When I was still a kid, there was a deep forest in my neighborhood.
Around the entrance to the forest was a place dotted with fields and graveyards.
Mixed in with sawtooth oak and chestnut trees by the side of the footpath
There were stupas and mossy unmarked Buddhist statues lined up in a messy row by the side of the footpath.
When the procession of gravestones was interrupted, there was an entrance to the forest between the trees.
The entrance to the forest was like a cave.
It was near the end of summer vacation in my fourth year of elementary school.
During that summer vacation, I went through the graveyard every day with my three friends.
We went through the graveyard and went into the forest to
We spent our days exploring and catching beetles.
We were warned by our school and family that it was a dangerous place and we should not enter.
but this was no deterrent to my overflowing curiosity.
That day. I remember it was an unusually cool day for August.
We had explored all we could find in the forest.
I don’t know who suggested that we go into the deepest part of the forest leading to the edge of the mountain, which we had never been in before.
We rushed down the roadless path, clearing the overgrown grass.
We eventually came to a place that gave us a strange feeling.
It was an open space about the size of a 25-meter swimming pool.
There were several huge trees rising around it.
The giant trees were stretching their branches and leaves as if they were competing with each other.
The area was very dim even though it was daytime in August.
The sun was falling through the trees from the blue sky that peeked through the gaps between the leaves that spread out as if to cover the sky.
The ground of the square where the sunlight was falling through the trees was clean and clear as if it had been swept clean.
Not a single weed grew on the ground.
We felt an inexpressible fear.
We all started to say, “Let’s go home. ”
That’s when it happened.
The cicadas, which had been chirping like mad, suddenly stopped.
All sounds disappeared from the world.
Then color completely disappeared from our vision.
It was as if I was watching a monochrome movie.
I turned to my friends in a panic.
They, too, were standing there stunned.
I later heard that they, like me, had lost all sound and color.
I was going crazy with anxiety and fear.
I think it was only after I had been in a daze for a while that I thought to myself, “Let’s run away.”
But when I finally thought of it, I could not move my body at all.
It was as if my legs had become two stakes and stuck in the ground.
I was overcome with despair.
I struggled to move my body somehow.
Suddenly, something shiny came into view.
Something like golden snowflakes were dancing in the air.
In the colorless world, only the snow was glittering.
Only the snow was glistening.
And through the snow, a golden fox, the size of a lion, emerged from the trees.
It emerged from the trees and came toward us.
The fox crossed the plaza at a leisurely pace and disappeared back into the darkness among the giant trees without seeming to pay any attention to us.
It must have only lasted about a minute, but to me it felt like an unusually long time.
But it was a minute that felt unusually long to me.
Once the fox disappeared, the cicadas began to sing again, as if nothing had happened.
The cicadas began to sing again, and the vivid colors of late summer returned to my vision.
We started running, shouting incomprehensible cries.
We were covered in cuts and bruises from the silver grass and thorns when we finally escaped the forest.
We thought we were finally saved.
When I told my grandfather about what we had experienced after arriving at the
Grandfather said
“That’s the mountain sprit. Then he looked a little scared and said, “Don’t go back there.”
I did not follow my grandfather’s advice to the letter, but
There is no sequel to this story.
There are no tales of how he later went there and found no such place, or of horrifying legends.
We talked about it every time we met.
I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to go back there again, but
But strangely enough, we never went back to that place again.
Time passed.
The forest was cut through by housing development, and a large road was built through it.
The fields were destroyed, the footpaths were replaced by asphalt.
The graveyard was moved to a different location, and a pension-style house was built on top of it.
Cars are passing by on the road that only foxes and raccoons used to take.
That place where we saw the foxes
probably no longer exists.
