Mori Kumiko's true ghost story and I'm not sleeping tonight

Okay I wasn't going to post this but there's a famous Japanese opera singer named Mori Kumiko and she's kind of iconic. Big lady, super loud personality, the type you can't actually hate. Nickname's Kumi-chan. She lost like 66 lbs recently from a banana diet btw. Anyway she's also known for being really spiritually sensitive, like she and this horror show host named Inagawa Junji used to do scary story segments on TV together all the time.

So. Middle school field trip. Kumi-chan and seven other girls get put in a room at a rural inn and the second they all walk in, every single one of them goes "...what is WRONG with this room." That immediate vibe check failure.

They're unpacking and they spot it. A traditional Japanese doll. White face, full kimono, locked inside a glass case. You know the type. And okay, apparently these things are in basically every old inn in Japan so the girls were like. whatever. Normal doll. Moving on.

Kumi-chan falls asleep that night and then.

Fwsh.

Fwsh.

Fwsh......fwsh.

Some kind of swishing sound from the corner. She figured one of the girls was restless from hiking and just couldn't sleep. Ignored it. Went back to sleep.

Morning comes and the one girl in the group who's the most spiritually sensitive (you know every friend group has one) comes to breakfast looking PALE. Like actually gray. She goes "I can't stay in that room. I'm sorry. I'm moving out." Packs her stuff. Leaves.

So at breakfast Kumi-chan asks her what happened.

The girl goes. "Did you guys hear that swishing sound last night?"

Yeah, they all heard it.

"That was the doll. It was waving its arms up and down. All night. The kimono sleeves kept swishing every time it moved."

She said. She said. The doll was raising its arms up and then dropping them. Over and over. While everyone slept. But it couldn't turn its whole head so instead it was rolling its eyes around the room scanning each girl until.

It locked eyes with her.

And then it made this sound like "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

They all ran back to the room to check and sure enough. The doll. Sealed inside its locked glass case that nobody had touched. Both arms raised up like it was doing a cheer.

Kumi-chan and the rest of the girls immediately also switched rooms.

Then on the way home they're all on the bus and suddenly the spiritually sensitive girl starts quietly saying to herself.

"Who's there?"

"...who's there?"

Everyone looks at the seat next to the driver. Passenger seat. There's someone sitting there.

And then there isn't.