A Magnetic Trauma

The Sea of Trees

My name is Professor Katsuro, I am forty five years old and live in my native country - Japan. I worked at a university north of Kobe that I would prefer not to name (so it can avoid attention as a result of these writings) where I taught students about many influential geographical locations around the world. I have travelled a great deal in my time. I specialise in particular with locations many would refer to as "eerie". People often make misconceptions about certain places around the world. If a place has an intimidating reputation, or unsettling appearance, people will often label it as haunted. I investigate locations with such reputations, as they boast incredibly rich histories.

I could list many locations that could be labelled as haunted. Centralia is an area of land in America that was once known for its coal mining. A fire broke out in the mines that was so devastating it led to the areas desertion. However, the fire still burns to this very day. If you travel to Centralia today, you will find that the entire place is shrouded in smokey mist, a permanent and ghostly reminder of the area's history.

Poveglia is an island a short distance off of the coast of Italy. Throughout the ages it has warranted a more than unsettling reputation. It was used as a dumping ground for plague victims in the middle ages, was the site of numerous conflicts and seems to attract misery in droves. The island is considered so dangerously haunted that the Italian government has actually made it illegal for the public to travel there.

I have visited many ghastly locations such as Centralia and Poveglia. I have never had a problem with the reputations of the places - yes, whilst they hold an air of mystery and often fear I have always dealt with this. The fear of the places gives me a sense of excitement that only spurs me on.

In all my years I have only visited one location that instilled in me such a sense of horror that I felt an immediate urge, made of raw animalistic panic, to leave the place. Ironically, this location is in my home country. In all my years of travelling the globe, the most nightmarish place was waiting for me at home.

Aokigahara, also known as the Sea of Trees, is a 35-square-kilometre forest that can be found at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan. It is best known, however, as the Suicide Forest.

Over the years, thousands of people have made final trips to the forest to end their lives. At one point it was such an endemic that government made public information films about the place, as well as gigantic signs that can now be found all around the forest deterring people. Many people visit Aokigahara for thrills. There aren't many places you can go camping or hiking where you can see corpses. People often search the woods for bodies and sick kicks.

I have visited Aokigahara only once, and I travelled there with two fellow investigators who I shall not name here - a man and a woman. The man, to this day, denies that he ever visited the forest at all. His mind seems to be locked in a state of disbelief, and denial seems to be the best defence. Sometimes I wish my own mind had initiated some similar defence.

I still have nightmares. Every single night. I wake up in cold sweats, and sleep itself is my most bitter enemy. Why must I be human? Why must humans require periods of sleep and rest? It all seems so hideously cruel.

We spent three days at Aokigahara. The first two days were unremarkable, and we discovered nothing disturbing or worrying other than a few discarded pairs of shoes that may have belonged to people who died in the forest. Withered and cut ropes still adorned the trees in places as well.

It wasn't until the second night that things started to go horribly wrong.

As we moved deeper and deeper into the forest, leaving coloured lanterns as waypoints so we could find our way back, the other fellow in our team began to notice something strange. Some of the trees had thin branches that were situated lower down on their trunks, and on some of these branches were clumps of some sort of strange material. Upon closer inspection, the material appeared to be some sort of hair. It was awfully thick and often so greasy that it was slimy to the touch, and it reeked of something more foul than anything else I had ever smelled. As we went on, such clumps of animal hair became more and more frequent.