Black Wool

Black Wool is a spooky story from Japan about two kids who find something strange in an old warehouse where they are playing.

I grew up in a small village in the Tohoku region of Japan. In the fields behind my parents’ house, there was an old, abandoned warehouse that stood next to the river. My friends and I often played in the warehouse even though our parents warned us not to.

One day, my friend and I were playing in the warehouse when I came across something very strange. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked like a big ball of black wool that was all entangled.

I wasn’t interested in it and I was about to return it to its original place, when my friend suddenly grabbed it from me. He started tossing it up in the air and playing with it.

At that moment, everything suddenly went black.

When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed and my parents were standing over me.

Later, when I had recovered a little bit, my parents told me what had happened. Apparently, my friend and I had been found floating face-down in the river by some workmen who happened to be passing by. My friend drowned, but they managed to save me. I had been in a coma for more than a week and I was lucky to be alive.

When I got out of hospital, my mother and father brought me to my friend’s house. His parents were very sad. They asked me some questions, but I told them I couldn’t remember anything.

I noticed that, in the corner of the room, they had set up a Buddhist altar. Among the offerings on the altar, I spotted something strange. It was a big ball of black wool. His parents said that it had been found in my friend’s pocket when they pulled him out of the water.

I suddenly became very frightened and when my parents saw the look on my face, they became nervous too. After saying our goodbyes, we quickly left.

On my way home, my parents suddenly started asking me questions. They wanted to know if I touched any of the objects in the warehouse. I told them I hadn’t. My parents had a grave look on their faces, but they didn’t ask me anything more.

Since then, I learned some details about the history of the area. It seems that, many years ago, this region was seriously flooded and many people drowned in the floods. At that time, the villagers made amulets using the hair of the victims.

It seems to me that what I thought was a ball of black wool wasn’t actually wool at all.