When Mr. Uemura got up from his seat to go to the bathroom, I quickly took out his smartphone from my bag. Maybe my spontaneous post went viral. With excitement, I launched the SNS app.
Nothing. There was no reaction to my post. What? Did nobody even like it? I felt disappointed all of a sudden.
Just to be sure, I checked my own post. Maybe there was a bug in the notifications, and I got at least one reaction…
“30,000 likes.”
Wow! It’s going viral! I couldn’t help but feel thrilled and struck a victorious pose. This is incredible. I never knew I had such talent. Let’s take a screenshot to commemorate this.
Just as I was about to take a screenshot, the screen of my smartphone went blank.
What? What’s going on? I’ve never had such a glitch before. Is it malfunctioning? I pressed buttons frantically, but there was no response.
I held down the power button on my smartphone, and it restarted. I panicked, thinking it had suddenly broken.
After the restart, I opened the social media app again. Since I had the chance, I wanted to take a screenshot as a memento. I opened my post.
My post was gone.
Only the scary story post was missing. And of course, the notifications remained at 0.
Why did this happen? I really wanted to keep a screenshot as a commemoration…
“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you glaring at your smartphone with such a scary face?” Mr. Uemura said as I suddenly realized he had returned from the bathroom. He had also ordered another glass of draft beer while he was there. The waiter brought two glasses of draft beer with frothy foam.
“No, my smartphone is acting up…” I said, as I finished the lukewarm beer in front of me and took the cold glass from the waiter.
I wanted to take a screenshot, but now it was gone. I gulped down the cold beer, planning to check again when I got home.
If I had thought a little more at that time, maybe something could have changed. It’s not normal for the content I posted on social media to just disappear.
I said goodbye to Mr. Uemura and went home.
When I checked the clock at home, it was already 11 p.m. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I have a day off from work, so I plan to relax for the first time in a while.
Come to think of it, why did my SNS post disappear? I put my bag on the floor and sat on the bed, taking out my smartphone from my pocket. I opened the app and checked my post. Sure enough, it was gone.
“Why did this happen…? I finally went viral. Was it deleted by someone? But that’s not normal, right…?” I muttered to myself in frustration.
“Oh, I deleted it,” a voice suddenly said.
An unfamiliar voice echoed in my small one-room apartment. I flinched at the unexpected event.
I quickly looked up and saw an old man with white hair wearing a black suit standing in the hallway.
Who is this old man? Did I forget to lock the door? No, wait, why is he even inside my house?
Before I realized it, I had unconsciously stood up. But I couldn’t bring myself to sit back down again.
“Good evening,” he greeted me with a smile.
“W-Who are you?” I couldn’t muster the same composure as him. I think I did lock the front door. I wasn’t that drunk today. I didn’t hear the sound of the door opening. How and when did he enter?
His unnaturally white skin and gentlemanly smile didn’t quite match the lack of laughter in his eyes. There was something inhuman about him. For now, it seemed like a good idea to use polite language.
“Good evening. I apologize for intruding without permission. I have a matter to discuss with Mr. Shinoyama today.”
“A matter to discuss?”
“Yes, it’s a very simple matter. Well, it’s not so much a matter as a request. Yes, it should only take about 5 minutes,” he said.
“5 minutes…” I couldn’t read the situation at all, but the fact that it would be over quickly put me slightly at ease.
“Yes, 5 minutes. To cut to the chase, Mr. Shinoyama, you will die right now,” he said.
“What…? Right now?”
The tension increased again, even more than before. I found myself unconsciously gripping my hands tightly, feeling the dampness of sweat on my palms.
“You didn’t hear me earlier? Very well, I will say it again. You will die right now,” he repeated.
“Why do I have to die? I don’t understand. Did I do something?” I asked.
There was no evidence, but there was one thing I understood for sure. This person was definitely dangerous. If I stayed in the house, I would die. My instincts were telling me that. This person was a threat.
With the man standing in the hallway, escaping through the front door seemed impossible. Approaching him would be dangerous. Should I jump out of the window behind the bed? My room was on the second floor of the apartment building. I felt like I could just barely make it.
“I need to think, I need to think, I need to think. I have to buy some time to come up with an escape plan,” I thought urgently.
“Are you aware that the story you wrote is about to become a new urban legend? Do you have any idea?” the man asked with a smile.
“Are you talking about the Patrol Man?” It was the only thing that came to mind. It was the only scary story I had written.
“Yes, yes! Correct,” the man said with a grin. He even whispered “Bingo” with delight. What is this guy really?
“Do you know the conditions for a made-up story to become an urban legend?” the man asked again. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he asked with that grin on his face.
“…Is it when a lot of people start believing it?” I answered, strangely earnest in my thought process.
“Hehehe, yes, that’s right. That’s definitely one of the conditions. But the most important one is that the person who wrote the story disappears from this world,” the man said.
“Why is that?”
“If there’s someone who knows that the story was made up, it won’t become a proper urban legend, right? It’s only natural,” the man smiled kindly at me.
This was the first time I realized how terrifying a person’s smile could be. I sensed madness in the man’s smile, and saw a pitch-black darkness in his eyes.
“I haven’t told anyone that I posted it. And I won’t in the future. In fact, I had forgotten that I even posted it,” I spoke rapidly, feeling the tension rise.
“Yes, that’s true. You had forgotten. But you remembered it today, didn’t you?” the man said with a delighted tone. He grinned at me and whispered “Too bad” under his breath. Under normal circumstances, I would have been angry, but right now, I felt more fear towards the man than anger.
“It doesn’t matter whether you tell anyone or not. The fact that the person who wrote it exists itself inhibits it from becoming an urban legend,” the man suddenly had a pitiful and lonely expression, and he spoke to me as if he was confiding in me.
“Well, I don’t want to turn the story I wrote into an urban legend! So there shouldn’t be any problem,” I said.
Upon hearing that, the man’s expression became even more sorrowful and pitiable.
“It doesn’t matter what you think. Your thoughts are irrelevant,” he said.
“Huh… No, wait, but it’s a story I wrote,” I replied.
“Yes, that’s true. But the story is already out in the world,” the man’s face seemed to say, “Give up already.”
“What does it matter that the story is out in the world? It just got a little buzz on social media, that’s all,” I argued.
“Once a story is out in the world, it gains power with each person who reads it and fears it. The story you posted has already been read by many people, believed by them, and it holds a significant amount of power,” the man explained.
“W-What does that have to do with anything?”
“Don’t you understand? The story you created is no longer yours,” the man said, and suddenly I felt a tightness in my chest.
It was suffocating. I instinctively placed my hand on my chest, and when I looked at the man, he had a pitying expression on his face.
“Stories that gain power tend to become urban legends. The reason is simple: to avoid being forgotten. Stories die when they are forgotten. Did you know that?” the man explained.
“That’s… impossible, I couldn’t have known…” I gasped, feeling overwhelmed, and fell to my knees. It felt as if someone was gripping my heart tightly.
“I see. Well, remember this. Even stories are afraid of dying. That’s why they strive to become urban legends, so that they won’t be easily forgotten,” the man continued speaking without caring about my suffering.
So, you’re saying I have to die because of some ridiculous story I wrote? Don’t be absurd! Who the hell are you anyway? I felt anger rising within me at the unjust situation. I couldn’t accept the idea that I had to die because of a story I had written. I glared at the man.
“Well, me? I’m just a curious person who helps stories become urban legends,” the man said, and the pitying look vanished from his face. He grinned again.
“The story you wrote showed an astonishing rate of growth beyond my imagination. In fact, even if I didn’t intervene, you would have ended up being killed in the ‘Patrolman’ story soon. But I thought it would be better to turn it into an urban legend quickly. I couldn’t help meddling,” the man said, looking at me with a beaming smile.
“I can’t accept that I’ll be killed by you for such a reason… I don’t understand,” I protested.
“Hehehe, I don’t really care if you understand or not. Oh, it hasn’t been 5 minutes yet, but I’ve already finished saying everything I wanted to say. Well then, goodbye. Take care,” the man said.
“Huh…?” My vision suddenly turned pitch black, and I felt my body losing strength as if I were about to hit my head on the floor.
I lost consciousness just like that.
The elderly man with white hair, dressed in a suit, slowly approached the body of Shinoyama, who had collapsed on the floor. He knelt down beside Shinoyama, who was still wide-eyed, and checked for a pulse while wearing white gloves on his right hand.
“I confirmed the death,” he said.
The man nodded with satisfaction and looked at the lifeless body with gentle eyes.
“Between you and me, a new scary story has begun to gain strength. I wanted ‘Patrolman’ to become an urban legend quickly so I could observe it over there.”
He then gently closed only the right eye of the corpse with his right hand and muttered, “It looks like it’s winking,” before chuckling.
“Once it becomes an urban legend, it won’t disappear easily. Now I can comfortably observe new stories. Thank you for writing a wonderful story.”
The man spoke cheerfully towards the corpse and slowly stood up.
“Oh, right, you can’t hear me anymore since you’re dead. My apologies,” he said with an exaggerated tongue-out expression and laughed. In that moment, the man disappeared from Shinoyama’s room without making a sound.
Shinoyama’s body was discovered on Monday, at the beginning of the week. His boss, who had been worried about his absent employer and his inability to reach him, became the first one to find him.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the boss never came to know that the urban legend he had heard from his daughter was related to his employer’s death.
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