Introducing the All New Ever After – Celebrate & Win
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WIN a Kindle Fire!!! All you have to do is enter to win using our Rafflecopter entry form below. Spread the word and make sure you like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter! She believes in ghosts. Not after what happened with the last few skeptics… He believes in evidence. Nor is she prepared for the attention of a good-looking refugee named Reg. Tags ever after Giveaway kindle fire Launch. Congratulations on the launch of the revamped Ever After imprint!! Congrats on the new line!! I look forward to reading Ghosts of the Falls the most!
Congrats on the new line! Looks like another great book line! Thank you for a generous giveaway! I think Less Than Perfect sounds awesome! I love post-apocalyptic fiction! Leave a Comment Click here to cancel reply. About Me Entangled Publishing is a boutique publisher of romantic fiction for adults and teens. Connect with Entangled For the latest Entangled book chatter, check out entangledbooks on Twitter! Suddenly, a huge hand with red painted nails grabs his head and he finds that he can't close his eyes or look away as he is forced to look upward at the face of the laughing figure from Osamu's dream before his head is forcibly twisted: Two teenage couples pull over at an abandoned house for a test of courage.
They find it unlocked and go inside, armed with flashlights, and tell each other that there were rumors that people who lived in the house vanished while others say they just skipped town. Entering one of the rooms, the teens come across a Buddhist altar and next to it are red carpet-covered platforms with Hinamatsuri dolls, obviously belonging to a girl. One of the boys says that the dolls protect the people that own them from misfortune.
No one seems to notice that one of the three court lady dolls appears to be smiling at them. One of the girls, Yumi, points out that the empress doll is missing, probably the result of someone stealing it. As the other kids go to the second floor, the girl gets an uneasy feeling In the upper floor bedroom, the kids come across a three-sided mirror and one of the girls, Nobuko, is dared to look into the reflections, but she knows that a ghost is supposed to appear in the reflections.
Calling her chicken, her boyfriend, Haruo, decides to open it so they all have a look. The door behind them opens slowly in the reflection, but when the boy turns around, it is closed. At first everyone thinks it's his imagination until they see the door in the mirror open all the way despite the real door remaining closed. They take a look in the mirror again, and in the threshold is a giant Hinamatsuri empress doll. It enters the room, grabs Yumi and exits the room. The real Yumi collapses to her knees in fear.
As they leave in fear, the couples take another look in the room with the dolls and find Yumi's body sitting haphazardly on the platforms as if she were thrown at it, her face painted to resemble a Hinamatsuri empress doll. They turn around and find the empress doll behind them when suddenly it cackles as its eyes become huge and its mouth opens revealing a set of big teeth. At the end of class, two high school students ask their teacher if she had heard of the Handshake Men.
The teacher says she hasn't. According to the girls, a man stands by the roadside at night asking people to shake his hand but you can't tell him no or he will say that you are naughty and will crush your body into a meatball. The girls also say there are three more of them, but you should never shake hands with the fourth one otherwise, he'll bite your hand off. A third student, Haruko, silently thinks that the story is stupid.
At home, while she's reading, her younger sister, Naomi comes in and tells her she forgot her notebook at school. The two girls go to the school and the younger of the two finds it in her desk, right where she left it. Suddenly, they bump into the janitor, who demands to know why they are there so late. Naomi explains the situation and he lets them go. The two girls walk back home, though the student is a little shaken by the janitor suddenly appearing. Along the way, an old man comes stumbling along, grumbling why two young kids are out this late.
Haruko begins to question if the Handshake Men story is true. A while later, a man appears and asks for a handshake. Remembering the story, Haruko shakes his hand quickly and takes off running with Naomi. An officer suddenly asks to shake hands with her which she does. Then the third man asks for a handshake which she does. Suddenly, Haruko realizes Naomi has vanished. Terrified she wonders if she's run into the fourth man. Suddenly a hand grabs hers Instead, it's a man ready to bite her hand off with his giant mouth. A young couple, Shinichi and Satomi, arrive at a mall carnival that looks oddly like the one seen in the opening for the second season that they remember their parents bringing them to.
Before they go on a ride, a clown appears behind them and asks if they want a balloon to which Satomi says she would. Just then the announcer says that the mall will be closing shortly much to Satomi's disappointment. The clown asks if they would like to ride the merry-go-round before leaving as it is free for the person who buys a balloon. While Satomi is excited, Shinichi says it's a little embarrassing and offers to take her picture instead.
Satomi goes on for a ride, Shinichi notices a boy and girl also riding the carousel, and notes that they don't look happy at all; they look bored in fact. As Shinichi looks at his pictures, Satomi asks if he's watching to which he says yes, but pays no mind. When she asks again if he's watching, he notices that Satomi looks weak and wobbly and that the two kids are now smiling wickedly. When Satomi calls out again, Shinichi sees that her face has become deformed and her eyes have become googly. He hears laughing coming from all around and notices that the guests and the performers are coming toward him with evil smiles.
When his gaze returns to the carousel, Satomi is gone. He rushes to the ride maintenance man and asks if he's seen her, to which the man says no. Then he asks the children and they say the same thing. Suddenly, the carousel starts to move again, and Shinichi notices everyone off the carousel clapping, slowly at first, then faster until they stop when a hand grabs him. Looking down he sees the hand belongs to a deformed, twitching merry-go-round horse with rolling eyes and a balloon tied to its right hoof and it asks, "Shinichi, are you watching?
Rumi and her mother visit their grandmother's house where she takes notice to the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall at the exact time the little bird pops out. Rumi asks why the bird doesn't come out of the house to which her grandmother explains that it's the bird's job to tell the time and won't come out until the appropriate time. Later that night, Rumi's mother has taken notice to her daughter's obsession with the clock even making a tick-tock sound , as every time she hears the bird pop out she runs into the living room to see it.
Rumi's grandmother says it must also make the cuckoo clock happy as no one seems to have paid attention to it for some time. Five minutes before midnight, while everyone is asleep, Rumi awakens to the feeling of going to the bathroom, but doesn't make it far before she hears the sound of the clock ticking. Almost immediately, she stands in front of the clock and makes the tick-tock sound, and her eyes start spinning around like the hands of a clock. At the stroke of midnight, the cuckoo bird doesn't pop out, however.
Wondering if the bird is asleep, Rumi checks the clock, but it falls from the wall and breaks. Now worried, Rumi wonders how to fix it. Suddenly, the doors open and a fleshy, deformed bird with rolling eyes on one side of its head pops out and makes a distorted cuckoo sound to which Rumi smiles and laughs The next morning, Rumi's mother awakens, but her daughter isn't in bed with her.
Walking downstairs, she hears her daughter making the tick-tock sound in the living room. When she calls to her, Rumi slowly turns to face, her eyes now spinning like clock hands and her mouth turns into a cuckoo clock's door. When the door opens, the scene cuts to the exterior of the house as the sounds of choked cuckoos and Rumi's mother's screams can be heard.
He notices how the pool looks creepy, but undeterred he dives into the water, awakening something in the process As he swims through the pool, winning the tournament on his mind, he hears something splashing nearby. Convinced it is just his imagination, he resumes swimming, unaware that he is being followed by black, hairlike tendrils. Finally, he reaches the end of the pool, and it is then he notices black hair in his hands. Looking up, he sees more of the hair in the center of the pool, hair belonging to someone, or something.
He exits the pool but when he turns around to face the creature, he sees it looming just under the water. He tries to run, but the hair wraps around his throat. The fish woman laughs as it pulls him under the water. This episode does not begin with the same opening as the other episodes in the series.
Instead, the episode immediately begins with a scene of the boy in the opening title sequence from season 3 sitting on a playground slide drawing while other three other children are playing hopscotch. A woman comes onto the playground and it is revealed that she has just moved to this town to work as a teacher. She tries to talk to the boy, but he walks away. While teaching, she notices the same boy is sitting in the back of the class drawing. After class she asks him to draw her, but he claims that it would be boring. Immediately after, another teacher approaches her and says that three children were absent from class and were also missing.
He claims that they were at the park that morning, but then walks away. The teacher walks home late at night and spots the boy sketching a picture of a monster assimilating a man they both see in a phone booth. She decides to follow him over the course of the next few days and observes many different monsters such as a giant heron eating a man and a clothing store manager being chased by an army of mannequins and the boy drawing them while laughing.
The following day, she looks at his sketchbook and sees a picture of the three children playing hopscotch being grabbed by a monster, then realizing it was of the children that she had seen earlier that had gone missing. She suddenly sees the boy behind her drawing, who claims that he will draw her now, saying she's much more interesting than she was when he first met her.
She becomes surrounded by the monsters from the entire third season and screams as the boy's face slowly fades into the mask that the kamishibaiya from the first two seasons wore. Then the kamishibai panel that was used as a ending card for seasons one and two slams and the storyteller says "the end" oshimai as he did in the first two seasons. The camera pans out and reveals the opening scene of season 1, and then to a group of children watching the story teller with open mouths and blank looks on their faces. The end card slams again and the camera pans out to the children again, this time their faces become more distorted and monstrous, taking on the characteristics of a frog, a prawn and a sea slug.
This happens numerous more times with the children's faces becoming more and more hideous, until it shows the boy standing in front of the kamishibai theater wearing the original kamishibaiya's mask. The end card from season 1 and 2 comes up again, and this time, the boy says the words "The End A salaryman walking home from work runs into two children, both of whom are sad that a dead cat is lying in the middle of the street.
Not wanting to see it run over, he scoops the cat up and buries it next to a tree. Two girls walk by, muttering that something could follow you home if you take pity on it. The boys and the man say a prayer for the cat and they go on their ways. That night, while the man watches TV he hears what sounds like a cat meowing.
This makes him recall what the girls said, but he shrugs it off and decides to go to bed early. He is just about to go to bed when he hears the meow again, only now it was coming from the room he was just in. The meows get closer and closer until it's right next to his bed. The cat licks him, but he feels something off When his eyes become accustomed to the dark, he realizes the meows sound too human. In fact, it wasn't the cat meowing at all, but a pale-skinned, dark-haired woman with green eyes holding the corpse of the dead cat.
Three middle school students are walking home from school, talking about an old abandoned Western-style mansion that is rumored to be haunted.
Though they try to enter through a window, they find it locked. Just before one of them could break a window with a rock, they see that one of the second floor windows is open. One of the boys, Shigeru, climbs up into the window. Inside the dark house, the only presence is the sound of gurgling water. When he pulls on the tattered curtain to let light in, he finds the source of the sound: He thinks he heard something bubbling in the tank, but can't see anything in the filthy, murky water.
But when he presses his face up against the glass, something bumps against the tank. Ignoring the foul odor, he looks down from the top of the tank and peers into the water so close he could see his reflection. A pair of slimy, purple hands pop out of the water and pull him into the tank. One of Shigeru's friends comes in looking for him, only to find the fish tank. Then he hears something bang against the tank from the inside A college student moves to a new apartment that oddly enough, resembles the one occupied by the salaryman from episode 1 because the rent was cheap and is willing to ignore the minor problems it had.
She glances down and notices a spot on the floor that had a different color than the rest of the wooden floor. She realizes it's actually a loose floor board and when she lifts it up, she sees a rusty pair of scissors stabbing through a paper talisman with a lock of dark hair attached to it. She tosses them into the waste bin, having had enough problems for the evening.
That night, she awakes to a strange sound coming from the floor board. It sounds like a human moaning. Slowly, she removes the board and gasps in horror at the sight of the top half of a head with long black hair staring back at her, only to wake up from the dream. As she heads for the bathroom, a quick glance from the waste bin makes her realize the scissors, the talisman and the lock of hair are gone. And then she hears it: She removes it only to find nothing. Suddenly the phone rings, and she is relieved it's her friend on the other line.
She doesn't notice the figure of a man missing the top half of his head standing behind her A salaryman is running home from work having stayed overtime. He regrets not hailing a taxi earlier, but since the line for taxis was currently long, he decides to hail one on the street. Finally, after hailing taxi after taxi only to see a "No Occupancy" sign on them, he hails a vacant taxi after walking down a dark, deserted road. He takes his seat in the back tells the driver where to go and relaxes.
Suddenly, he sees something next to his foot: He asks the driver if a previous passenger lost her shoe, but the driver doesn't even turn around and asks if he could throw it out. The salaryman is confused at first, but is startled when the driver repeats what he asked in an impatient, angry tone. The driver looks more unnerved and he starts shaking. Then both men hear a sound coming closer and closer: The salaryman looks out the window and sees a blonde-haired woman in a red dress running next to the taxi at an impossible speed.
The driver looks even more scared and repeatedly pleads to him to throw the shoe out. When his eyes adjust to the dark, the salaryman realizes the shoe is not red, but white; the red on the shoe is blood. With a scream, he throws the shoe out the window and the woman stops running. At first he's relieved, but then relief turns to horror when the driver runs over a blonde-haired woman in a red dress, killing her instantly. Four friends are on the night bus when one of them suddenly gets a stomachache and asks the driver if he could stop at the next service area.
Ignoring his friends' mocking, he heads for the restroom. After relieving himself, he walks to the parking lot, but there are so many buses like his own that he can't figure out which one is his. He finally finds what looks like his bus and gets on, only to realize the passengers' expressions look gloomy and are looking downward.
He takes his seat, feeling slightly uncomfortable by the atmosphere in the bus. When he asks what he was talking about, the reply tells him to stop messing around. Then he gets a phone call from his other friend, Saeko, who's in an aisle next to his. But she's not holding her phone at all. He answers, and hears her voice on the phone asking where he was and that they were waiting for him.
The girl sitting in the aisle next to his turns her head and looks at him with the same gloomy expression as everyone else. The man becomes afraid as he hears more of his friends' voices on the phone, yet the people on the bus are not talking to him. His fear grows even more when he realizes everyone on the bus is now staring at him A teenage boy and a girl sit on a bench at the train station.
The girl was fond of the boy and one day she asked if they could go to the amusement park. They had a great time, and as evening came and they waited for the train, the girl thanks the boy for taking her. She asks him if he's going out with anyone, but a passing train interrupts her and he doesn't hear her. The boy goes to get a drink, leaving the girl feeling awkward. It's then that she notices a pale-skinned, dark-haired girl dressed in black sitting on a bench on the platform across from her.
She can't make out the pale girl's expression but she's sure she's looking right at her. Suddenly, she gets up from the bench and walks toward the track. A train passes by, and the pale girl vanishes The teenager is confused and scans the area, looking for her.
Ruthless Ruth
Suddenly, a pair of hands covers her eyes and the boy's voice says, "Guess who? She finally gathers up the nerve to ask him out, but the hands press into her face, so much so that it hurts. He asks again, "Guess who? She tells him she knows it's him. But then a question pops into her mind. She tries to remember that he's the star basketball player at school and that he took her to the amusement park. But now it seems he's been erased from her memory. Another train passes by and she sees, through the gaps of the fingers, in the reflection of the train's windows, that the pale girl is the one covering her eyes.
At that point she can't remember the boy's face, voice, or his warmth. The teenager is then revealed to be covering her own eyes, her body and face transformed into that of the pale-skinned, dark-haired girl's. She asks herself in a voice that's not hers, "Who am I? A man goes to a department with his wife, Mayumi, during a closeout sale during one of his rare days off of work.
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It's pretty clear he does not like going shopping with his wife as he already knows exactly what she wants. He soon receives an email from one of his coworkers, Nagase, who invites him for a drink. Wanting to get away from his wife, he asks if he could use the bathroom. In the darkened room, he sits at one of the stalls and sends a message back to Nagase when he should come, he is going to be here a while.
Then he sees what looks like a mark on his shirt. He realizes it's ink, and in the dim light of his cell phone, he sees writing all over the walls of the stall that appear so fresh, he could easily wipe it off. A text from Mayumi startles him a little, but he regains his composure. The message asks which floor the bathroom is. Just then, the man hears someone entering the bathroom and beginning to pace.
Then he hears another set of footsteps and begins pacing as well. He becomes even more afraid as the sound of two more people entering and pacing around the bathroom can be heard and the sound grows louder to the point that the whole room starts to shake violently as if he was in the middle of an earthquake. Just then, Mayumi calls him and just like that, the footsteps stop instantly. The writings on the walls begin to stretch and the man sees four pairs of feet under the gap of the stall's door.
He shakes in fear as the door opens revealing three men and a woman with pale skin, black eyes and dark hair staring back at him A man visits his childhood home for the first time in many years after hearing his old friend, Tanabe Kouichi, is getting married. He returns to the room where he spent most of his boyhood, happy to see it's still the same as he left it.
Further exploration of his old room leads him to find a cassette tape in his desk labeled, "What Happened Today". Always a fan of scary things and wondering if it still works, the man puts the tape in a player and presses play. He hears his boyhood voice and he remembers that as a child, he would record his daily life on cassette tapes.
On the first entry, February 12, he talks about playing baseball and winning despite Onedera, a rival player, being an excellent pitcher. On February 23, he talks about Tanabe's birthday party at his house and receiving gifts from all his friends and admits he's a tad jealous. The man finds it coincidental hearing his boyhood self talk about Tanabe. On June 7, his boyhood self talks about being able to do anything in his dreams, including trampling over people, being invincible and crushing buildings. On August 8, he talks about his mother walking a lot and wanting to talk to her, but deciding not to.
Suddenly, the voice on the tape sounds older.
The man assumes he made this during middle school. On October 15, the voice talks about loudly yelling in class four times but no one was there to scold him. On January 9, the voice claims to have heard something rattling in a box and that he's happy. On February 16, the voice says he felt something, like fingers wiggling. He told no one. On April 11, the voice says he said good morning to an old man at a jagged park only for him to say, "No it's not. He can't understand what his younger self is saying anymore and the stories are starting to become more and more nonsensical and surreal.
On February 23, the voice talks about how Tanabe and Tanabe were birthday plastic modeling at Tanabe's house. On June 7th, the voice says it thought it would stay the same if it stayed a long time, but when it looks closely lately it can see cracks and wondered why it was shaking.
The man suddenly hears his own older voice. On April 7, the voice says it's a great day at work and how he can be happy about anything. But don't laugh, you'll make it shake. Then the man becomes horrified when he hears the voice talk about Tanabe's wedding tomorrow and then it starts rambling about taking a stick and beating Tanabe with it just like what it did to the old man in the jagged park and then the tape stops. Not wanting to hear anymore, the man takes off the headphones. That's when he realizes they aren't even plugged into the cassette player.
The wedding the next day was as exciting as can be An office worker, Miwako, is on a trip with her co-worker. The two women don't know much of the tourist spots but they find that enjoyable by itself. They soon come across a spot where the locals don't go: That night, when the two women go to spend the night at the hotel, Miwako complains of a toothache, a result of her grinding her teeth. Painkillers don't work so she instead calls for a dentist and finds one dentist's office still open.
Miwako finds, upon arriving, that the dentist's office seems shady, but the pain leaves her with no choice. She's set in the chair, and the elderly dentist woman takes a look in her mouth; her expression grows dark. The dentist walks over to her assistants and whisper something along the lines of "Don't let her get away" and "It can't be helped" before returning with a pair of pliers, telling Miwako the tooth has to be pulled out.
Miwako isn't comfortable with the idea of having her tooth pulled out by these old world dentists and tries to leave but is held down by the assistants. She manages to get away before the dentist tries to pull out the molar. She doesn't even hear the dentist warn her about something regarding the tooth. Back in the hotel, she checks her tooth in the mirror, only for it to pop out on its own. It appears to have an anguished face. Then she remembers the dentist's warning fully: She follows the trail to the bedroom her friend is sleeping in and hears a grinding sound.
And the closer she gets to her friend, the louder the grinding seems to get Three middle school friends, Honoka, Yukari and Miku, get together to play a game that is popular at school. This game, Calling Crane, is a game where you talk to the dead and you're supposed to tie a red string to a razor blade, put it in a cup of water and leave it there overnight. A person then takes the tied razor out of the cup and with it, swallows a paper crane with a dead person's name written on it 49 times. After that, the summoned ghost supposedly would talk through the person who swallowed it.
Rumor has it, a student from a neighboring school botched the ritual and it was left a deranged invalid. Yukari doesn't believe in this game, but she gets an uneasy feeling about the situation Rather than give in to fear, she laughs and suggests they call Nayakama-sensei, a young homeroom teacher who used to work at their school. He was a fan of scary stories and is also the one who told the three girls of the Calling Crane game. He disappeared three months ago, and only a tied razor blade was found on his desk. Wanting to see if their old teacher died, Yukari writes his name on the paper crane and through a game of rock-paper-scissors, Honoka ends up being the one to swallow it.
Unfortunately, the paper crane gets stuck in her throat and even worse, her friends think she's just fooling around, oblivious to the fact that she's choking. It's only when her coughs become more violent do Yukari and Miku try to help. Suddenly, Honoko finally heaves the paper crane out of her throat and Yukari and Miku realize that Nayakama-sensei's name is no longer on it, but Honoka's. As they try to figure out what's going on, Honoka stands up and says in a man's voice, "So, what shall we talk about? A teacher stays after school, grading her students' tests when she suddenly notices a child playing in the schoolyard.
The boy, garbed in a worn out, unfamiliar school uniform, is drawing something with chalk used to make diamonds on baseball fields. She goes outside to tell him off, but he's already gone. Stranger still, the chalk line is leading away from the yard and into the school. She follows the lines through the first floor hall and up the second floor stairs, listening to the line marker's wheels scraping on the floor. Then she follows the line up to the third floor and finally to a door that leads to the roof.
She opened the door, but the boy wasn't there and the line seems to have gone over the banister. She looks over and sees a mark of white chalk, almost as if the boy tossed a bag of chalk dust off the roof and onto the pavement She turns around, and sees the white line now turning black followed by the footsteps of people. The door opens and five black chalk outlines come walking out and she realizes too late that the white line was meant to lure her to the roof, just like it had with its past victims.
The last thing she sees as the black finally reaches her is the boy looking out the door and the last thing she hears is the sound of five thuds with a sixth following suit. A young boy, Masayuki's, parents takes him to his grandparents' house during the winter break. He would always enjoy playing in the snow with his older cousin whenever they get the chance. As the sun started to set one day, the two of them decide to build a snow hut, one big enough to just barely fit both of them.
They suddenly both feel hungry, so Masayuki's cousin offers to bring back the brazier and grill some mochi. While waiting, Masayuki looks out the hole and finds a snow hut almost identical to his own. He walks over to it, wondering how it got there and notices it has no entrance, but it seems to be glowing on the inside, like there is a light inside it.
He calls out, asking if anyone is inside and knocks the side, only for someone or something to knock back Wanting to see who it was, Masayuki takes a stick and pokes a hole in the wall and takes a peek. He finds nothing inside except for a single flickering candle and the inner walls have been entirely scratched, like something or someone had tried to claw their way out.
When Masayuki calls out again, he jumps back in horror at the sight of an eye looking back at him through the hole and hears a boy's voice say, "It's your turn next. Masayuki comes to and finds himself in a futon in his grandparents' house. He hears his cousin talking to his family in the next room, saying how Masayuki kept saying there was someone inside and that he broke the snow hut, despite his cousin's protest. Masayuki gets the feeling that there is something terrible involved. Suddenly, the family opens the door, acting happy for some strange reason. The front of the house of the door is open, revealing an open snow hut and the family is telling him to go in.
Masayuki gets an uneasy feeling like something really bad is about to happen. Suddenly, the same voice from the snow hut says, "You think so too? One rainy night, a college student heads home after leaving a drinking party when he realizes he had forgotten something back at the bar. He decides to just get it back tomorrow and uses a walkway that leads to the subway to get back home.
The young man believes he hadn't taken this route before and starts to wonder if it really does lead home. He ignores his bad feelings and goes down the dark path any way. The curving path seems to go on and on, and just when he decides to turn around, he runs into a worker. The worker doesn't even acknowledge his presence, he just keeps looking down and keeps repeating over and over, "It's only dark at first.
Feeling unnerved by the man's words and the path he's directing him, he slips past him and continues going straight. However, he comes across a gate, indicating the way is closed, leaving him no choice but to turn back. He walks down the tunnel, only to find that it seems to go on and on; he can't even find the path the worker from before had pointed to him. Absentmindedly, he looks down, and sees what looks like footprints and when he looks to his right, he sees, where the tunnel the worker pointed out should have been there is now a filled in wall with the imprint of a human on it.
The shape seems to be moving and struggling in agony. Suddenly, it moves off the wall and starts going after the student, saying over and over, "It's only dark at first. A woman married to Masuda, an elite salaryman, complains about him never being at home to spend time with her and his son, Hirofumi. The phone rings and when she answers it, a woman she hadn't heard before says she'll not be there for a while.
Masuda asks who she is trying to contact, but the woman hangs up. Later in the day, Hirofumi falls asleep while playing, and the phone rings again. Masuda picks up the phone and the woman on the other side asks if she could watch her child for another hour. Masuda tells her she has the wrong number, but the woman on the other line hangs up immediately. Frustrated, she slams the phone down on the receiver, only for it to ring immediately. It's her husband this time. He tells her he'll be late and suggests to eat dinner with Hirofumi. Masuda tells Hirofumi not to make a mess, making him cry.
The phone rings and the same woman from before tells her she's finally able to leave. Masuda tells her she has the wrong number again. But then the woman says something that scares her, "But Hirofumi is crying, is he? Masuda suddenly recalls Hirofumi drawing a picture of a woman with the word, "Mom" written on it. Masuda suddenly thinks that it must have been THAT woman back then Suddenly, the doorbell rings and a shuffling noise can be heard on the other side.
The woman's voice says she's there to pick up Hirofumi. The door opens and a woman with pale skin, black hair and dark eyes enters the room. Masuda grabs a knife just as Hirofumi calls out, "Mama? An office worker is on her way home and walks by the playground when she stops when she hears a girl on the swing set call out to her. She asks if there's anything wrong and where her parents are.
The girl says she's fine and that her mother is on her way, then she notices the butterfly brooch on the office worker's shirt and asks her to give it to her. The woman concedes and lets her have it as a reward for waiting patiently for her mother. The woman then goes on her way, remembering how when she was the girl's age, she would ask for things the older kids wanted as well.
She says it's something kids would do, wanting to be a grown-up. The next evening, the woman walks by the playground and the same girl from before calls out to her. Concerned, the woman asks where her mother is. But she ignores her and demands her lipstick. The woman applies some lipstick on her who says she looks pretty. The woman goes on her way, though she shows some concern about the child being out this late. The next night, the woman is with her boyfriend, and the girl appears at the parking lot where their car is.
Now she demands her boyfriend. In her car, the woman voices her fears: Suddenly, she sees the girl's reflection in the rearview mirror and to her horror, the girl's arms stretch out and grab her boyfriend. Then her head and neck stretch over to the woman, and she reaches out to her and says in a monotonous voice: Give this to me too. Come on, give it to me A girl named Sae and her mother are going to see her grandmother who lives in the countryside for the first time. As they walk through a field of sunflowers, they walk past a group of boys who say the Crow Lady's coming to take them away.
Confused, Sae and her mother come across an old woman wearing a veil. When Sae greets her, the old woman greets back in a slow voice, then walks by without another word and into a house covered in branches. Soon, the two reach grandma's house. While the daughter plays in the yard, the mother talks to her grandmother, recounting old memories. Sae suddenly looks up upon hearing the sound of a crow cawing When Sae's mother and grandmother look in the yard, they find her gone.
Sae's mother looks for her, and that's when she hears her cries coming from the house covered in branches, only now a murder of crows are perched on the roof. In the yard, Sae is greeted by the old woman from before, who heard her crying, the result of her climbing a tree, only to fall. Sae's mother suddenly arrives and apologizes for her daughter trespassing.
On their way home, Sae's mother asks her why she was in the old woman's yard to which her daughter replies, "Because they looked like they were having fun. As Sae waves to them goodbye, her mother drags her off. The old woman warns her as the murder of crows flies away, "Don't you let go of her hand, now. Children wander off before you know it. A college girl, Haru, had just completed her entrance ceremony when she meets a fellow student and her childhood friend, Yukari.
She tells Haru that she enrolled in the same school she did and made it off the waiting list. Haru says that she didn't know, but Yukari tells her she wanted it to be a surprise and they'll be together again. Haru remembers how the two of them were always together since they were little and they did the same things together, but in reality, Yukari was just copying everything she did. Haru notices this even more during one afternoon at a diner when Yukari asks if she could wear the same watch as her, be in the same classes she takes and be a part of the same club she is in. Finally, Haru has had enough and blatantly tells her to stop copying her.
Yukari starts crying, but Haru, feeling sympathetic tells her that it's not good for her future if she's just copying her all the time. Yukari tells her she already has a dream, to be a teacher just like Haru. Yukari suddenly says with a frightening smile, "Are you surprised?
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So it's fine to keep doing everything together, right? We both have the same dream! Pleased, Yukari leaves the diner, but she starts walking the crosswalk on a red light and is run over by a car. Haru smiles sadly as she vanishes and she says to herself, "The reason Yukari made it off the waiting list for the college A woman waits for her husband to come home. When he arrives, she asks if he has been drinking again, to which he says only with people at work. As her husband prepares to take a shower, the woman smells the faint scent of another woman's perfume on his suit. As she picks up the husband's clothes, the woman finds more signs that he is cheating: She puts his clothes in the washer, only to find his cell phone ringing.
She takes a look at it and finds multiple messages from someone named Rie-san, the most recent one saying, "I'll always be at your side Quickly, she turns around, but finds no one. When the husband comes out of the showers, the wife demands to know who Rie-san is, to which the husband replies he doesn't know. When the wife tells him about the emails on his phone, he says they're just spam.
When the wife tells him he's cheating, she stops when she hears a woman's voice whisper, "Only you As the man walks off, telling her he's going to bed, the wife can see the reflection of her husband still in the mirror and can hear multiple voices declaring their love for him and wrapped around him are shadowy monsters with feminine features and red eyes. The reflection says he'll never leave her side A girl, Yuka, was dumped by her boyfriend, Tomo-kun. At school, she watches him with his new girlfriend and her best friend, Reiko. She swears she would never forgive Reiko for stealing him. At the library, Yuka finds something that piques her interest: According to the book, "If you dial in a phone booth at If you ask her, 'Give back insert lover's name here -kun back to me,' she will return him to you the next day.
However, you must call her again at the same time the next day to thank her or something terrible will happen She rushes to a phone booth and at exactly At first nothing happens, but when she hears the money being dispensed from the change slot, she asks into the phone for Tomo-kun and takes off running, forgetting to hang up the phone. The next day at school, Yuka notices white flowers on Reiko's desk, the sign that she has died.
And sure enough, one of her friends confirms that she died in a traffic accident. She remembers the ritual she did, but she tries to brush it off, calling it a coincidence. Suddenly, Tomo-kun enters the classroom, his face full of grief as he obviously blames himself for not walking her home. Yuka tells him it was not his fault. That night, Yuka remembers the final warning of the Giveback-sama ritual and rushes to the phone booth with seconds to spare, only to find someone already using it.
To her horror, it's Reiko. Reiko disappears as the clock strikes The story ends with the sound of blood splattering and a scene of the phone swaying in the booth, its interior covered in blood. A boy, Takeshi, and his family are driving to his grandmother's house during summer break. His father explains that the extended family will also be there. As the family drives on, they pass an old, dilapidated house, much to Takeshi's curiosity.
He is sure he sees a boy in a red and white shirt looking out the top floor's window At his grandmother's house, Takeshi asks her who lives in that old house, but she explains it's a wreck. When he talks about the boy, she suddenly becomes serious and tells him to never go near that house for the crone lives there. Two of his cousins, Miho-chan and Yukari-chan, invite him to play outside. Takeshi does so, and asks about the old house and tells them he wants to explore it.
When they get to the house, the children decide to play hide and seek. Yukari is the one who's "it" and proceeds to count while Miho and Takeshi take off to hide. Takeshi goes to hide in the house and he looks out the window, chuckling on how easy he can see Yukari from where he is. When he goes to hide in a closet, he jumps back in surprise, finding a straw doll wearing a red and white shirt; the same shirt the boy at the window was wearing.
Suddenly, he hears a deep voice call out, "Are you ready? He hears heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, and the voice coming closer. Panicking, he hides in the closet. Suddenly, the right panel opens and the voice says, "Found you. Takeshi sighs in relief, but then the left panel opens and he can only scream in horror as a giant eye peers right at him and he hears "Found you!
Takeshi's family bid each other goodbye, seemingly completely ignorant of Takeshi's fate. As his parents drive away, his mother wonders if she is getting old since she keeps thinking she has forgotten something important. Meanwhile, Grandma looks down in sadness; the only person who realizes what happened to Takeshi. The story ends with a scene of the old house with a new straw doll looking out the window; this one wearing Takeshi's clothes and voices singing throughout the house, "Are you ready?
A woman named Kana moved to a new apartment and invited her friends over for pizza. She explains that the place just opened up and the rent was lower than expected. Her friend, Eriko, drunkenly says it's probably one of those "too good to be true" moments. Suddenly, they hear something like scratching coming from next door. Deciding it's probably best for them to leave, Kana walks her friends out. However, she freezes when she sees fingers and an eye peeking out of the neighbors' door's mail slot only to instantly shut. Suddenly, her friend calls out, breaking Kana's thoughts.
As she walks to the car, Kana looks back toward the neighbor's door, wondering who that was. As she walks back to her apartment, the neighbors' door opens a bit, revealing a light from inside. Wondering if she should introduce herself, but deciding it's probably not the best time, she continues walking. Suddenly, the light goes out, leaving nothing but darkness. She hears the scratching sound from earlier and calls out who is there and what do they want.
The moonlight shines on the apartment and Kana can see women clawing against the apartment room's walls and floors, making wheezing sounds and pleading to be let out. Suddenly, she hears the scratching come from above. And when she looks up, she seems a pair of feet dangle in front of her before their owner, a dark-haired, pale-skinned girl with orange eyes drops from the ceiling. The story ends with Kana joining the clawing neighbors and the hanging girl, and the voice of a real estate agent answering a call for a new tenant asking to live in the new room that just opened up Mai, a college student who loves to gossip is sitting on the bench with her friend, Miki.
Miki tells her she has seen a ghost, to which Mai is amazed. She asks if she believes in ghosts, and Mai expresses her doubts. Miki then decides to show her by telling her to look into her eyes. Confused, Mai looks into Miki's eyes, and is startled to see, in the reflection, the white outline of a person behind her. When Mai turns around, nothing is there. Miki tells her she has been able to see ghosts ever since someone showed her which means Mai can now see them probably.
She asks Mai not to tell anyone since her friend told her about it, but she hasn't heard from her since. She suddenly starts to become worried, but tells a questioning Mai not to worry, and yet Mai suddenly realizes her seminar is starting, prompting her to leave. When Miki begs her not to leave, Mai tells her she'll see her tomorrow.
When Mai arrives, she suddenly can now see the spectral outlines of people around the students. When her friends ask if something's up, Mai tells her her secret and gives them the warning to not tell anyone. Suddenly Mai sees the outlines are changing color from white to red and they advance toward her. Terrified, she runs out of the school with more and more ghosts giving chase.
She runs to Miki's house for help, but instead finds her unconscious with her eyes missing. She then realizes what Miki told her and now she'd just doomed her friends to suffer the same fate if they tell anyone as well. The last thing she sees is a pair of red ghostly hands reaching for her eyes, along with hearing multiple voices sharing the secret and asking not to tell anyone else. A man is caught in a rain shower on his way from work.
He watches a young couple walk down the street, grumbling about how he used to be like them. He wonders when it will stop raining when he sees a girl in a tie-dye shirt doing the "loves me, loves me not" game of plucking flower petals and repeating, "It'll stop, it won't stop. The man asks what she is doing out there, but the girl responds that she hopes his wife will be there to pick him up. She then asks if she could read another fortune for him as pulls out another flower.
The man tells her she should go home if her parents do not know where she is. She ignores his concern and starts plucking the petals off, saying, "I'll go home, I won't go home. She asks for another reading, but the man cannot think of any on the spot. Upon seeing his wedding ring, she says she will just determine if his wife will come or not.
She plucks the petals, saying, "She'll come, she won't come. The last petal is plucked as the girl says "She'll come.
The girl asks what should she read next, but the man tells her she has done enough and thanks her. The girl watches as the couple leaves and says, "Oh, I see. You're dead, you're not dead You won't need anymore fortunes. In the office bathroom, a young woman named Mari inspects her long, beautiful hair in the mirror while her friends praise her.
One notes Mari won a magazine contest for the prettiest hair. When asked if she has done anything special with her hair, Mari denies it; however, when asked when she cut it, Mari is confused. She denies that she has had it cut. In her apartment, as she combs her hair before her mirror, Mari muses about purchasing expensive treatment for her hair. Talking to herself, she concludes that even if her friends did that same things she did, they could never have her beautiful hair.
She then goes on to say that she only hangs out with them because others still only look at her.
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She concludes by stating, "I'm the only one who has to be beautiful. The next day in the bathroom, Mari's friends find her applying lipstick. They begin to act strange and ask if she is trying a new look since she cut her hair even shorter. Angry, she denies she cut her hair and demands that they tell her if anything is wrong. That night at her apartment, Mari brushes her hair angrily wondering why her friends claimed she cut her hair. She throws away her brush in disgust, concludes they are merely jealous, and repeats: Her reflection says that she is not her anymore. Mari, before the mirror, is revealed to have messily cut her hair short.
As Mari protests over her hair, her reflection continues that she does not need Mari anymore. The mirror cracks as her reflection emerges with a pair of scissors. Mari continues to scream about her hair as her reflection declares that Mari must die since only her reflection "needs to be the prettiest. An office worker boards the last bus of the day. She bemoans how nothing's gone right in her life recently. Nothing is going right with her boyfriend, she is about to take the fall for her boss's mistake at work despite it being the fault of a younger girl though she decides to pretend she didn't know.
She falls asleep and when she wakes up, everyone is gone except for one younger woman in a blue dress with a red pattern on it who seems to be narrating a story to herself. The other woman narrates of an office woman who's had a bad run and is worried for her future and when she falls asleep, she finds herself all alone. Feeling something is not right, the office worker's eyes shift to the side to find her best friend from middle school The woman continues the story and says how the office worker's friend was the target of much bullying that worsened over time and nobody bothered to help her, not even her best friend.
It grew to the point that the girl committed suicide. It's not what she wanted, but the office worker didn't want to be bullied as well, so she pretended to ignore her. When the bus arrived at her station, the woman got up and started to walk out when suddenly her best friend appeared behind her and asked, "Can you see me? When the woman turned around, her best friend said, "If you can see me, then help me. Suddenly, the woman walks up to her and says, "What do you think happened to the woman? Outside the bus, the office worker crawls on her stomach in pain, begging for someone to notice her and help her.
The other woman laughs as the two of them fade away, never seen by anyone. Instead of the usual opening, the story begins with a detective following the case of the disappearance of young men in a local area. The trail leads to the Mantis Bar where eyewitnesses say they made contact with a particular woman.
A woman, whom the man she's with claims to be an actress, tells his date she wants him. While a young man drinks his beverage in slight jealousy, the detective from earlier watches the pair outside. Soon, the woman comes back and finds the young man still at his seat. She explains she got stood up, and the young man says he knew since he overheard the two, but then fumbles his words. The woman calls him cute and says she wants him. The two of them walk out of the bar while the detective follows them.
From behind a corner, the detective watches as the couple confess their feelings for each other. Suddenly, the woman's arms fall off, and the woman's body tears away, revealing a giant praying mantis underneath the human disguise. The detective watches in horror as the mantis devours the man.
Suddenly, the mantis turns around and giggles at him as he screams while a yellow smiling mask falls All of a sudden, the detective wakes up and finds himself sitting on a park bench at late afternoon. As the kamishibaiya walks by with his bike and kamishibai theater in tow, the opening theme of seasons 1, 2 and 4 begins to play and the detective wonders what that case was really about. Suddenly, the kamishibaiya turns around and the story ends, revealing the title of the story and the kamishbaiya ending the story as he always does, "Oshimai.
Ryousuke, a young man who has had a childhood fear of thunder recalls how his mother once told him when he was five, that she will protect him from thunder. Five months later, she moved out, so now he lives with his father.