Urban Legends

Kuchisake Onna

Urban Legend
Kuchisake Onna is a Japanese Urban
Legend, and is about a woman, the "Slit Mouthed Woman" who once was incredibly beautiful, but lost her beauty due to (there are many different versions of the legend) her mouth being slit open by her husband, who was always away, and because of this she cheated on him, which made him incredibly mad when he found out, so mad that he slit her mouth. After her death, she came back as a vengeful spirit (onryō) who often wears a cloth mask and carries a knife or a big pair of scissors. She will ask you the question, "Do you think I'm beautiful?"If you awnser no, she will kill you. If you awnser yes, she will take off her mask, showing you her face. She will ask you, "And now?"If you awnser yes, she will slit your mouth just like hers. If you awnser no, she will cut you in half. There are some ways to avoid all of this, like saying she looks average, giving one enough time to run away, or giving her money or hard candies. This legend had it's peak in 1979, when children often didn't even go home from school alone, but were accompanied by grown-ups to stay safe.

Story

It was a cold day in Japan, and Kaito Sakura was walking by the train station to get home from school. He visited a private school that was pretty far away from his home. Kaito walked down the steps of the train station, looking at the sky outside. The clouds were dark and looked like they might burst any minute. A few homeless people were scattered along the walls of the train station, begging for money or food. A lady with a lot of luggage walked past Kaito. She was wearing a fur jacket and big, bedazzled sunglasses, even though the sun was covered by black clouds. A businessman walked by, he had on a fitted suit and looked stressed. Kaito walked out of the train station, into a side street. The street was narrow, and nobody else was in it, but that didn't bother Kaito too much. He just kept on walking. He felt a slight shiver down his neck, but he decided to ignore that and keep on walking. He turned around to look if anyone was behind him. No, nobody. He was all alone. He had to stop being so scared all the time, he told himself. But he couldn't shake off his weird feeling. It was most likely just because it was gloomy outside, and to top it off, he had watched a horror film last night. He walked out of the side street, into the main city. He saw a few school girls getting drinks after school or studying for upcoming tests. Kaito walked through the city, checking out the people passing by. Most of them were businessmen and women, on their way to the big company building right outside the city. Some of them were tourists, checking out the city and snapping annoyingly many photos. Kaito looked around, trying to find people he knew and could hang out with, but he didn't recognize anyone, so he decided to just continue walking home. After a while, he found himself in a small, narrow street again. At the end of it, he saw a woman. She looked a bit funny, he thought. Her face was partially covered by a mask, not allowing Kaito to really see any of her features, though the ones he could make out looked fairly pretty. The women walked up to Kaito. Kaito panicked a bit, but he convinced himself she was probably just a nice person. Maybe she would ask him for directions. She had black hair and was wearing a dress. She was also quite tall, maybe about 6 feet. "Do you think I'm beautiful?"she asked him. The question surprised Kaito, since he didn't know why this random woman was asking him this, but he wasn't going to be rude, and he did think she was beautiful. "Yes, of course."he said to her, smiling a bit uncertainly, not knowing what he should really do. The woman was scaring him. He wanted to run away, but the alleyway was so narrow and small, and he was sure she could catch him if she wanted to. He wasn't a fast runner, and anyway, it was strange to just run away, he thought. Then the woman did something strange. She peeled off her mask. Kaito didn't expect that, really, and when he saw her face, he wondered if he should have tried to run away. The corners of the woman's mouth were slit from ear to ear, giving her a creepy, permanent smile. "Even now?"she asked. Kaito was a bit speechless at first, not knowing exactly what to say. The woman scared him. "Um, yes, sure." he said nervously. He looked down, noticing that the woman was carrying a pair of very sharp scissors. He was scared. She raised her hand, holding him with a force he could not escape. Kaito felt panicked. The woman took her scissors, slowly slitting Kaitos mouth, inch for inch. Kaito screamed out, it hurt so much. He tried to escape, pressing his entire body weight against the woman, but he couldn't. She continued slitting his mouth until he himself had a permanent smile. He could feel the blood dripping down his face. He tasted the metallic taste in his mouth. He was crying from the pain, catching the blood dripping from his mouth. The woman put back on her strange mask, looked at him, and walked down the alleyway like nothing had happened. Kaito sat on the floor, his mouth dripping full of blood, his head reeling from the pain and shock of what had happened. The blood dripped on his clothes, creating deep red marks on the white school uniforms. He just sat there, in awe of what had happened, frightened for his life to stand up. He stumbled up, looking for someone, but nobody was in the alley, and he had lost his sense of direction. He was so messed up and scared. He stumbled around the houses, feeling his slit mouth, crying from the pain. At some point, he sunk to the floor, sitting against a wall, staring into the sky. It was the same sky from just an hour ago, when he had walked by the train station, and yet it felt like that had been millions of years ago. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. Slowly, he drifted into a horrible sleep, his mouth full of blood, his heart racing.