Hey, can I tell you something?
In Hiroshima, out in Saeki Ward… there's a place called Uogiri Dam. Have you heard of it?
I don't know much about it myself, but a little while ago someone told me a story. They said they'd heard it from someone else, so I can't say how much of it is true… but I haven't been able to get it out of my head.
A friend of this person was into photography. Loved shooting the surface of water at night — lakes, rivers, dams. Still and beautiful, isn't it, water at night. So without a second thought, they went to Uogiri Dam alone. Sometime just past midnight, from what I was told.
They parked in the lot and walked toward the dam, and it was quieter than they'd expected. No insects, no wind. Just the smell of water. Not like a river — heavier than that, like mud and something rotting all mixed together. That smell, they said, clung to the back of their nose and wouldn't leave.
They made it to the railing and raised the camera. The surface was pitch black, nothing showing, but they started pressing the shutter anyway. After a while… they noticed something.
Something was in the water.
At first they thought it was driftwood. Dark, long, bobbing on the surface. But looking closer… it was standing. Not on the water — in it. Submerged to the knees, but with the upper body clear above the surface. They knew right away it was a woman. Long hair, soaked, plastered across her face.
Not moving. Just watching.
Maybe twenty meters away. Standing right at the water's edge beyond the railing, perfectly still, staring back.
They got scared and reached to put the camera away — and that's when they felt something touch their ankle.
Cold. Unbearably cold, but shaped like a human hand, with fingers, real fingers. They spun around. Nothing there. But the sensation stayed, pressing into the skin.
They ran back to the car, but the engine wouldn't start. Three times, four times turning the key, not even a sound. Only the navigation screen glowed faintly — and it began showing directions to somewhere. A road they'd never seen. A road that seemed to lead straight into the dam.
Eventually the engine did start. But every photo from that night was gone. Not a single one remained — except for one. One image, all black, with something white in it. A pale blur, too faint to say for certain it was a face.
After that, they couldn't go outside alone at night anymore.
Uogiri Dam has had stories attached to it for a long time, apparently. A killing, they say. A woman who threw herself in. Bodies brought there during the war. None of it confirmed, none of it denied.
But you know — that feeling of cold fingers around the ankle, they say it's still there. Still alive in that person's memory.
It never went away.
