My family didn't grow up being taught about the local history because my father got married and moved out on his own, and we just happened to live on the land we bought.
But because it's a rural area, many of my classmates have lived there for generations, and those who grew up hearing the old stories about the land became my friends.
But there is a place in my hometown that they all say is "bad.
It used to be a place of execution, where heads were cut off or laid out in rows, or something like that.
At the site of the supposed site, there was a small apartment complex with colored walls, a gymnasium used by the neighbors, a gate ball field, and a phone booth.
When I was in junior high school, more than 20 years ago, my friends told me that the people who lived in that complex put money on their houses to protect them from something.
I heard this story as something they had actually seen, so it didn't sound like a gossip or a scary story, but rather a special place that I could accept.
For the people who live there and the people who enter there, it was nothing special, it was natural and natural.
I met these people through club activities in junior high school, so I had no contact with them when I was in elementary school, but I still remember the stories they told me about their experiences when they used the gymnasium at the site when they were in elementary school.
That day, it seems we all played basketball in the gymnasium until late in the evening.
The gymnasium had a system whereby the person who reserved the gymnasium kept the key, locked the door when they were done, and returned the key to the designated place.
When we were about to leave after closing the last door, one of my friends turned around and looked at me.
One of my friends turned around and looked toward the bathroom at the end of the hallway opposite the entrance and froze.
Everyone in the hallway looked in the direction of the restrooms.
The premise of the gymnasium is that no one is supposed to be in the gymnasium except the users who applied for it.
The first one looked in the direction of the restrooms because he felt eyes on him from the back of the gymnasium, where we were the only ones playing basketball.
He noticed someone peeking at him from behind the entrance to the women's restroom, and he said it was the same person's gaze.
The person was looking at me with both eyes, with her face halfway up the blindfolded wall, her hair long and loose down her face, and I vaguely recognized her as a woman.
Because of the location, my friend immediately thought it was a ghost.
But I didn't get scared or startled right away.
I just accepted that it could have been there, and the other guys seemed to have noticed the same thing.
As soon as everyone noticed, the woman slipped behind the wall and disappeared.
They all said she was dragged behind them.
Everyone there saw a large hand reach out from behind the woman, grab her head, and drag her over the wall.
There is something scarier than a ghost.
That's when they got scared, and they all screamed at once and ran back home.
The gymnasium is still there, the apartment complex next to it has darker walls than before, and there is still a telephone booth that becomes more prominent at night because of the darkness around it.
So maybe the hand that drags you in is still there.
Even as an adult, I still get nervous when I pass by there.
Even though a convenience store was built in front of it and it became a little brighter, the heavy feeling of that place at night has never changed.