Left Behind in 5 Minutes: A Short Horror Tale
On a late-night country road, Mr. A’s taxi encounters a girl crying by the roadside. (Image is for illustration purposes).On October 29, horror author Nashi’s selected collection of ultra-short horror stories, “The Last Left Behind After Five Minutes,” was published. The book is the latest installment in the five-minute short story series, published by the novel creation platform Eburisuta and Kawade Shobo Shinsha. In this article, we introduce the second part of “The Crying Girl” by Sena Ne, a story from the book.
One day, Mr. A misses his stop on the train and is left alone at an unfamiliar unmanned station. Miraculously, he manages to catch a taxi. The driver, a man in his late 40s, warns him that this area is famous for strange occurrences at night, and he usually avoids the area. Just as the driver is telling this story, a seven-year-old girl crouching and crying by the roadside appears in front of the taxi. Despite the driver’s objections, Mr. A gets out of the car. There is a reason he can’t leave the crying girl behind.
My Sister Who Jumped From the School Rooftop.
A had a younger sister.
She was a bit timid and overweight. Perhaps because of this, she was often bullied.
In contrast, A had a lively and strong-willed personality, and he always protected her. Whenever he saw a group of boys surrounding his sister and hurling cruel words at her, he would rush in, no matter how many there were. A was good at fighting and had never lost. After scattering the boys, A would walk over to his crying sister and gently stroke her head.
“Don’t cry! It’s because you’re like this that you always get bullied! Pull yourself together!”
It was A’s way of showing affection and encouragement.
After crying for a while, his sister would say,
“I’m sorry, brother.”
She would apologize for something that didn’t need apologizing. A would laugh and stroke her head again. Then, they would go home together. That was the routine for A and his sister.
A thought that this life would continue forever.
As time passed, the two of them eventually became middle school students.
A joined the baseball team and spent his days immersed in practice.
By the time his sister started middle school, she had become slender and had turned into such a beauty that even A’s classmates envied her. She was no longer bullied by the boys, but in exchange, she confessed more often. Although A felt a bit of jealousy about this, he had long since stopped worrying about his sister.
He no longer saw her crying.
She was fine now.
A spent his days chasing after the white ball. Becoming a regular player and participating in the national tournament. That was everything to A.
However,
One day, his sister jumped from the school rooftop.
The reason was bullying. It seemed that the girl at the center of the group that was bullying her had a crush on a boy who had fallen for A’s sister, and this caused her to be resented in return.
A was stunned.
I killed my sister.
— I should have been watching my sister properly.
But immediately, a voice of denial rose within me.
— Is that really true?
I was so focused on my club activities that I didn’t pay much attention to my sister, did I?
— Because she wasn’t crying.
Just because of that, I convinced myself that she was fine —
After that, I don’t remember much. At my sister’s funeral, students from the entire school showed up. I remember feeling disconnected when I saw students who probably didn’t even know her crying uncontrollably. I also remember when the perpetrators and their parents kneeled and apologized, and I was stopped from killing them by my parents and relatives. These memories remain vaguely in my mind, almost as if they were from a dream.
However, there is one thing that I vividly remember from that time. It was a message to me in my sister’s will.
— I didn’t want to worry you anymore, big brother.
What do you mean anymore? I shouted. There’s no more worrying about her than this. If she was going through something tough, she should have come to me. Like before, I would have chased those guys away. If only she had cried and called out to me like she used to—
“Don’t cry! You’re always being bullied because you’re like this! Pull yourself together!” I remembered the words I always said to my sister. At that moment, I realized.
— It was all my fault.
I had been the one to close off her natural escape route, where she could cry and seek help from someone.
I killed her.
I killed my sister.
After that, I lived like a shell of myself. I quit baseball, something I had been so passionate about, on the day my sister passed away. I threw away all my gear. Since that day, I have not played baseball even once.
The same went for my future plans. I pushed through the opposition and rejected the path I had decided on. I didn’t go to high school and left my family home to get a job. After changing jobs several times, I finally settled as a full-time employee in my current sales job. I felt no joy or anything else about it. I didn’t care about my life or my own existence. I was just going through the motions of living.
— I made the mistake at the one point in life where I absolutely couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
Since my sister’s death, my life has felt like a mere formality. Nothing I did or saw moved my heart. But then—
The moment I saw the crying face of a girl with braids, my heart was deeply stirred.
The girl smiled widely.
“Are you okay?”
He stood beside the girl. She remained motionless, her head down. Just as he was about to place his hand on her shoulder, the girl suddenly stood up.
──As expected, you came.
She said, smiling widely. She was no longer crying. It wasn’t a child’s smile. Though her face looked youthful, the soul within her was mature. There was a great discord between her inner and outer self. It was a smile that made one feel an eerie sense of discomfort.
A’s hand, which had been about to touch her shoulder, froze in midair.
He realized that once again, he had made a mistake. His hand slowly fell. Strangely, there was no fear. Instead, a feeling of relief slowly spread through his heart. He realized, albeit belatedly, that he had wanted to be like this sooner.
──This is fine, isn’t it?
A gave a small smile. He thought that it would have been better to die than to “abandon” the crying girl once again.
Before A, the girl slowly raised her hand. Then──
She pointed behind him. At the motion, A turned around.
In an instant, A let out a short scream and recoiled. There were countless faces in the rear window of a taxi, and all of them were glaring at him with hatred. Among them was the face of the taxi driver. The warm smile he had shown earlier was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a hellish expression that could only be described as a mass of hatred.
“Your sister told me,” she said.
At her words, A forgot his fear and, as if propelled by something, turned around quickly.
“She told me that her older brother was about to be taken to something bad’ and that I should help. I heard that voice.”
A couldn’t speak. Instead, a tear trickled down his cheek.
“If you’ve learned your lesson, you shouldn’t walk down this road alone at night anymore, okay? Because you’ll encounter ‘scary things.'”
“Who are you?”
The girl didn’t answer A’s question. Instead, she stared directly into his eyes. Then, she smiled.
“Bye-bye.”
For a moment, A thought he heard his sister’s voice overlapping with hers.
With a sound like metal clashing together, the next moment, everything disappeared. There was only a dark rural path, and the girl and the taxi were gone.
A stood frozen in place. How much time passed? When he looked beside him, he saw a statue of a Jizo, an image of a guardian deity.
Its face seemed eerily similar to the girl’s.
A collapsed to the ground and, it is said, cried until morning.
This passage is an excerpt from “The Crying Girl” by Sena Ne, taken from the anthology “5 Minutes Later, Left Behind” by Nashihan. The story presents a surreal and eerie atmosphere, blending emotions with supernatural elements.
The overall feeling is one of deep psychological disturbance and regret, as the protagonist comes to terms with his guilt and the eerie presence of the girl, who seems to have a mysterious connection to his sister’s death.
The Last to be Left Behind in 5 Minutes” (Edited by Nashi, published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha)
