Four summers ago, I had spent the night reading stories on Tumblr ranging from fan fiction to nonfiction works that bloggers would post for others to see. It was around 2:00 am when I stumbled upon a link that one of my friends had posted about an American exchange student in Japan who played a game with her host sister called Hitori Kakurenbo. Hitori Kakurenbo, or one man hide-n-seek, is a terrifying game originating in Japan by high schoolers where they play hide-n-seek by summoning and capturing a ghost into a stuffed doll. The hair-raising ghost story was posted by reddit user, sarahinjapan in June of 2013. Personally, I find myself to be spiritual and also very superstitious and after watching Supernatural, I know very well not to anger or play with spirits. However, I do understand that people do have a curiosity of the things that go bump in the night and decide to summon them and this, was one of the many cases. After reading Sarah's story, my curious mind decided to read up more on these cases and why people were so drawn to playing hide-n-seek with a spirit.

Four years later, I've returned to the subject after stumbling back to Sarah's story on reddit. She added a slew of updates of the aftermath of Hitori Kakurenbo that I had missed out on. While I thought Sarah and her host sister, Akane, would have a happy ending, it turns out that things turned out to be rather grim. It was the climactic horror that ranged from the host sister being possessed to Sarah's sister having to be blessed by the pastor in order for the effects of the spirit to be lifted. It was all the more nail-biting as the story continued on. Needless to say, Sarah and Akane got themselves into a huge spiritual mess that could have easily been avoided: not playing the game at all.

So what went wrong with the two girls? As I went back to read the first post, I noticed that Sarah had posted a link of how to properly play the game. This was something I had originally brushed over when I first read the story, but now I realize why she had posted the link in the first place. For starters, they played together, rather than separately. Secondly, they used blood instead of using fingernail clippings. Now, to the best of my knowledge, I know that using blood in any sort of ghostly ritual is practically a death sentence and yet the girls in this story did just that. On top of the blood-binding contract, Akane swallows the salt water when it's mentioned in the proper instructions not to do so. The most spine-tingling moment was when Akane was possessed by the spirit they had played with. This was all simply because Akane had swallowed the salt water, therefore making her vulnerable for possession.

While reading through the comments I've read everything from advice, begging for Sarah to visit a priest in Japan for spiritual cleansing to spirit enthusiasts excited to play the game of Hitori Kakurenbo. Believers and non-believers alike all gathered on this girl's reddit page to read this horror story and all had very similar things to say. Some non-believers began to believe, while others vowed to never play the game. Sure, this game has sparked a curiosity in my mind, but with being spiritual, I would rather not put my life in danger for the sake of playing a little hide-n-seek with a spirit.