…Now, I cannot say with any certainty that this is true. It is simply something I heard from one of the people who visits this shrine, and I pass it along just as it was told to me. Whether you believe it or not is entirely up to you.
It concerns the shore at Fujisawa. If you have ever driven Route 134 at night, you will know how the smell of the sea thickens as the darkness deepens — that damp, salt-and-seaweed smell. They say that right around where the smell grows strongest, there is a place where you can walk down onto the beach.
This person had been out driving with a friend, late at night, for no particular reason — just a feeling, they said. It was around two or three in the morning, they thought. At that hour the road along the coast empties of people entirely, and the sound of the waves comes pressing in through the windows like something alive. That was the kind of night it was.
The two of them parked the car and went down onto the sand. Nothing to be afraid of, they told themselves. The sand was heavy with night dew and gave a little underfoot with each step. They stood some distance back from the waterline and looked out at the sea.
It was dark, and at first they could see nothing. But as their eyes adjusted, something began to take shape out in the water — something long, stretched out sideways, indistinct. There may have been mist. The outline refused to resolve itself. But one thing was clear from the start: it was not moving. Not rocking with the waves, not drifting. Simply there, utterly still.
When the friend said, "What is that?" they both moved closer — right to the edge of the wet sand, where the waves just reached their feet.
And then they understood.
They were people.
Not one. Not two. Not ten. Far more than that — stretching along the horizon, without end, in a line. All facing the same direction, their backs turned to the shore. Standing in the sea up to their knees, arranged with a terrible, perfect neatness, as though someone had placed them there.
Before fear could even take hold, the person's mind went blank. The question — what is this — never fully formed. The body simply stopped.
There was one detail that stayed with them afterward. The figures did not move with the waves. It was the deep of night, and the sea was not calm — the waves came in and pulled back, came in and pulled back. But the figures stood through all of it without the slightest tremor. They only stood there, facing the open water.
No sound. No presence. Only that line — impossibly, wrongly orderly.
The friend grabbed their arm without a word. That broke the spell. They ran back to the car together.
Even after they got in and started driving, neither of them could speak for a long time. And even with the engine running and the car moving, neither could bring themselves to look at the beach in the rearview mirror.
As for what it was — I cannot say. There are old stories about those who have died in these waters; that much is true of this coastline. But that is not what troubles me most.
What made the person's blood run cold, thinking back on it afterward, was not that the figures had their backs turned.
It was this: there had been a moment when they tried to count them. They had narrowed their eyes and tried to trace the line from one end to the other.
And in that moment, they noticed that the figure standing closest to shore was turned at a slightly different angle from all the rest.
Not fully facing them. Only a little. Just the head — turned, ever so slightly, toward the shore.
That is all. I cannot tell you what it means. But I am told that since that night, this person has not gone near the sea after dark. Perhaps "cannot" would be the more honest word.
Even now, whenever they catch the smell of the tide, that night comes back to them. They said it very quietly.
