【Japanese Horror】The Hundred Horror Tales — Episode 51: Two More to Go | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 51 – “ Two More to Go| Haunted Kaidan Tales” (Full Text)
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Episode 51 —
Two More to Go
No one moved right away in the darkness.
Even after closing the shoji, Sōma remained standing there.
Only the cold night air drifting in from outside had slightly changed the temperature of the room.
Had the sound of footsteps on the gravel just been their imagination?
Or had whatever made the sound disappeared before the shoji was opened?
No one tried to find out.
“…I hate this.”
Aoi was the first to speak.
She hugged her knees tightly, her voice trembling just a little.
“There was definitely something there just now.”
“Even if there was, we couldn’t see anything, so there’s no way to know for sure.”
Shūji answered, but there was no teasing tone in his voice this time.
He sounded tense.
“Shūji, the way you say that makes it worse.”
Miwa let out a small sigh.
“…Hey.”
She spoke quietly.
“Can we light them again already?”
After a brief silence, Grandpa Seikichi gave a slow nod.
“Yeah… at this rate, we won’t be able to continue.”
They heard the rustle of clothing.
Someone fumbled across the tabletop in the dark.
—chik.
A tiny spark appeared.
One candle was relit, then another, then another.
Eventually, all five flames returned.
At last, shapes and shadows came back to the room.
Aoi relaxed her shoulders in relief.
Miwa slowly unclasped her hands from in front of her chest.
Shūji let out a weak laugh.
“…Thank god.”
As Sōma returned to his seat, he glanced once more toward the shoji.
Outside was quiet.
Nothing was there.
At least, nothing visible.
“…There really wasn’t anyone there, right?”
Aoi asked again, just to be sure.
“Yeah.”
Sōma answered shortly.
“There was nothing in the yard. Nothing on the gravel either.”
“That somehow makes it creepier.”
Miwa frowned.
“Hearing footsteps but finding nothing is the worst kind of creepy.”
“You know…”
Grandpa Seikichi said while staring at the relit candles,
“Sometimes it’s better not to see what’s there.”
“Grandpa, seriously? Right now?”
Aoi shot back immediately.
That small exchange loosened the tension in the room just a little.
But not completely.
Every now and then, someone’s eyes drifted unconsciously toward the window.
Even with the candles relit, the sound from earlier hadn’t left their minds.
“…Are we really still doing this?”
Aoi asked quietly.
Her earlier energy was gone now.
She sounded cautious, almost hesitant.
Shūji let out a small breath.
“…Stopping here feels weird too.”
“So I guess we keep going.”
“Yeah.”
Miwa nodded.
“If we stop now, I definitely won’t be able to sleep.”
“So it’s Sōma’s turn next, right?”
Shūji said.
Sōma lifted an eyebrow slightly.
“Looks like it.”
“Honestly, after what just happened, Sōma’s stories feel safer somehow.”
Aoi said.
“His stories still feel logical.”
“Do they?”
Sōma murmured while staring at the candle flame.
“At first, I thought so too.”
That single sentence made the room fall quiet again.
“A school story?”
Aoi asked.
“Something like that.”
Sōma answered vaguely.
“This happened after school one day… when I was alone in a classroom.”
The candle flame swayed softly.
“Nothing unusual had happened that day. I was just studying like normal.”
Then, while resting his eyes for a second, he looked up.
And noticed a question written on the blackboard.
“It was something ridiculously simple. Like seven plus five.”
“Maybe somebody wrote it before they left?”
Aoi asked.
“That’s what I thought too.”
Sōma nodded.
“But I was the only one in the room.”
There was only one entrance.
If someone had come in, he would’ve noticed.
There hadn’t even been any sound.
“So at first, I figured I just overlooked it.”
But—
there was no answer written underneath.
For some reason, that bothered him.
It was just a meaningless math problem.
And yet the fact that only the question remained on the blackboard felt strangely unnatural.
So Sōma stood up.
Picked up a piece of chalk.
And wrote the answer.
“12.”
That was all.
The moment he wrote it, he almost laughed at himself.
Like, What am I even doing?
It felt stupid.
Like he was playing along with someone’s dumb prank.
That day ended there.
Nothing happened.
But—
the next day, when he stayed behind in the same classroom again—
there was another question on the blackboard.
Just like before, it was easy.
And once again, no answer was written beneath it.
So he answered it.
And that was it.
Nothing happened.
“…And that kept happening.”
For several days.
Every time he stayed alone in the classroom at the same hour,
there would be exactly one question written on the blackboard.
Even though no one else was there.
Even though there was no sign anyone had written it.
And every time Sōma answered it—
that was the end of it.
Nothing more.
At first, it almost felt like a game.
He’d think,
“Oh. There’s another one today.”
Then solve it casually,
write the answer,
and go home.
That was all it was.
But little by little—
the questions started to change.
At first, the changes were small.
Addition became subtraction.
Then the numbers got a digit longer.
But they were still easy enough to solve in my head, so I didn’t think much about it.
Like always, I’d stand up,
pick up the chalk,
write the answer,
and that would be the end of it.
That was all.
But—
after several days,
the questions slowly started to feel… off.
Not strange exactly.
Just more troublesome.
“What kind of questions?”
Aoi asked.
“The kind where you actually have to think for a second,”
I answered.
“Stuff you couldn’t solve instantly in your head anymore.”
Still—
they weren’t impossible.
They just took more time.
I’d stand in front of the blackboard,
think,
write the answer,
and leave.
That part never changed.
But while I was solving them—
the classroom would become unnaturally quiet.
A classroom is never completely silent, right?
You should still hear something.
Voices from outside.
Footsteps in the hallway.
Something.
But during those moments—
everything disappeared.
The only sound left
was the chalk scraping against the board.
—kii.
—kiiiik.
The sound echoed strangely loud.
Even so,
I told myself I was just overthinking it.
And then—
one day—
the same thing happened again.
Another question on the blackboard.
Another ordinary afternoon.
I stood in front of it like usual
and solved it without much thought.
The problem itself wasn’t even difficult.
I was sure I calculated it correctly.
But—
I must’ve misread one of the numbers.
Just slightly.
One digit.
That was all.
Without realizing it,
I wrote the wrong answer.
And just as I turned to head back to my seat
Just as I turned to head back to my seat,
the smartphone resting on my desk vibrated.
—bzz.
When I looked at the screen,
I saw a number I didn’t recognize.
The digits themselves looked normal,
but the arrangement felt random somehow.
Like somebody had mashed numbers carelessly onto the keypad.
“You answered it?”
Aoi leaned forward.
“…Yeah.”
I answered shortly.
“At the time, I thought it was just a normal phone call.”
I pressed the call button
and raised the phone to my ear.
But—
there was nothing.
Silence.
No breathing.
No background noise.
Just the strange feeling that the line was connected.
So I spoke first.
“Hello?”
Still—
nothing came back.
Several seconds passed in total silence—
and then suddenly,
a voice spoke.
“…Ah.”
The voice sounded oddly absentminded.
“Guess you got it wrong.”
There was a faint laugh in it.
A chill ran down my spine.
“Two more to go.”
That was all the voice said.
Then the call disconnected.
—beep.
The silence of the classroom returned once again.
I stood there for a moment,
still holding the phone in my hand.
“…What the hell was that?”
Aoi whispered.
“No idea.”
I shook my head.
“At first, I thought it was just some stupid prank.”
And after that,
I simply went home.
But—
the next day,
I stayed behind in the same classroom again.
When I looked at the blackboard,
the problem waiting there had become even harder.
No way to solve it mentally anymore.
You had to actually use formulas
and work through the process step by step.
Still—
it was technically solvable.
So I pulled out my phone,
searched for similar equations online,
checked how to solve them,
and carefully worked through the answer.
This time,
I was sure I hadn’t made a mistake.
Or at least,
that’s what I thought.
Then—
my phone vibrated again.
—bzz.
When I looked at the screen,
it was the exact same number from the day before.
Even before answering,
I already had a bad feeling about it.
But somehow,
I felt like I had to pick up.
So I answered the call
and held the phone to my ear.
Again—
silence.
Then, after a few seconds,
the voice returned.
“Ahh.”
A light, casual voice.
“Cheating isn’t allowed, you know.”
A cold shiver crawled through me.
“One more to go~”
The voice sounded almost excited.
And then,
the call disconnected once again.
After that,
I decided to ignore the blackboard completely.
Even if there was another question written there,
I stopped looking.
I’d just leave the classroom and go home.
If I stopped getting involved,
it would end there.
At least,
that’s what I thought.
And honestly,
for a while,
it seemed to work.
I stayed behind in the classroom a few more times after that,
but I never looked at the blackboard again.
I didn’t even check whether there was a question waiting there or not.
I tried not to think about the phone either.
But—
one night,
I had a dream.
It was the same classroom.
Not daytime.
Not nighttime either.
The whole room was filled with a strange, blurry light.
And in the dream,
I was sitting in my usual seat.
Then I noticed it.
There was a question written on the blackboard.
A formula I had never seen before.
I couldn’t even tell what it meant.
Were they numbers?
Symbols?
Some kind of equation?
I had no idea.
And yet—
I slowly stood up.
Picked up a piece of chalk.
And walked toward the blackboard.
I understood exactly what was happening.
If I wrote the answer,
something bad would happen.
I had already stopped.
It was supposed to be over.
Inside my head,
I kept screaming at myself.
Stop.
Don’t write it.
But my body wouldn’t listen.
Only my hand kept moving.
The chalk slowly approached the blackboard.
And just before it touched the surface—
something slammed into me.
I woke up instantly.
Apparently,
I had been screaming in my sleep.
My parents heard me
and came to check on me.
“Are you okay?”
They kept asking me over and over,
and little by little,
I finally felt myself return to reality.
Since that night,
at least for now—
I haven’t had that dream again.
Sōma stopped speaking there.
Slowly,
silence returned to the room.
No one spoke right away.
The candle flame flickered softly.
“…That’s it?”
Aoi asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
Sōma answered shortly.
“That’s all.”
Shūji let out a small breath.
“Well… if it stopped there, I guess that’s better.”
“True.”
Miwa nodded slightly.
“If it only happened in the dream, then it never really crossed over into reality.”
Someone gave a faint, relieved laugh.
But—
Sōma said nothing.
He simply stared at the candle flame.
That silence made the atmosphere grow heavy again.
“…What is it?”
Aoi asked.
Sōma slowly opened his mouth.
“No…”
he said quietly.
“There’s just one thing that still bothers me.”
His gaze slowly dropped toward his own hand.
“It was supposed to be a dream…”
For a moment,
his words stopped.
No one moved.
Only the candle flame swayed faintly.
“When I woke up…”
He let out a small breath.
“My hand…”
“…was white.”
No one said anything.
Only those words remained in the room.
Within the silence,
the candle flame flickered slowly.
Sōma stared at it for a while longer.
Then,
he took a small breath.
And—
quietly blew toward the flame.
—fuh.
The fire trembled slightly
before disappearing.
A thin trail of white smoke rose into the air.
And at that exact moment—
—jiri.
The house telephone rang once.
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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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