Kuchisake-onna

Every night, I have the same dream.

A hissing sound, like water leaking out of pipes. Wet, slapping footsteps. And then she appears, the slit across her mouth an endless, twisting, smile.

“Am I pretty?” she asks, “Am I pretty?”

I wake up, panting. I manage a worried glance at my sister, who sleeps next to me most nights because of her own nightmares.

“What’s wong bruvvy?” she asks, showing the gaps in her teeth. She’s five, but the worry I can see in her innocent face sometimes scares me.

“Nothing, Ann. Go back to sleep, okay?” But then my mom calls “Jonathan” from downstairs, and I know she won’t go back to sleep. She always follows me downstairs in the morning. I sighed and clunked my way down the stairs.

“Coming, mom!” Even now, I couldn’t shake the haunting words of the woman in my dream. Am I pretty? Like something from a horror movie. I grabbed a bagel and ate it without getting a plate. After I ate, I headed out to get on the public transport bus for school. I sat in a seat near the back and stared out the window, watching the monotonous scenery melt by. The bus shuddered to a grinding halt to let a passenger on. I looked up. I’m not a stalker or anything, but I liked seeing the kinds of people that got on the bus with me. The person getting on was a woman, and she had long, flowing hair that fell to her waist. It shone a beautiful black. She squeezes past every empty seat on the bus to sit next to me.

“Uh… hi.” I stammered. She turned to me. Something in her deep brown eyes seemed familiar, familiar and evil.

“Am I pretty?” She asked in a sickly sweet voice. As I looked into those devilish eyes, I realized where I had seen her before. I let out a startled cry that dissolved into a strangled gasp.

“Who are you?”

“Kuchisake-onna,” was the reply, but her lips didn’t move. The rest of the bus melted away, leaving me in a grey expanse like an endless slab of concrete. I had plenty of time to think as I ran off in one direction. I heard Kuchisake-onna laugh in my ear, but I didn’t waste time turning around to see how far behind she was. I knew I had heard her name before, in some urban legend before. The only problem was, I couldn’t remember the important details - like how to get rid of her. She appeared next to me as if by teleportation and I stumbled back.

“Am I pretty?” she demanded.

“N-no! No, you aren’t you scare me and-” I saw her pull out a knife as I jolted up. I was back in my bus seat, and Kuchisake was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief as I slumped in my seat. I got of the bus with my backpack slung over my shoulder, and made it to the double doors of the school before I felt my stomach clench in pain.

“Ah- ahh…” I panted.

“Somebody help him!” I heard someone shout as I collapsed to the ground. A crowd of people formed around me. I looked up, and my eyes swiveled around the ground, trying to find a face without a slit across it. Every person stared down at me. Their eyes were dark and evil, their mouths were slits, and everyone’s hair - if not that way already - was becoming long and dark.

“No,” I sobbed quietly. An ambulance drove up and Kuchisake-onna faced doctors dragged me inside.

“You can’t hide from me,” Kuchisake’s voice rang in my head. I looked around, trying to see where the words came from, but with dozens of look-alikes darting around me, I couldn’t tell. A doctor injected me with something that must have been a sedative, and the world blinked out into nothingness.

When I forced my eyes awake, going from the black of my eyelids to the blinding white room I was in, I knew I was in a hospital. My mom and sister stood over me, their worried faces not slit. No one’s was, in fact. Had I imagined it all? No. Not possible. Miss Slit-Face must have done something to me. Made me like this.

“Are you okay?” my mom asked, seeing my eyes open.

“Yeah. Can I go home?”

“Of course.” Ann practically dragged me into the car, and I instantly retreated to the safe haven of my room. I lay on my bed, exhausted. When would this day end? I was about to fall asleep when a loud thud sounded from the kitchen. I rushed downstairs to help my mom with whatever it was. I froze as I reached the bottom of the steps. My mother’s body was laying over the counter, blood pooling around her and dripping onto the floor. She was dead. As I looked on in horror, out of the corner of my eye I could see Kuchisake-onna.

“You!” I yelled in fury. I could see my sister’s body behind her, also dead.

“I told you I would find you,” she shrieked. “I always find you!” I doubled over with pain as she advanced on me with a knife.

By the time she reached me, I was glad to be dead.