“The Underground Circle”: A Japanese Urban Legend That Warps Reality

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Among Japan’s most haunting internet-born urban legends is a tale simply known as “The Underground Circle.”

Originally posted on 2channel—Japan’s iconic anonymous message board—in the early 2000s, this longform horror story has since lingered in the minds of those who read it, quietly circulating through forums and blogs. Told in the confessional tone of a firsthand account, it begins with a teenage courage test at a mysterious religious facility, but quickly spirals into something far stranger: a story of impossible architecture, reality slippage, and a deeply unsettling loss of identity.

The Underground Circle belongs to a uniquely Japanese tradition of online horror: deeply personal, slow-burning, and reality-bending. What begins with laughter ends in existential dread. Welcome to the descent.

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This is an event that happened 17 years ago, during the winter of my third year of high school. Amidst the many lost memories, I have been writing this while reading the notes I have kept over the past 17 years, relying on the few remaining memories. While I have supplemented and corrected some details and conversations as I saw fit, I have tried to write without exaggeration as much as possible.

The hometown where I lived was very rural. As far as I remember, it was a region surrounded by rice fields and mountains, and the only places to play were going out to the city for karaoke, which took about an hour by scooter.

In such a rural area, in 1991, a certain new religious facility was suddenly constructed. During the planning stage of the construction, there was fierce opposition from the local residents, and I think my parents frequently attended the opposition meetings.

It seems that they submitted petitions to the mayor and the governor and tried to appeal to the local media, but the religious group offered “certain conditions” and the construction was forcibly carried out. There were various speculations and rumors about the conditions in the local area, but the most plausible theory was that the local government turned a blind eye to the residents’ voices in exchange for a large donation to the city, which was suffering from depopulation.

The religious facility was built at the edge of the area where we lived, and its site was about the size of 2-3 Tokyo Domes. The land in such a rural area was probably cheap. The facility was completed around the fall of my second year of high school, and both my parents and school teachers told me, “Don’t go near there,” and “Don’t get involved with the followers there.”

We, about eight classmates, went to see it, but it was surrounded by high walls, with a huge gate at the front, and at the top of both ends of the gate, there were carvings of faces that looked like terrifying Hannya masks. Seeing this, my classmates started excitedly saying, “Wow! It’s a demon cult, a demon cult.” As a result, at school, we started calling that religion “the demon cult” or “the Hannya group,” among other nonsensical nicknames. Occasionally, when we were bored, a few classmates and I would circle around the facility on our bicycles out of curiosity and to kill time, but we never saw any followers or related people. There were no signs of people, and no particular problems occurred, so gradually, everyone’s interest faded.

In the third year of high school, the religious facility no longer became a topic of conversation, but one day, a classmate, A, suggested, “Shall we go test our courage there?” According to A, “I heard from my parents that a cute girl goes in and out of the demon cult building. Apparently, she comes shopping at the store every day.” A’s family ran the only decently-sized supermarket in the area. A’s parents seemed to be very grateful to the “demon cult,” which spent 20,000 to 30,000 yen on shopping every day. A said, “My parents said that the followers there are all quiet and good people. It’s not scary, so let’s go.” My other classmates and I were bored and had nothing to do every day, so we decided, “Let’s go!” and planned the courage test. The members were me, A, B, C, D from the same class, and E and F, who were juniors, making a total of seven boys. With seven people, it wouldn’t be scary. Everyone had a light-hearted attitude about going.

The meeting place was set in front of an abandoned post office near the facility. When I arrived, A, B, C, and E were already there, but D and F didn’t show up even after waiting for nearly 30 minutes, so the five of us decided to go. We parked our bicycles near the facility and walked to the gate. We were saying things like, “Wow, it’s really scary at night,” and “I should’ve brought another flashlight.”

When we got to the huge gate, we saw that a light was on in one part of the building inside, quite far from the gate. We were joking, saying things like, “Wow, the followers are still awake,” and “Are they summoning demons (lol)?” C said, “We can’t get inside,” but A replied, “I know a way. There’s a small gate around the side that we can enter through.” We complained, “A, why didn’t you say that earlier,” while walking along the wall, turning at the end, and after walking a bit, we found a small door in the wall.

When A pushed it with his hand, it opened inward. We went in one by one through the door, which was just big enough for one person to pass through. After that, we wandered around the vacant lot inside, turning our flashlights on and off. We were whispering in small voices, “There’s nothing here,” and “If we get too close to the building, it will be really bad,” but because there was nothing and it was boring, we decided to get closer to the building.

The area inside was a completely empty lot about 100 meters long from the front gate, and beyond that were three large buildings lined up. I don’t remember well, but they were very oddly designed buildings.

As we were sneaking around the facility, we found a clean public toilet building with lights on, standing alone between the buildings, and the area around the toilet was paved with white clean concrete, with benches. A suggested, “Let’s take a break,” but the other classmates said, “Are you stupid? We’ll be in big trouble if we get caught,” and “Let’s hurry and circle around and go back.” I also said, “If we get caught, they might call the police. We only have a little time until graduation, and it would be bad if we caused any trouble, so let’s go back quickly.”

However, A sat on a bench and started smoking. “Let’s just have a smoke and then go back,” so we all sat there and smoked. Then A said, “I’m going to the toilet for a bit,” and went into the public toilet. B and C were joking, “He dares to pee in a building like this,” and “If he takes a dump, he might get cursed by demons,” while smoking. After a while, A called from the toilet, “Hey, come here. There’s something interesting.”

We all went to see what he was talking about. A pointed to one of the toilet stalls and said, “Guess what this is?” B said, “It’s a toilet,” but A told him, “Open the door.” B said, “What?” and opened the door. To our surprise, there was a staircase going down to the basement instead of a toilet.

A said, “Isn’t it strange? There are toilets here and here, but this one is a staircase.” At this point, I realized something was really wrong. First of all, A’s behavior had been suspicious all along. He suddenly suggested a courage test, knew the location of the side door, and even opened the toilet door specifically.

I asked A, “Were you planning to take a dump here?” A vaguely answered, “Yeah, I guess so,” and then suggested, “Shall we go down a bit?” Naturally, I refused. “Are you crazy? Let’s go back. If we stay here, we’ll get caught,” I said. A started to mock me, “You’re scared, aren’t you? Just going down a bit and you’re scared.”

I thought A was trying to provoke us. B also said, “I’m not going. Let’s go back,” but the other two said, “It looks interesting. Let’s just go down a bit,” and agreed with A.

A praised them, “You guys are brave,” and continued to provoke me and B, but B said, “I’m not going. Go by yourselves.” A said, “Then we’ll go down first. You guys wait here.” Then, the three of them went down.

B and I stayed in the toilet. The area around the toilet was enclosed by the facility, with many windows, so we thought, “We might be seen from any of the windows,” and stayed inside the toilet.

B asked, “Don’t you think A is acting strange?” I replied, “Today’s A is weird. It’s like he brought us here from the beginning.” B agreed, “I thought so too.”

We talked about tonight and what to do if we got caught. About five minutes passed, and both B and I started getting impatient. “Isn’t it taking too long?” B suggested, “Let’s go back,” but both flashlights were taken by A and the others, so finding the small side door in the dark would take time, so we reluctantly waited.

Then, we heard footsteps coming from afar. The sound of multiple footsteps, like “shuffling,” was getting closer. B and I instantly tensed up. We whispered, “People are coming. This is bad.” The atmosphere became tense. The footsteps were far away, but we couldn’t tell from which direction they were coming. Even if we went outside, we didn’t know the direction or layout of the facility, so there was a chance of being caught.

B said, “They’re getting closer. What should we do?” He was quite panicked. My heart was also pounding, but I said, “They might not come here. If they do, we should hide.” But the footsteps were undoubtedly getting closer to the toilet where we were.

Then B suddenly tried to open the door of another toilet stall that was not the one with the stairs. But it was locked. The next stall was also locked for some reason. B cursed under his breath, “Damn! It’s locked. Damn it.”

The footsteps were now about 15 meters away. I instinctively felt that the people were definitely coming to the toilet. B probably felt the same. We both stood still, unable to move. B then said, “We have no choice but to go down.” I asked, “Are you serious?” I really didn’t want to go down those unknown stairs, but there was no place to hide in the toilet, and running away in the dark without knowing the place would get us caught.

Perhaps our judgment was dulled in the unusual situation of a religious facility late at night.

As the footsteps approached the toilet, B and I opened the door and quietly descended the stairs. The stairs were made of concrete, and I thought they would be long, but surprisingly, there were only about ten steps. It was pitch dark, so we couldn’t see anything, but B, who was ahead, opened a door at the end.

Inside was a room. The ceiling had several dim orange light bulbs hanging down, and the whole room was bathed in a faint orange light. B and I entered the room and quietly closed the door. Looking around the room, it was about 15 tatami mats in size (I don’t remember well), a concrete room with nothing in it, and a large circular object hanging in the middle. It’s hard to describe, but it looked like a giant metal hula hoop hanging vertically.

The hula hoop was so large that it touched the walls at both corners of the room.

B and I stood there, ignoring the strange object, and I whispered, “Where are A and the others? They’re not here.” B replied with a strained expression, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Then, we heard the footsteps we had been hearing, confirming that they had entered the toilet. The sound of footsteps echoed through the concrete from above. There were about three to four people. We stood still in front of the door, unable to move.

We heard some murmuring, but couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like they were discussing something, or each of them was muttering something to themselves. B lowered his head and closed his eyes. I don’t know how much time passed. I tried to think of something fun and desperately recalled the comedy show “BakSHOW☆Prestige,” which was popular at the time. At some point, I realized that the murmuring voices in the toilet had increased from three or four to about ten people.

I thought that the people above knew we were hiding here. I was so scared that I started trembling. The eerie murmuring was almost making me lose my mind. Suddenly, the murmuring stopped, and we heard the sound of two doors opening in succession, followed by another bang. I immediately realized that the bangs were the sound of toilet stall doors opening, which gave me goosebumps.

“The other stalls had people in them from the beginning.”

I don’t know if B realized this as well, but since the doors were locked earlier, they weren’t opened from the outside; someone came out from inside the stalls.

Then we heard footsteps coming down the stairs. We were at our limit. It would take less than 15 seconds for them to reach the bottom. I grabbed B’s arm tightly. As the footsteps reached about halfway down the stairs, B let out a pitiful scream, “Waaah!” and shook off my hand, running to the back of the room. At that moment, B jumped through the circular hoop, and his figure disappeared instantly. I was dumbfounded.

B should have jumped to the other side of the hula hoop, but he disappeared without a trace, leaving me in a state of shock rather than fear. I stood between the door and the hula hoop, slightly away from the door.

“I should apologize!” I thought. “I’m sorry. We came in without permission. I’m really sorry,” I planned to say.

The door slowly opened. From the gap in the door, an old man wearing something like a crown peeked in, looking at me. He had a broad smile. I couldn’t tell if he was an old man or an old woman, but the wrinkled old person with long white hair and a crown was smiling broadly at me.

It was a smile filled with malice like I had never seen before. I immediately thought, “This is not a normal person.” I realized this was not someone I could reason with. Not wanting to be seen by that mechanical smile for even a moment, I let out a pitiful scream from the back of my throat, “Ha-whimp!” and jumped into the hula hoop like B.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. My head felt fuzzy. I had an injection needle in my arm, and I was lying on my back.

It took me nearly three minutes to sit up. Looking out the window, I saw a beautiful sunset.

There was no one in the room; it was a private hospital room. I couldn’t think of anything and just sat there, dazed. I don’t know how long I stayed dazed. After a while, the door opened with a clatter, and a nurse appeared. The nurse widened her eyes in surprise and then ran out somewhere.

I remained dazed. Later, the doctor in charge and a few other doctors came and seemed to be talking to me, but I apparently stayed dazed. As time passed, my consciousness gradually became clearer.

The doctor said, “We called your family just now. You’ve been asleep for a long time, but don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.” I couldn’t grasp the sense of time after waking up, but soon a woman who seemed to be my mother and a young girl entered the room, crying.

She was not my mother. And my name was not ○○ either. The woman who claimed to be my mother was crying and rejoicing, saying, “I’m so glad… so glad.” The young girl said to me, “Welcome back, brother,” while crying. But I didn’t have a sister. I had a brother who was three years older and in college, but no sister.

I repeatedly asked, “Who are you? Who are you?” The doctor tried to reassure the woman who seemed to be my mother and the girl who seemed to be my sister, saying, “It’s probably an aftereffect, but it will be fine with time…”

The doctor said, “Your mother will stay with you all night.” I underwent various tests while lying down, and during that time, I told the doctor, “I’m not ○○, and those people are not my family, and I don’t have a sister.” But the doctor just tilted his head, saying, “Hmm… Memory loss…”

He said, “○○, you were in a coma for nearly two years. That’s probably why your memory isn’t fully back.” Even hearing that, I couldn’t feel shocked. I couldn’t comprehend the reality of what was happening to me, so I couldn’t even feel shocked. The doctor chose his words carefully, trying hard to encourage me. The woman who seemed to be my mother was crying in shock over my memory loss.

I said, “I need to go to the bathroom,” and went to the bathroom. As I tried to stand up, my legs felt unusually heavy, and I had difficulty getting up. The doctor, nurse, and the girl who seemed to be my sister helped me.

In the bathroom, I finally remembered that night. Strangely, in the hours since I woke up, I hadn’t once recalled the courage test. The bathroom was very scary, but with the doctor, the woman who seemed to be my mother, and the girl who seemed to be my sister supporting me, I went inside.

After using the toilet, I looked in the mirror and screamed. The face was not mine. It was a completely different person. I don’t remember, but it seems I had a severe panic attack and it was quite a scene.

I was hospitalized for almost a month after that. I kept telling the people who claimed to be my parents, the girl who claimed to be my sister, the friends who visited me, and the man who said he was my teacher, “I’m not ○○, and I don’t know you.”

I talked about A and B, my past, and the memories I could recall, but everything was dismissed as memory impairment or amnesia. They insisted that A and B did not exist and that no such people existed. However, everyone was very kind to me.

According to the doctors and others, I was found collapsed beside my bicycle on my way home from school by a passerby, who then brought me to the hospital.

All the information about this world that came to me was completely unfamiliar. For example, when they said, “This is Kanagawa Prefecture,” I didn’t know such a place, and there shouldn’t have been such a prefecture. The currency unit was yen, which I had never heard of. I didn’t know Tokyo or even Japan.

Each time, the doctor would ask, “Then what was it?” but I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember A’s name and kept explaining, “He was a classmate friend,” but people around me would say, “There’s no such person.”

I desperately explained to the doctor about entering that facility and jumping through the hula hoop, but it was dismissed as a dream I had while sleeping.

The terrifying thing was that I began to seriously believe that “I have amnesia. My previous life and world were all dreams while I was asleep.”

I started to believe that “I have amnesia with a different personality and world memories overwritten.”

Either way, I had no choice but to live my life as a different person. After being discharged, I returned home with the people who claimed to be my father, mother, and sister. They asked, “Can’t you remember?” but it was a completely unfamiliar house in a completely unfamiliar town.

While going to counseling, I tried hard to adapt to this new life.

The words and information that came to me were divided into those that felt out of place and those that didn’t. The names of prefectures and countries were all new to me, and the historical figures and past events were all unfamiliar, but most everyday words didn’t feel out of place. Everyday conversations involving things like TV, newspapers, chairs, and remote controls felt completely normal.

At first, I couldn’t get used to the family and spoke to them formally, and I disliked having my underwear and pants washed, so I did my own laundry. But strangely, I started to feel that they were my real family and began to think that my previous life was a past life or a dream.

As I started thinking that way, my memories of my previous life gradually faded. The faces of my parents, brother, friends, and the countryside town that I remembered so vividly took longer and longer to recall.

However, the memory of that last night at the religious facility remained clear. Especially the face of that old man with the broad smile was unforgettable.

I got used to my new life, the number of counseling sessions decreased, and I returned to high school after six months. I started my third year of high school again at the age of twenty, made friends, and found it enjoyable. The TV programs were all new to me and very refreshing. Living in the city of Kanagawa Prefecture was also very enjoyable.

However, about four months after returning to high school, an unexpected connection between that world and this world appeared. During the summer vacation, I was looking for books for my homework assignment at a bookstore.

Then, among the books lined up, I saw the word “○○○○.” It was a religious book. “○○○○” was undoubtedly the name of the new religious group I had infiltrated on that last night.

I was astonished. I picked up the book and read it desperately. I found out that “○○○○” was a huge religious organization in this world.

In the world I was in, it was an unknown new religious group that I had never heard of, but here it was a global religious organization. I then bought and read many related books about the religion, but it was a meaningless act.

Reading them didn’t change anything. It didn’t mean I could go back, nor could I prove my past to anyone.

Even if I talked to others about it, they would probably say, “It was just a dream you had while you were unconscious.”

I didn’t want to worry or trouble the new family and friends who were kind to me. I didn’t want to cause concern to those who were relieved that I had stopped talking about the past and had returned to high school. Considering the pain of going to counseling, I decided to ignore it and live a normal life.

Seventeen years have passed, and now I’m an ordinary office worker in Tokyo.

Why did I decide to write this down now? Last month, I received a letter at my home. The letter, written anonymously, said:

“I apologize for the suddenness. I know you well. You should know me well too. It took a very long time and effort to find you. You are named ○○, do you remember? I will send another letter. Please do not tell anyone about the contents of this letter. Not even your fiancée. Thank you.”

Even being called ○○○ didn’t ring any bells, but it felt vaguely familiar. I didn’t feel particularly scared or expectant about receiving the letter, rather it felt like someone else’s problem. Then, last week, the sender sent a second letter.

To summarize, it said, “My name is ○○, which you should know. Do you remember? It seems that only you and I have come here.” It went on to say, “Please be at ○○ in front of ○○ Station at 7 PM on the 25th of this month. I have something urgent to tell you. Please come alone.”

I don’t remember who the person named ○○ is, but I plan to go. I feel that I have to go. Even if I can’t remember who is standing there, if it’s one of the members from that night, I’ll be able to tell by talking to them. I hope it will be B.

I don’t know what will happen, so I decided to write this down. I also plan to leave a similar letter for my fiancée and my only remaining family member, my sister. Thank you for reading this long story.

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Conclusion: A Tale That Refuses to Be Forgotten

Is this simply an elaborate creepypasta—or something else entirely?

The Underground Circle remains one of the most chilling and enigmatic horror stories to emerge from Japan’s online storytelling traditions. Its themes echo the disorientation of a world slipping away beneath our feet, and the terrifying possibility that another, unfamiliar world might take its place.

As Japanese internet horror finds new audiences worldwide, tales like this remind us: what we fear most may not be death or ghosts, but the quiet horror of forgetting who we are—and waking up as someone else.

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