Pandora [Forbidden Empress]: A Japanese Horror Story

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This is a story about something called “Forbidden Empress” that was passed down in my hometown. I never figured out how to read it, but among us, we called it “Pandora.”

The town where I was born and raised was a quiet and peaceful rural town. There weren’t any notable places to play, but there was one thing that really stood out. It was an empty house standing alone on a road that stretched endlessly through rice fields at the edge of town. No one had lived there for a long time, and it looked quite old, even older than the already old-fashioned town.

That alone would make it just an old abandoned house, but there were reasons why it stood out. One reason was the excessive reaction from the town’s adults, including my parents. Just talking about that house would get us severely scolded, sometimes even slapped. This was the same for every child in town, including me.

Another reason was that the house didn’t have a front door. There were windows and glass doors, but there was no front entrance. If someone had lived there before, how did they get in and out? Did they have to go in and out through the windows or glass doors? This mysterious aspect, combined with the nickname “Pandora” that had somehow been given to it, made it the hottest topic among the children at the time. (At this point, I didn’t know anything about “Forbidden Empress.”)

Most of us, including me, wanted to find out what was inside, but we were well aware of how angry our parents would get just for talking about it, so we couldn’t bring ourselves to actually go. The location was easy for kids to get to, and there were no people around. I’m sure everyone had at least come to the front of the house once. For a while, we just enjoyed the atmosphere and nothing happened.

A few months after I started middle school, a boy became interested in the story of Pandora and said he definitely wanted to see it. Let’s call him A. A’s family had moved back to his grandmother’s house in the town after his mother, who was originally from there, got divorced and returned. A himself was new to the town and didn’t know anything about Pandora.
Among my close friends at the time, B, C, and D, B and C were close to A, so he naturally joined our group. One day, while we were chatting about trivial things, we casually mentioned Pandora, which piqued A’s interest. “My mom and grandma are from here too, but would I get in trouble if I asked them about it?” he asked. “It’s not just getting in trouble. My parents would hit me seriously!” “Same here. It’s so weird.”

As we explained Pandora to A, everyone started complaining about their parents. After explaining everything, the topic naturally shifted to the biggest question: “What’s inside the house?” “Doesn’t anyone know what’s in there?” “No one knows. We’ve never been inside, and our parents get mad if we ask. Maybe only our parents know.” “Then let’s find out what they’re hiding!” A said enthusiastically.

At first, I and the others were hesitant because we didn’t want to get in trouble with our parents, but A’s enthusiasm and our pent-up curiosity won us over. Eventually, we all agreed. During our discussion, D’s younger sister also wanted to join, so we decided to go on a Sunday afternoon with six people.

On the day, we gathered in front of the house, excited, each carrying a backpack with snacks and such. I remember how thrilled we all were.

As mentioned earlier, the house stood alone surrounded by rice fields, without a front door. It was a two-story house, but we couldn’t climb up to the windows, so we had to break the glass door on the first floor to get in. “Breaking the glass isn’t a big deal,” A said, and he smashed the glass and went inside. Even if there was nothing inside, we were definitely going to get in trouble for this, I thought as we followed him inside.

We stepped into… what must have been a living room.

To the left was the kitchen, straight ahead was a hallway with the bathroom on the left and the toilet at the end. To the right was the staircase to the second floor and what would have been the front entrance. Despite it being daytime and bright, the hallway seemed dark because there was no front door. Contrary to the old exterior, the inside was unexpectedly clean—rather, it was empty. There were no furniture or signs that anyone had lived there. The living room and kitchen were spacious but very ordinary.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Yeah, I thought there would be some stuff left behind.”

While the boys looked around the empty living room and kitchen, munching on snacks out of boredom, I and D, holding D’s sister’s hand, headed for the stairs. However, as soon as we stepped into the hallway, we were terrified. There stood a low, traditional vanity with a single pole erected behind it. If someone were to sit there, the pole would be directly behind their head. And draped over that pole… was hair. A long, dark cascade of it, arranged as if a woman were sitting at the vanity, her back to us.

It looked like a wig, but a cold dread washed over me as I realized… it was real hair.

The sight sent shivers down our spines. “What is that?! What is going on?!” we panicked. The boys, curious about the commotion, came out into the hallway and were equally stunned by the bizarre sight. Only D’s sister seemed unfazed and asked, “What is that?”

“Is that real hair?”

“I don’t know. Should we touch it?”

A and B wanted to investigate, but C and I, along with D, desperately stopped them. “No way, don’t touch it! This is bad!” “Yeah, stop it!” The eerie scene frightened us, and we retreated back into the living room.

Even though we couldn’t see it from the living room, just knowing it was there was unsettling.

“What should we do? We can’t get to the second floor without going through the hallway.”
“I don’t want to. That thing is creepy.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

C, D, and I were too scared to continue exploring.

“It’s fine if we don’t look at it. If anything scary happens upstairs, we can just run down the stairs and out. It’s still daytime!” A and B insisted on seeing the second floor and urged us hesitant three to go. “But…” Just as we were deliberating, I realized something. “Hey, D, where’s your sister?”

We all noticed at once. D’s sister was gone. Since we were standing in front of the only entrance, there was no way she could have gone outside. Despite the spaciousness, the living room and kitchen were easily visible, and she wasn’t there. “Hey! Where are you?! Answer me!” D called out desperately, but there was no reply.

“Could she have gone upstairs?”

We all looked towards the hallway. “No way! Why would she do that?!” D, on the verge of tears, screamed. “Calm down! We have to go upstairs!” Scared as we were, we had no choice but to rush into the hallway and up the stairs. “Hey! Where are you?” “Come out now!” We called out for her as we went up the stairs, but there was no reply. At the top of the stairs were two rooms, both with closed doors.

We first opened the door directly ahead. This room, visible from the outside, also had nothing inside. No sign of D’s sister. “The other room then,” we approached the second door and slowly opened it. D’s sister was there. But we were speechless and frozen in place. In the middle of the room was the same vanity and hair as downstairs.

The bizarre sight filled us with fear, and we stood there in a daze, unable to move. “Big sister, what is this?” D’s sister asked, then did something unimaginable. She approached the vanity and opened the top drawer of the three. “What is this?” She pulled out a sheet of paper with “Forbidden Empress” written on it. We couldn’t understand and just stared at her. Why didn’t we react immediately? Even now, I don’t know.

D’s sister put the paper back and then opened the second drawer. Again, it was a sheet of paper with “Forbidden Empress” written on it. I was shaking uncontrollably, but D snapped out of it and ran to her sister. She was almost in tears. “What are you doing?!” She yelled at her sister and took the paper from her, putting it back in the drawer.

The problem was, in her haste, D opened the third drawer instead of the second. When she opened the drawer, she froze, staring inside. She didn’t move at all, just silently stared into the drawer.

“What is it? What’s in there?” We finally started moving towards them, but just as we got there, D slammed the drawer shut with a loud bang. Then, she lifted her shoulder-length hair to her mouth and started chewing on it.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” “D, get a hold of yourself!” No matter how much we called out to her, she didn’t respond. She just kept chewing on her hair.

D’s sister started crying. The air grew thick and heavy with a tension we couldn’t name. “What’s going on?!” “I don’t know! What is this?!” “Let’s get out of here! I don’t want to be here!” We carried D out, with me holding D’s sister’s hand. All the while, D kept chewing on her hair, and I didn’t know what else to do but get to an adult.

We ran to my house, the closest to the empty house, and called for my mom loudly. Crying and shaking, we tried to explain, but my mom suddenly slapped us and yelled. “You went to that empty house, didn’t you?!” Seeing her furious face, we could only nod desperately. “You kids wait here. I’ll call everyone’s parents.” She said and took D upstairs.

We sat there, unable to think or do anything. About an hour later, my mom came down and just said, “These kids went to that house.” The parents started murmuring, visibly upset. “What did you see? What was in that house?” “We saw a vanity and some hair… we also broke the glass…” “Anything else? Just that?” “There was some paper with strange writing…” The room fell silent at those words. Then, there was a loud scream from upstairs.

My mom rushed upstairs, and a few minutes later, she came down carrying D’s mother, who was in tears. “Did she see it? Did D see the contents of the drawer?” D’s mom asked us frantically. “Did you open the drawers and see what was inside?” “The third drawer on the second floor vanity. Did she see it?” The other parents also pressed us.

“We saw the first and second drawers… but only D saw the third one…” As soon as we said that, D’s mother grabbed us and screamed, “Why didn’t you stop her? You’re her friends, aren’t you?! Why didn’t you stop her?!” D’s father and the other parents tried to calm her down. “Calm down! Get a hold of yourself!” Eventually, she took D’s sister upstairs again.

We were taken to B’s house, where his parents explained. “That house you went to, no one has ever lived there. It was built just for that vanity and hair. It’s been there since we were kids.” “That vanity was actually used, and the hair is real. And the words you saw, are these the ones?” B’s father wrote “Forbidden Empress” on a piece of paper and showed it to us.

“Yeah, those words,” we replied. B’s father crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. “That’s the name of the owner of the hair. The reading of the name is a secret only the mother knows. You shouldn’t talk about that house or go near it again. Understood? Stay here tonight and rest.”

B’s father was about to leave when B asked, “What about D? What happened to her?!” B’s father, with a sad expression, said, “Forget about her. She’ll never be the same, and you can’t see her again. You’ll be hated by her mother for the rest of your lives. We won’t blame anyone, but you must understand. You can’t have anything to do with her anymore.” He then left the room.

We couldn’t think about anything. I don’t remember how we spent the rest of the day. It was a really long day.

For a while, we lived our normal lives. The next day, my parents and A’s parents didn’t say a word about the incident, and we didn’t know what happened to D. We heard she moved away about a month later due to personal reasons. The town also took measures to prevent anyone from entering the empty house, reinforcing the glass doors and such. Since then, neither I nor A and the others have been near that house, and we drifted apart. We went to different high schools and eventually moved out of the town. It’s been over ten years.

I’m sorry for the long, clumsy story, but in the end, we never found out anything. Just one more thing… When I graduated from university, my mom received a letter from D’s mother. The contents were kept secret, but my mom’s words still haunt me.

“A mother has a choice to hide something for her child’s sake until the end. If you had ended up like that, I would have made the same choice, even if it was the wrong one.”

Here’s a story about a family with three rituals passed down through generations. The family considered daughters as the mother’s “property” and used them as “materials” in a ritual.
The mother would have two or three daughters and choose one as the “material.” (It’s unclear what happened if she had sons.) The chosen daughter was given two names, one known only to the mother and kept secret for life. Even if someone found out the characters, they wouldn’t know how to read it, as it was an unusual reading only the mother knew. The mother never called her daughter by this secret name, even when alone.

The mother prepared a vanity on the day she gave the daughter the secret name, but the daughter wasn’t allowed to see it except on her 10th, 13th, and 16th birthdays. This was part of the preparation for the coming rituals.

From a young age, the mother began “educating” the chosen daughter to increase her value as “material.” (The other daughters were raised normally.) This education included:Cutting the faces of cats or dogs into pieces.

Keeping the body of an animal with only the tail left, and everyone around the daughter pretending it was alive, to brainwash her.

Teaching her a curse using cat ears and whiskers to kill mice.

Dissecting spiders and reconstructing them.

Eating feces and urine, either her own or others.

These were just a few examples, and all were nauseating. About a third of the education involved cats and other animals, which had a reason. The family only interacted with men to have children, and once the necessary number of daughters were born, the relationship was cut off. Some men tried to uncover the family’s secrets, so from a certain generation, the mother transferred the grudge of the cats they killed onto the men using a curse. This ensured that men didn’t pry into the family’s affairs.

These cruel practices were used to mold the daughter’s distorted values and preferences, continuing for 13 years.

Two of the three rituals took place during this time. The first was at age 10, when the mother took the daughter to the vanity and instructed her to offer her nails. The daughter would see the vanity for the first time and give her mother the nails from her fingers and toes, which were placed in the top drawer along with the secret name written on paper. The mother then spent the entire day in front of the vanity. This was the first ritual.

The second ritual was at age 13, when the daughter was instructed to offer her teeth. She would pull out her own teeth and give them to her mother, who placed them in the second drawer with the secret name. Again, the mother spent the entire day in front of the vanity. This marked the completion of the second ritual.

After these two rituals, there was a three-year hiatus from the education. The daughter was given sudden freedom, indicating that the preparation was complete. By this time, most daughters were like living dolls, but some tried to live as ordinary girls.

The final ritual took place on the daughter’s 16th birthday. The mother would eat the daughter’s hair in front of the vanity, consuming nearly all of it. The daughter would just watch. After finishing, the mother would say the daughter’s true name for the first and last time.
This completed the ritual, and the mother became a shell, sucking on her hair until she died, isolated from others. The mother’s essence reached a place no one knew, a paradise for mothers who completed the rituals. The daughter, freed from her mother, would eventually bear children and repeat the cycle.

This explains the family’s practices. Now, the main story begins.

The cruel tradition didn’t last long. Eventually, the family began questioning it and seeking a more natural mother-daughter relationship. As this attitude took hold, the practice faded and was eventually forbidden. However, the secret name and vanity traditions were retained as symbols of the mother’s legacy and as celebratory gifts.

Years passed, and a woman named Yachiyo, born after the tradition ended, married and had a daughter named Takako. She followed the tradition by giving Takako a secret name and a vanity. But on Takako’s 10th birthday, something terrible happened. Yachiyo found Takako dead, with nails and teeth removed and scattered around the vanity. Her husband was missing. Devastated, Yachiyo clung to Takako’s body.

Neighbors noticed something was wrong and informed Yachiyo’s parents, who arrived and told everyone to leave. That night, Yachiyo took her own life beside Takako. The parents handled the burial and told the neighbors not to search for the husband. The husband was later found dead with hair in his mouth in front of the house. The parents explained they had cursed the house, and anyone entering would suffer the same fate. The house was left untouched as a memorial.

When it was eventually demolished, the vanity and hair were moved to a new empty house. This house was later known as “Pandora,” and the town kept the secret, only telling adults. That’s the story of the vanity and hair.

Since the house was built, no one tried to enter it, as some people knew what was inside. One incident involved A’s family. A’s mother and B’s parents, along with a boy named E, sneaked into the house one night, bringing a ladder to enter through a second-floor window. They found nothing in the first room but were terrified by the vanity and hair in the second. Despite the fear, A’s mother opened the drawer and found a paper with “Purple Encounter” written on it and some nails. They panicked and left, planning to return and fix things a few days later.

A’s mother and E returned at night, fixed the hair, and A’s mother opened the second drawer, finding a paper and teeth. E was terrified, but A’s mother opened the third drawer, and E saw something that left him in shock.

A’s mother thought E was joking around and didn’t take him seriously at first, but she sensed something was wrong. She got scared and left him behind, rushing back home. When she arrived, she immediately told her mother what had happened. Her mother’s face turned pale, and she contacted E’s parents. They all rushed to the empty house.

A’s mother saw E being carried back by his parents. His mouth was full of long hair, strands hanging out. Later, B’s parents were also called, and the adults had a serious conversation. E’s parents didn’t say anything to A’s mother but gave her a look of utter disgust and contempt.

The next day, A’s mother and B’s parents were told the same story we were told about the house. E’s family moved away within a month, but for that month, E’s parents visited A’s house every day, which took a toll on A’s mother. Seeing this, her own mother sent her to live with relatives in another prefecture. A’s mother returned to the town only years later, seeking atonement for E’s fate.

That’s the end of the story. Now, I’ll tell you about the contents of the drawers. The empty house has two vanities: one on the first floor that belonged to Yachiyo and one on the second floor that belonged to Takako.

Yachiyo’s vanity has nails in the top drawer and teeth in the second drawer, each accompanied by a piece of paper with her secret name, “Purple Encounter.” Takako’s vanity has only pieces of paper with her secret name, “Forbidden Empress,” in both the top and second drawers.

The third drawer contains a wrist. Yachiyo’s vanity holds Yachiyo’s right hand and Takako’s left hand, intertwined, while Takako’s vanity contains Takako’s right hand and Yachiyo’s left hand, also intertwined.

We don’t know their current state, but D and E saw them and went mad. The problem wasn’t just seeing the hands but also the secret names written inside the drawers.

Yachiyo’s mother wrote “Purple Encounter,” and Yachiyo herself wrote “Forbidden Empress.” The inside of the third drawer’s bottom was filled with the respective readings of these names. The house still stands today, but few children know about it now. With all the modern distractions, it’s not as noticeable anymore.

Lastly, about the letter from D’s mother, I must refrain from sharing its contents. I’ve been informed that D and her mother have both passed away, so I can’t say anything more.

Thank you for reading this long story. I apologize for its length and complexity, but this is everything I know.

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