
He performed a brief cleansing, gave us some salt—
and that was it.
After that, the sightings stopped.
At the station.
At the supermarket.
At the convenience store.
We were no longer seen.
So I figured…
it was over.
That maybe we had just been tricked by a fox.
Shūji gave a small shrug.
“That’s what I tell myself, anyway.”
He let out a faint laugh.
The remaining candle flickered.
“But…”
His voice dropped slightly.
“The other night, I saw my reflection in the glass at a convenience store.”
He paused, choosing his words.
“…I think it was smiling.”
I wasn’t.
At least—
I don’t remember smiling.
No one said anything.
Shūji stared at the flame for a moment,
then gently blew it out.
The light wavered—
and vanished.
The darkness grew,
just a little deeper.
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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?
Follow for more:
• Twitter: @KaidanTales
• YouTube: @HK_Tales
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