I know it was a long time ago…
It was around the time when I was in elementary school.
It was around August, at the end of summer vacation.
My hometown is near the sea, and there is an embankment along the coastline.
I used to play with my friends on the bank near the embankment.
It was almost the end of summer vacation.
We took out our skateboards and skateboarded near the bank of the embankment.
After a while,I was thirsty and went to a nearby vending machine to buy some juice. The other guys were still skateboarding on the embankment.
I could see from the vending machine that the other guys were still skateboarding on the embankment.
As I was walking back to the embankment after buying the juice, I suddenly realized, “…one of my friends is not there.”
One of the guys was gone.
I said to the other guys, ” Y is not here.”
“Well, he was here a minute ago,” they said.
They didn’t seem to know where he had gone.
At that time, the sea was high tide, the wind was strong, and the waves were rough.
If he had fallen into the sea, he would have been in trouble.
With this in mind, we hurriedly began to search for Y.
The grass under the bank was overgrown with weeds, some of which were as tall as a person.
We waded through the grass and searched for Y, shouting his name with our companions.
Then they heard the voice of one of their friends saying, “There he is!”
We rushed to the spot where we heard the voice.
There, we found Y lying on the ground.
Y’s face was pale and he was cowering, holding his left ankle.
His face was drenched in sweat, and he was mumbling something like a gibberish.
We knew this was something out of the ordinary, so we immediately put him on the bike and took him to a nearby hospital.
We called Y’s parents.
We were told that Y had a complex fracture, and that it looked like the bone had been shattered vertically, which was a strange thing.
Y’s parents thanked us and we went home.
On the first Sunday of the second semester, I, along with the friends I was with at the time, went to explore the grassy area where Y had collapsed.
Why was Y lying there?
Why was he injured like that?
・・・・ I felt like a bit of a detective.
I looked around for a while, but found nothing.
The guys I was exploring with seemed to get bored and went to the bank and started skateboarding.
I was getting tired of it too.
That’s when it happened.
I found a grassless area a little beyond where Y had fallen.
As I approached, I saw a pile of charcoal that looked like it had been burned.
It smelled bad, like burnt rubber.
I approached and slowly observed them. I felt goosebumps all over my body.
They were all dolls.
They looked like japanese dolls. Their long slit eyes and small lips were burnt black.
I think there were 50 dolls in all, maybe more.
One doll that had fallen from the pile caught my eye.
The doll’s left ankle was charred black and had come undone.
I was so horrified that I did not tell my friends about the doll.
I just wanted to go home as soon as possible, so I urged my friends to leave the place.
When I got home, I told my parents about it.
They laughed at first, but when I told them that I had seen the doll, their faces turned grim.
I told my parents that I had seen the doll.
My parents quietly told me something.
The town where I live used to be an ocean. That the land was reclaimed and filled in.
That the work was very hard at that time, and many people were sacrificed.
In order to offer offerings to those who were sacrificed, dolls were dedicated to the shrine each time.
The shrine where the dolls were dedicated is now dilapidated and no one visits it anymore.
And that the shrine is located right next to the bank where we used to skateboard and play.
that we used to play with skateboards.
I don’t know who burned the doll there.
When I asked Y what had happened at that time, he shut his mouth and stopped talking.
A long time has passed since then.
I still hate dolls.
No matter what kind of doll it is, it reminds me of that time.
