In the heart of Fukuoka lies Nakasu, a district that draws crowds well into the small hours, alive with noise and neon. Yet a short distance from all that clamour, half-hidden from the street, stands an old building. The locals who know of it call it the Red Tower, and they speak of it in lowered voices.
The Red Tower was once a place of commerce and ambition. Shops and offices filled its floors, and people passed through its doors every day. Then, gradually, the tenants began to leave — one by one, then all at once — until the building stood entirely empty, visited by no one. Its exterior had taken on the colour of rust, a deep reddish stain that some say gave the tower its name.
One night, a university student named Takuya came to the Red Tower with a group of friends who made a habit of visiting haunted places. When they stepped inside the derelict building, a cold draught moved through the darkness, carrying with it the damp, stale smell of mould. With each step up the staircase, the old wood groaned beneath their feet. They moved carefully, phones raised, casting pale light ahead of them.
When they reached the top floor, they stopped. Every wall was covered in handprints — countless impressions pressed into the surface, dark reddish-black in colour, as though someone had clawed at the walls in desperate need of help. Then a cold wind struck them from behind, and they turned.
A woman stood there, head bowed. She wore an old kimono, and her face was hidden entirely behind a curtain of long, dark hair. None of them could move. Slowly, she raised her head. Her eyes were black and flat, and they passed over each of them in turn. A smile crept across her lips — quiet, wrong, deeply wrong. In the next instant, a shrieking filled their ears from somewhere inside their own skulls, and they lost consciousness.
When they came to, they were outside. The building loomed behind them in the dark. They could not account for how they had gotten out, but what remained with each of them — vivid and immovable — was the image of that smile, and the red handprints covering the walls. In the weeks that followed, strange things began to happen around them, one after another, and the shadow of the Red Tower did not leave them.
In Nakasu, the rumours about the Red Tower have never stopped. Those who hear them tend to go quiet and say nothing more on the subject, keeping well away from the place. Young people driven by curiosity still wander there from time to time, but most of them come running back, shaken and unwilling to say exactly what they saw. And the Red Tower stands on, silent, in its corner of Fukuoka, waiting.
