Kisaragi Station
– A Japanese Urban Legend Born Online
1. About Kisaragi Station
“I might just be imagining things…
But may I say something?
Something feels off. I’ve been riding this private railway train, and things aren’t right.”
This post appeared on a Japanese internet forum late one night in the winter of 2004.
It was buried in an obscure thread, written in unremarkable prose.
And yet, what followed rippled outward like a stone dropped into still water—spreading a quiet but insistent sense of what if.
The user, who went by the name Hasumi, claimed they were on a local train heading home when it began skipping all its usual stops—until it finally arrived at a place no one had ever heard of: Kisaragi Station.
The station was deserted.
Surrounded by mountains and tunnels.
Cell reception grew weak, and their sense of reality began to slip.
What unfolded next was a tense, real-time exchange between Hasumi and other forum users, as they tried to figure out how Hasumi might return to the world they knew.
Eventually, Hasumi left a final message—something about being guided away by a mysterious figure—and then… silence. No more posts.
Nearly two decades have passed since then.
Kisaragi Station has become a modern legend in Japan—perhaps the crown jewel of online horror tales.
It has been adapted into books, dramas, and videos, and even introduced overseas through Reddit threads and YouTube deep-dives. Among fans of internet creepypasta, it’s often described as “J-Horror in its purest form.”
Of course, there’s no such station in real life, and few Japanese people genuinely believe the story to be true.
And yet, the tale refuses to fade—perhaps because it captures something we’ve all experienced:
a subtle, unshakable sense of wrongness seeping into the everyday.
And by unfolding in real time on a message board, that feeling wasn’t just described—it was shared, made eerily tangible as it happened.
After the post about “Kisaragi Station” went viral, other messages began to appear online—people claiming to have had similar experiences.
Stories of stepping off at strange, unfamiliar stations.
Stories of trains that wouldn’t let them off.
Whether any of them were real is impossible to say.
But some of those tales sounded like the stories of “the next someone.”
2. The Things That Are There
I suppose I was just a little worn out.
For days on end, I’d been working late into the night—sometimes even skipping the trip home—pouring everything into a proposal for a new product to win over a potential client.
I had just finished presenting. At last, it was behind me.
On top of that, there had been a major change in my personal life.
Three weeks earlier, my father had passed away.
While I explained the situation and had most of my workload covered for the week, I spent my days making phone calls to relatives, planning the funeral, securing a burial plot, and sorting through his belongings—things I’d never done before.
My mother, whose legs had grown too weak to rely on, couldn’t really help. I did nearly all of it on my own.
He had always been a stern man.
Because of that, we never had an easy relationship.
When I said I wouldn’t take over the family business and was moving to Tokyo, that distance became final.
My father had been a seal engraver. He carved characters and decorations into small blocks of stone—an art most people don’t even realize exists.
For sixty years, he held a slender iron chisel in his hand and etched stone with quiet precision.
But this was a different era. A future in seal engraving didn’t seem likely—not to me, back then. So I left.
We hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years.
Sitting on a local train seat, I rested my hand on the bag in my lap.
Inside was the proposal, topped with the slogan I’d worked so hard to perfect: “Beyond Dreams. Into Reality.”
Next to me sat a young colleague—friendly, a bit impulsive, but trustworthy.
I recalled the client’s face. The reaction hadn’t been bad.
A small but certain sense of fulfillment began to settle over me.
I must have dozed off for a short while.
When I opened my eyes, something felt wrong. It was strangely quiet.
I glanced to the seat beside me.
The young man was asleep, just as I had been.
I turned to the window.
It was too dim for daytime—no, that wasn’t it.
It’s human nature to smooth over discomfort.
But the truth was, it felt far too dark for midday.
I checked my watch. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes had passed since we boarded.
I looked around to see how the other passengers were doing—
But that’s when I realized.
There weren’t any. It was just the two of us.
At that moment, the train came to a stop.
Without my noticing, my colleague had already stood up. With perfect calm, he said,
“Let’s get off.”
But that made no sense.
It was a nearly pitch-black, clearly unfamiliar station. And we were the only ones getting off?
He didn’t wait for my reaction. He was already moving toward the door.
There was no time to hesitate. I grabbed my bag and followed him.
Since the train had stopped, this was technically a station.
But it was nothing like any station I knew.
A bare wooden platform stretched before us, dimly lit by a few lamps. Not complete darkness, but close.
The platform was walled in by tall wooden partitions, hiding everything beyond.
From the stillness, from the air itself, I could tell—this was not part of the city I knew.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a small station building at the end of the platform.
A faint glow seeped through its window.
My colleague was already walking toward it.
Why wasn’t he saying anything?
He had to notice something was off.
This was too strange to overlook.
I needed to understand what was going on. I called out, hurrying after him.
“Hey—”
But before I could say more, he’d already opened the door and slipped inside.
When I followed, I found him standing with his back to me.
He seemed to be speaking, but the tone was wrong—flat, lifeless, barely a whisper.
And in front of him stood something… stranger still.
A pillar of light.
It shimmered faintly, about as tall as a person.
Not just light—it had weight, edges, a presence.
I stepped closer to make sense of it.
As I approached, it began to take shape. A human shape.
And then I understood.
It was my father.
It was absurd, of course.
He was dead. I had seen him off with my own hands.
And yet, the idea that this wasn’t him felt harder to accept than the idea that it was.
It wasn’t fear—it was something more uncomfortable. Something I didn’t have a name for.
I turned to my colleague.
He was speaking to the light.
To my father?
No… he must have been seeing someone else.
Someone only he would recognize.
Should I say something, too?
Should I speak to this figure—this presence—that had taken the form of my father?
But what would I even say?
We hadn’t spoken in twenty years.
What kind of words do you say in a reunion like this?
I could only stare.
A thousand thoughts ran through my mind, but none came out.
And from that point on, my memory is blank.
The next thing I remember, I was back on the train—just as before.
I checked my watch.
Ten, maybe fifteen minutes had passed.
I looked at the young man beside me.
Nothing had changed. He was just the same.
The train was filled with passengers again, each absorbed in their own quiet lives.
Before long, we arrived at our destination.
A normal station. Nothing strange about it.
As we walked toward the gate, I felt an urge to tell him what I’d just experienced.
I knew it had to be a dream.
And yet, it had felt too real.
Even now, I could still feel the cold metal of the station doorknob in my hand.
I hesitated, then spoke.
“Hey, this might sound strange, but earlier—”
“Oh, I need to stop by the office real quick,” he said, our voices overlapping for a moment.
“Sorry—I’ll head out from here.”
And with a smile, he walked off toward the transfer platform.
I watched his back and thought:
Did he just… cut me off?
No. That can’t be. Why would he?
And that’s when I realized—I was more exhausted than I’d thought.
I just wanted to go home. Say I’m back. Eat something. Crawl into bed.
Maybe even say thanks—for being the one I come home to.
I passed through the gate and headed for my next train.
Some time later, when the strange dream had begun to fade into memory, I found something in my bag.
I hadn’t noticed it before—thin, cool, and just heavy enough to sink to the bottom.
I pulled it out.
It was the chisel my father had used for sixty years.
We hadn’t found it when sorting through his belongings.
Even my mother had found it odd—he would never have misplaced it.
How did it end up in my bag?
I couldn’t help but wonder.
And for some reason, I found myself letting out a quiet laugh.
Ah, Father.
Maybe this was as close as we were ever going to get.
I called my mother. I was planning to send it to her.
But she didn’t even pause.
“No,” she said. “You keep it.”
And in that moment, something I’d been carrying for years quietly let go of me.
3. Finding It on the Map That Isn’t There
3-1. Where Is Kisaragi Station?
Kisaragi Station does not exist.
It has never appeared on any official railway map, timetable, or signage. And yet, for two decades, people have been asking the same question: Where is it, really?
Some have tried to find answers in the real world.
One station frequently mentioned is Nishi-Kajima Station in Shizuoka Prefecture. Located at the end of the Enshū Railway line, it’s a quiet terminal surrounded by forest and tunnels—features that match the eerie, isolated setting described in the original message board posts.
Others point to abandoned or unmanned stations scattered across Japan’s countryside.
Places where the platform creaks under your feet, and the timetable seems like a suggestion rather than a promise.
None of these are Kisaragi Station.
But all of them might be.
3-2. If You Want to Visit: Suggested Route
If the story of Kisaragi Station has sparked something in you—a curiosity, a chill, a longing—there is a journey you can take.
From Hamamatsu Station, take the Enshū Railway Line to its terminus at Nishi-Kajima Station. The ride takes about 30 minutes.
Once there, you’ll find a modest station surrounded by quiet streets, hills, and yes—a tunnel nearby.
A few things to keep in mind:
- There is no “real” Kisaragi Station. You’re visiting an echo, not a destination.
- Respect the area and the people who live there. This is their home, not a theme park.
- Don’t go looking for the supernatural. Sometimes, the silence of a countryside station is more than enough.
3-3. What You’re Really Searching For
Maybe you won’t find an abandoned station.
No flickering lights, no vanishing passengers. No pillar of light waiting inside a wooden building.
But perhaps that’s not what you’re meant to find.
Kisaragi Station isn’t a place. It’s a moment.
A soft slide away from the everyday.
A vague feeling that something’s off, but not wrong enough to stop you.
A sense that the world has shifted, just slightly, and you’re the only one who noticed.
It’s not on any map.
But you might already know how to get there.
You won’t find it on any map.
But you might carry the directions in your mind.
Also available: Reality of J, a site sharing more on Japan travel and culture.