Would you hear me out for a moment?
In Shimane, west of Izumo Grand Shrine — there's a road that runs toward Hinomisaki, out near the cape — and somewhere along that far edge, there's said to be an abandoned inn called Kamome-sō.
I only know this secondhand, so I can't vouch for any of it.
Apparently it was an ordinary inn once. Some people say the sea was visible from the rooms, that the sunsets there were beautiful. But it closed long ago, and now the place is a ruin through and through. Word is it's become one of the better-known haunted sites in the prefecture.
The location itself is strange. It's said to stand at the base of a cliff that juts out over the sea — and the waters below have a reputation for collecting the drowned. Whether the currents actually run that way, I couldn't say. But that's what people call it. I've heard the locals won't go near it.
Some years back, a spirit medium apparently paid the place a visit. Quite a well-regarded one, by all accounts. But not long after entering the building, the color drained from their face, and they left without completing any kind of cleansing — just turned around and walked out. Afterward, they said only one thing: *there are too many there.* Too many of what, they never explained.
That alone would be enough. But there's one more thing, and this is the part that stays with me.
A few years ago, a young man went to Kamome-sō on a dare with some friends. Around one or two in the morning, they said. They walked through the building, and when they came back out onto the grounds, there was a sickle lying in the dirt. An old, rusted farming sickle. No way to know if someone had left it there or if it had always been. But the young man, half on a whim, decided to take it home with him.
His friends told him not to. He laughed, tossed it into the trunk, and they drove away.
The next morning.
He woke to pain in his cheek. When he touched it, there was something slick — blood. It had soaked into the pillow, a dark red stain spreading through the fabric. The sickle, which he was certain he'd left in the trunk, was sitting beside his pillow. The blade angled toward his face.
The cut was shallow, they said. Nothing life-threatening. But it left a scar. A mark on his face that would never fully fade.
I imagine he thinks of it every time he looks in a mirror.
There's also talk of a sealed door in the basement — said to be the most dangerous place in all of Kamome-sō. But what lies behind it, no one knows. Because no one who has gone in has come back out properly.
There's simply no way to find out.
Though there is one strange thing. Everyone who has been inside Kamome-sō seems to mention the same detail, without any prompting. While moving through the building, they say, the smell of the sea drifts in from nowhere in particular.
You'd think that was only natural — a ruin facing the ocean.
But the smell grows strongest, they say, right in front of that basement door.
Even though the door faces the wall on the opposite side from the sea.
