[True Ghost Story] The Red Thread

My friend S is a manga artist, albeit a minor one, and has published a few volumes.

But since he doesn't have a serialized series right now, he doesn't have a stable income, so he's working as an assistant for a manga artist he worked for before he debuted, while creating his own work in his spare time.

A while after his series ended, he said,
"My income is going to be low for a while, so I want to move somewhere with cheaper rent."
So we looked for a place together, and we found an incredibly cheap room relatively close to where he used to live.

It was in a great location in Nerima Ward, about a 5-minute walk from the station.
The bath and toilet were in the same room, but it was a decent-sized 2K apartment for45,000 yen a monthin rent.

It was in a pretty old building, but when we went to see it together, the interior had been properly renovated and was clean.

It looked like it had originally been tatami, but it was fully floored, and S was overjoyed and decided on it immediately.

"It's a bit too cheap, could it be a stigmatized property?"

I tried saying that, but the real estate agent didn't say anything in particular, and for S, if a ghost appeared, it would just be material for his manga, so he was fine with it and signed the contract right away.

After that, I helped him move on the weekend, and the cleaning up was finished without any issues.

It was about a month later, I think, when S sent me an email on his day off.

"This room really does have something. Can you listen to what I have to say?"

You don't get stories that interesting very often, right?
I went to S's house right away and asked him for the details.
From here on is the story I heard from S.

When S was sleeping, he woke up because he heard a person's voice nearby.
The moment he opened his eyes to look around, he suffered from sleep paralysis, and he said he saw something wriggling in front of him.

When he looked closely, he saw a thin red thread moving in the air, and as he watched, the thread kept increasing, eventually forming the shape of a human left hand in three dimensions, like wireframe CG.

S had majored in design when he was a student, so he thought he must have seen such an image while half-asleep, but from that day on, the phenomenon continued almost every day.

Moreover, the wireframe, which was only a left hand at first, gradually increased, and by the next day, the arm appeared, and the day after that, the shoulder appeared.

Once the body was formed to that extent, he could tell from the thinness of the arm and the skeletal structure that the figure being output by the red thread was female.

Although S was confused at first, he seemed to start looking forward to the wireframe growing.

The arm was still a red wireframe, but it was more detailed than before, and it began to move as if beckoning to S.

Each time, the red thread that made up the hand would hang down over S while he was sleeping.

Along with that, he began to hear a woman's voice saying something.

"...missed..."
"...wanted to see..."

He couldn't hear it clearly, but it sounded like she was trying to appeal to him about something.

However, there were days when this phenomenon didn't occur, and he actually started to feel more disappointed when nothing happened.

Then one day, S realized what the wireframe ghost was saying.

"I think she's probably saying, 'I wanted to see you.'"

By the time he sent me the email, the texture had changed from a wireframe to something closer to human skin, and although he still couldn't see her face clearly, he could tell it was a young woman.

Listening to the story, I couldn't help but think that S might have been starting to fall for that ghost.

Living a life with no female presence, it would be impossible not to be happy if a young girl came to see you almost every night and told you, 'I missed you.'

Well, the fact that she's a ghost is the biggest and most insurmountable problem, but I thought it was actually quite romantic, like something out of a manga.

The idea of a red thread extending from the ghost girl's hand to S also seems like a pretty good subject for an illustration.

“Doesn't that sound a bit like 'Botan Doro'? Even if the ghost is a cute girl, if you see her every day, you might end up being dragged to the afterlife.”

While giving him that warning, I also started to feel a bit of interest in the ghost myself.

S had been seeing the ghost for a while since moving in, yet he didn't seem to be losing his health or wasting away.
I figured she wasn't the type of ghost to drain one's life force.

Above all, even though I didn't know what she looked like yet, if it was a young girl ghost, I wanted to see her too.
That day, I bought a ton of alcohol and snacks at a convenience store and decided to stay over at S's place.

S's room, which should have been at least somewhat tidy right after he moved in, was already so messy there was nowhere to step.

He said he was sleeping on the floor because there was stuff piled up even on his bed.
I thought, surely a ghost would have a better place to be than a guy's room like this.

Anyway, we had a great time that day drinking, playing games, and talking about the ghost, and I think it was around 2:00 AM by the time we turned off the lights.

S fell asleep faster than me and started snoring right away.

I couldn't really sleep, so I just closed my eyes and zoned out, but I kept thinking about the ghost.

I had some expectations, but I also thought it would be fine if she didn't show up, and just as I started to drift off, something strange happened.

First, S, who had been sleeping, suddenly started groaning in his sleep.
There was a strange atmosphere in the room, the air felt heavy, and a chill ran down my spine.

Feeling an inexplicable terror, I looked toward S and saw someone standing in front of him.

I assume it was the wireframe ghost S always saw, but I couldn't see any red wireframe.

Instead, I saw a woman in light clothing, looking almost like she was in her underwear.

Her clothes were soaking wet and clinging to her skin, and water was dripping from her hair.

And she kept muttering something while holding her left hand out toward S the whole time.

Looking closely, I could see a red thread hanging down from the woman's hand onto S's body.

I tried to move my body, but I couldn't, and I was sweating bullets.

The woman showed S her left hand, moving it exaggeratedly, and kept muttering in a voice that lacked any particular emotion.
What she was saying, which I couldn't understand at first, gradually became clearer.

“...hurt...”
“...wanted to...”
“...it hurt...”
“...it hurt... it hurt... it hurt...”

The ghost didn't want to see S.

While showing the blood that kept flowing from her left wrist, she kept complaining that “it hurt.”

When S woke up in the morning, he didn't realize a ghost had appeared and was disappointed.

After thinking about it for a bit, I told him honestly what I had seen last night and suggested that he should probably move out.

Since then, I haven't been to S's room, and I don't really feel like going either.

However, S still continues to live in that room.