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I
had been living in a small town outside of Osaka, Japan
for over a year before someone finally told me the ground
beneath my apartment was haunted. I suspected something
was amiss with that part of town since my room’s
florescent bulb was the only light flickering in the
area at night, and the apartment (which consisted of
not much beyond my small room, a hot plate, a sink and
a cabinet-sized bathroom) was perched atop a pipe-cutting
factory and frequently used fertilizer storage shed.
The nearest homes were a few blocks away.
Everyone in town apparently knew
the history of the land beneath the factory, the parking
lot, and the private school where I taught English classes
across the street. No one except an ignorant foreigner
would willingly agree to live anywhere near there. The
land was haunted because it was layered with skeletons
from battles fought in the nearby swamps and rice fields
hundreds of years before. Everyone who dug a foundation
eventually hit bone. The spirits of all the soldiers,
villagers and bandits who lost their lives on that land
were said to wander the shadows at night sending the
chill of death scampering down the spine of anyone unlucky
enough to encounter them.
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