<figure id="attachment_399309" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-399309" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="9a66816a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/11/68f4ffdc0b92178d4824466181e576b6.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-399309" class="wp-caption-text">Mr. A, who overslept and was stranded at an unmanned station, met &#8230;&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Five minutes is more than long enough to distort a person.</span></h3>
<p> Is it possible to make people afraid in five minutes?</p>
<p> The &#8220;5 Minute Series,&#8221; published by the novel creation platform &#8220;Ebrista&#8221; in collaboration with Kawade Shobo Shinsha, is a popular series of ultra-short novels that move the heart in five minutes, collected by theme. To date, 40 volumes have been published, with a total of 1.6 million copies sold. To commemorate the series, &#8220;The Last to be Left Behind in Five Minutes,&#8221; a collaboration with horror writer Nashi, was released on October 29 and has become a hot topic.</p>
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<p> Nashi is a newcomer in the horror world who writes mainly for the Internet and has been active in a wide range of fields, including co-producing the much-talked-about &#8220;Missing&#8221; exhibition held from July to September of this year. The book contains 10 horror stories selected by Mr. Nashi that &#8220;leave the reader in an absurd world&#8221; in five minutes.</p>
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<p> Mr. Nashi, who is in charge of the prologue and commentary of the book, states in the &#8220;Commentary&#8221; as follows</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The time required to read each work is approximately five minutes. This may seem like a short time, but it is more than long enough to distort a person. A person can die in ten seconds, and it is even possible to change a person&#8217;s purchasing behavior through subliminal effects that are interrupted in less than one second.</span></p>
<p> We would like to introduce &#8220;The Crying Girl&#8221; by Senane from among the works included in the book, and invite you to experience the absurdity of being &#8220;left behind&#8221; in a place that is out of place in the everyday world in just five minutes.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Crying Girl by Senane"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">A man is stranded at a strange, unmanned obsession station: &#8230;&#8230;</span></h3>
<p> It was a time when cell phones were not yet widely used. <br>
Mr. A, a salesman, fell asleep on the train going directly home from a customer and missed his stop by a long way. <br>
He arrived at a strange, unmanned terminal station. The last train had already passed.</p>
<p> I had no choice but to call a taxi. He thought to himself, &#8220;I should call a cab.</p>
<p> With this in mind, Mr. A inserted a telephone card into a public phone. But there was no response. What&#8217;s wrong?　So he tried inserting a coin into the phone. With a dry clang, a ten-yen coin was returned. It seemed to be malfunctioning.</p>
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<p> Oh, no.</p>
<p> Mr. A had no choice but to walk to another pay phone. <br>
When he stepped out of the station, he found himself on a lonely country footpath with only a few streetlights. <br>
Beyond the rice paddies, a few houses could be faintly seen. However, all the houses were dark. It seemed unlikely that we could ask them to lend us their phones.</p>
<p> But if I could get to the village, I would probably be able to find at least one pay phone.</p>
<p> Unlike today, pay phones were everywhere in those days. Although he thought it would be a hassle, Mr. A was not that pessimistic. <br>
Unlike in the city, he walked alone in the dark countryside at night, not passing anyone. <br>
The season was about to turn into autumn, but strangely enough, there was no sound of insects.</p>
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<p> I was twisting my head inwardly, thinking that the rice paddies were unusually quiet for this time of year&#8230; <br>
Suddenly, Mr. A&#8217;s surroundings were enveloped in an orange glow. <br>
He turned around. There was a car there, with its high beams illuminating Mr. A. The taxi he had met on the dark country road was ________.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The cab met him on a dark country road. ......"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">This road is &#8220;Deru,&#8221; you know.</span></h3>
<p> Hiding my eyes from the glare, I looked at the car and saw that it was a cab. And it seemed to be empty. <br>
Waving his hand, Mr. A stopped the cab. <br>
The cab glided up to Mr. A&#8217;s side, stopped, and opened the door. <br>
As he got in, the driver gave him a friendly smile and said, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to hear that you are all alone at this time of night.</p>
<p> What brings you here alone at this time of night?&#8221;</p>
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<p> The driver was a small man in his fifties, and Mr. A explained the situation.</p>
<p> Mr. A explained the situation. I can&#8217;t believe that you slept through the night on a train line that terminates in the countryside. By the way, sir, where are you going?</p>
<p> &#8220;For now, can you take me to a hotel in the city of **?&#8221;</p>
<p> The driver said yes, and started the cab.</p>
<p> The driver said, &#8220;No, you are lucky, by the way. I have unavoidable circumstances today, and I am driving on &#8216;this&#8217; road at this hour, but I usually don&#8217;t pass through here in the middle of the night, you know. No, I am really lucky.</p>
<p> You are lucky,&#8221; the driver repeated again. The driver repeated it again, obviously with an implication. Intrigued, Mr. A asked, &#8220;What is it about this place?　The driver replied, &#8220;No, it&#8217;s really a good place to drive. <br>
The driver replied, &#8220;Yes, there is,</p>
<p> Yes, there is. It&#8217;s a big deal.</p>
<p> He raised his head up and down in an exaggerated manner.</p>
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<p> This road, you know, it&#8217;s a &#8220;road&#8221;,&#8221; he said. <br>
Even without asking what, Mr. A knew what he was talking about.</p>
<p> By &#8216;appear,&#8217; do you mean ghosts?</p>
<p> Yes, yes. Yes, that&#8217;s right. This place is famous among my friends for being haunted at night.</p>
<p> What kind of ghosts are they?</p>
<p> I was about to ask, when the brakes were suddenly pressed.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Don&#39;t go there!"></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">A girl with pigtails in a bright red dress&#8230;</span></h3>
<p> Mr. A stumbled grandly and hit his head against the driver&#8217;s seat.</p>
<p> She said, &#8220;&#8230;&#8230;!　What in the world&#8230;?&#8221;</p>
<p> The moment he got up, he saw &#8220;it. The cab&#8217;s high beams were illuminating the road, and there was&#8230; <br>
A girl was crouching under a tree on the side of the road.</p>
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<p> The girl had braids and was wearing a bright red one-piece dress. She must have been about seven or so years old, and Ms. A involuntarily checked the time on her wristwatch. It was almost midnight. It was not just any little girl crying alone in such a place at such a time of night. Thinking that something must have happened, Mr. A put his hand on the cab door to run up to the girl. He said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t go!</p>
<p> Don&#8217;t go!</p>
<p> The driver&#8217;s angry voice made him involuntarily withdraw his hand.</p>
<p> What are you talking about?　A little girl like that is crying at this time of night!　This is definitely not a normal thing!</p>
<p> Mr. A protested. <br>
But the driver just shook his head with a blue face.</p>
<p> You mustn&#8217;t go. You mustn&#8217;t go there, customer. That &#8230;&#8230; thing is out of this world.</p>
<p> Suddenly, I felt the blood drain from Mr. A&#8217;s face.</p>
<p> 「さっき言ったろう、『でる』って。 It&#8217;s that thing. That&#8217;s the thing, that&#8217;s what it is. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p> The driver pointed at the girl with a trembling hand. <br>
Seeing his frightened appearance, Mr. A regained his composure. If you think about it calmly, surely a girl crying in the middle of the night like this is far more likely to be &#8216;that thing&#8217; than an incident. The driver was right, that thing must be out of this world. Perhaps, perhaps not. <br>
But&#8230;</p>
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<p> &#8220;Oh, woe, woe, woe. I saw something bad. I&#8217;m so mad, I&#8217;m so mad, I&#8217;m so mad. That&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t like this road.</p>
<p> The driver was fiddling with the gears, grumbling. The cab began to drive slowly again, passing by what appeared to be a girl. <br>
It passed by what appeared to be a girl.</p>
<p> At that moment, Mr. A saw her. <br>
The girl was looking at Mr. A with a clinging look in her eyes. <br>
Instantly, Mr. A&#8217;s body began to move on its own. Without hesitation, he opened the cab door and ran to the girl. <br>
He was aware that he was doing something stupid and dangerous. <br>
But even if the girl was a real monster, and I was going to be subjected to a horror like in a boring horror movie&#8230;</p>
<p> ─ ─ Still, I cannot abandon the crying girl.</p>
<p> Mr. A just couldn&#8217;t do &#8220;it&#8221; by any means.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">　(The story is written in the same way as the book &#8220;Crying&#8221; written by Senane.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"> (Excerpt from the first half of &#8220;Crying Girl&#8221; by Senane / &#8220;The Last to be Left Behind in Five Minutes&#8221; by Nashi, from Kawade Shobo Shinsha)</p>

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<p> What was the reason why Mr. A felt he could not abandon the girl? In the second part, the reason will be revealed. And what was the shocking ending that awaited Mr. A. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p><a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/399290"><span class="strongInContent"> Part 2: &#8220;You came after all,&#8221; the girl giggles, and&#8230; &#8220;Left behind after 5 minutes&#8221; is the ending of a very short horror story.</span></a></p>
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<figure id="attachment_399311" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-399311" style="width: 919px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="bfcf4afb"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/11/db99dcbe2cb193ce1146f05865d9235f.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-399311" class="wp-caption-text"> Contains 10 very short stories</figcaption></figure>
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<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/5%E5%88%86%E5%BE%8C%E3%81%AB%E5%8F%96%E3%82%8A%E6%AE%8B%E3%81%95%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88-5%E5%88%86%E3%82%B7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA-%E6%A2%A8/dp/4309612563"> The Last to be Left Behind in Five Minutes&#8221; (Edited by Nashi, published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://web.kawade.co.jp/tameshiyomi/110073/"> Full text of the prologue is available</a></p>
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 Five minutes is "long enough to distort a person," writes horror writer Nashi. From "The Last to be Left Behind in Five Minutes," a collection of very short horror stories selected by Mr. Nashi, we present "The Crying Girl" by Senane.

What &#8220;thing&#8221; a man lost on a country road in the middle of the night sees&#8230; &#8220;Last to be left behind after 5 minutes&#8221;, a very short horror story

What “thing” a man lost on a country road in the middle of the night sees… “Last to be left behind after 5 minutes”, a very short horror story

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