Suicide Forest

Today was the day that Alex, Josh, and I are going to the Suicide Forest in Japan. About 50-100 people commit suicide yearly in the forest, so I was quite scared of it. All of us still wanted to see it, though, so we got all our stuff and were on the way to the airport. I was scared of things like this, but Alex and Josh thought it sounded cool. Once we got to the airport we boarded the plane, I got relaxed.

“So you guys ready?” asked Josh.

“Ya! I can’t wait!” replied Alex.

Then Josh said, “How about you Michael?”

I replied, “Kinda, I’m still kinda creeped out.”

After we took off, I took a nap. When I woke up, we had about 2 hours left until we would get to Japan. I ate some snacks and went to the bathroom.

We arrived at the airport and headed out. It was about 4 p.m. in Japan, so we started walking to the Forest. On the way we saw some cool stuff, like clothes, cars, food, and some people dressed up.

When we got to the Forest entrance, there was a sign that said “Think about your families, and contact a suicide prevention service” We all looked at each other.

“Well. Here it is, time to go.” Alex said

I replied,  “I guess. Here we go.”

When we walked in, we started to look around. We started walking around looking. There were other visitors looking there also. It was so quiet: no noises could be heard. Off in the distance you could hear a faint voice. No one could make out what it said, so we figured it was another visitor. We found a path that was quite creepy looking. There was trees were on both sides leading you like a wall. At the end it opened back up, and we saw a tree that had a note on it. We walked over to it and started to read it. It was a suicide note of one of the people.

“Uhh, guys, I don’t know about this. I don’t like how that looks.” I said shortly after they read it.

“It’s fine Michael, I’m sure they just left it here for people to see” Josh said.

“Ya, Michael, were good” Alex also said.

We continued walking in the Forest and looked at some of the creepy things. There were some more notes and some remains. After about 3-4 hours of walking in different directions, we were lost. I was scared out of my mind. None of us knew what direction to go, and it was turning dark. We started to jog looking for an exit to the Forest, but it just kept going on and on and on.

“Guys, can we call anyone?” I asked worriedly.

“There's no service out here!” Alex yelled.

Then Josh started whispering, “No, no, no, no, there has to be a way out of here!”

I asked, “What time is it?

“It’s about 7,” replied Alex.

“It’s gonna be dark here in about an hour. We need to hurry up and find the exit!” Josh said.

“Let’s head that way!” Alex said quickly.

We started running and looked around for some type of opening in the forest. We ran until we were all panting and tired, in which we started walking again. Once we got all our breath back we started to jog while we looked for an opening. It was starting to turn black, and Alex and I were running a little fast for Josh.

“Guys, slow down!” said Josh tiredly.

We slowed down a little, but Josh was still behind us. After a few more minutes of running, we heard a noise behind us. We looked back and saw Josh way back in the distance. He was walking backwards towards where we came from. We started running and yelling at him, and he just kept walking into the forest. When we caught up to him, we asked what he was doing.

He replied saying, “There's no way out of here. We might as well do what they all do.”

He started to dead sprint into the forest, and we tried to catch up but, it was the fastest we ever seen him run. We were exhausted from trying to get back and we had to run again. We were really tired and couldn't go very far. He eventually got out of our distance and we lost him.

“What do we do? Josh is gone! He’s gone!” I yelled.

“I don’t know Michael. I don’t know what to do right now” Alex replied shortly after.

We started walking the way he was running but didn’t see anyone. It was dark now, and we couldn’t see very well anymore. Alex said that we should go to the left, so we started to go looking for an exit. We started jogging again, wanting to get out as fast as possible. After about 30 minutes of walking and jogging we saw some lights. I started sprinting towards the lights.

“We made it Alex!” I yelled.

When I made it to the light, I turned around to see no one there. Alex was gone.

“Alex! Alex! Where are you!” I started yelling

No replies came back from the forest. I ran to the closest building and tried asking for help. They said that they would tell the police the next day. I was all alone; the only one that didn’t want to go the forest. I knew it was a bad idea.