1

Akiko had always prided herself on her meticulousness. It wasn’t a conscious effort to be perfect, at least not in the way some people wore their insecurities as shields. For Akiko, perfection was merely an extension of who she was—well-ordered, calm, and unshakeable.

It was a late autumn evening in Kyoto, the kind that smelt of damp earth and burning leaves. The streets were mostly empty, with only the occasional hum of a passing car or the flickering glow of streetlights cutting through the gathering fog. Akiko was heading home from work, her steps quick and purposeful, her thoughts on the soup she planned to make for dinner.

She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as the chill of the night settled deeper into her bones. The day had been long, and she wanted nothing more than to return to the warmth of her small apartment. As she approached a narrow alley that cut through her neighborhood, a shortcut she often took, a peculiar sensation washed over her—like someone was watching her.

Akiko stopped, glancing behind her. The street was empty. Her breath came in soft puffs of vapor. She stood there for a moment, just listening. The city seemed to hold its breath with her. But when nothing moved, she shook her head, chiding herself for being foolish, and turned into the alley.

The shortcut was dark, and the buildings loomed tall and silent on either side. Akiko’s footsteps echoed against the stone walls, unnervingly loud. She couldn’t shake the sensation that something was just out of sight, lingering in the shadows. Every instinct screamed for her to hurry, to get out of the alley as quickly as possible.

She quickened her pace. Her heart thudded in her chest. And then, from the darkness ahead, a voice drifted toward her.

“Am I beautiful?”

The voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it cut through the silence with an eerie clarity. Akiko froze. Her eyes darted around the alley, searching for the source of the voice.

“Am I beautiful?”

It was closer now, a woman’s voice, sultry yet cold. Akiko’s gaze finally found her—a figure standing in the middle of the alley, just a few feet ahead. The woman was tall and slender, wearing a long, flowing coat that flapped slightly in the breeze. Her face was obscured by a surgical mask, the kind people wore during flu season. Her hair was long and black, falling in glossy waves around her shoulders.

Akiko’s breath caught in her throat. Something about the woman was deeply unsettling, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. She felt an irrational urge to turn and run, but her feet seemed rooted to the ground.

The woman took a step forward. Her eyes gleamed from behind the mask, dark and penetrating. “Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asked again, her voice dripping with an unsettling sweetness.

Akiko swallowed hard. Her mind raced, trying to process the situation. Was this some sort of prank? Or perhaps the woman was just a stranger with odd social habits? She decided to answer, hoping it would diffuse the tension.

“Yes,” Akiko said carefully. “You are beautiful.”

The woman tilted her head, as if considering Akiko’s words. Then, slowly, she reached up to the mask covering her face. With a deliberate motion, she pulled it down, revealing her mouth.

Akiko gasped, stumbling back. The woman’s mouth was horrifically disfigured. From ear to ear, her lips were slit open, the skin pulled back to expose a grotesque, permanent grin. The wounds were raw, the flesh jagged, as if they had been cut with something sharp and rusty.

“Am I still beautiful?” the woman asked, her voice lower now, a sinister edge creeping in.

Akiko’s mind screamed at her to run, to get away from this nightmare, but her legs wouldn’t move. She stood there, paralyzed with fear, as the woman took another step closer, her grin widening unnaturally.

Akiko had always been logical, methodical even. She prided herself on not being easily shaken. But this—this was beyond anything she had ever encountered. Her brain scrambled to make sense of what stood before her, but no rational explanation could contain the horror that was slowly creeping up her spine.

“Wh-What do you want?” Akiko stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. She glanced to either side of the alley, hoping against hope that someone might pass by, that someone would see her and save her from this nightmare. But the alley remained dark and empty.

The woman didn’t respond. She only stared at Akiko with those hollow, unblinking eyes. Her head tilted slightly to one side, as if amused by Akiko’s fear.

“Am I still beautiful?” she repeated, her voice now barely more than a growl.

Akiko’s breath came in shallow gasps. She could feel the chill of the night seeping into her bones, but it was nothing compared to the icy terror that gripped her heart. Her mind raced. She had heard stories—urban legends whispered by schoolchildren and passed down through generations. But she had never believed them. Ghosts, spirits, monsters—those were things of superstition, things that belonged in the dark corners of the mind, not in reality.

But now, standing in the alley with the grotesque woman looming before her, Akiko began to wonder if the legends were more than just stories.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman. Kuchisake-onna. A ghost, a vengeful spirit, a being born of rage and sorrow. The stories varied, but they all shared the same chilling detail—a woman with a mutilated mouth who would ask, “Am I beautiful?” If you answered yes, she would reveal her disfigurement and ask again. If you answered no, she would kill you.

Akiko felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat. She didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not in some dark alley at the hands of a ghost.

She forced herself to speak, though her voice trembled. “You’re—still beautiful,” she lied, hoping that somehow, this would placate the spirit.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Akiko thought she had made a terrible mistake. But then the ghost’s lips curled into a twisted, mocking smile.

“Liar,” she hissed.

Akiko’s heart leaped into her throat. She turned and ran, her feet pounding against the pavement. The alley seemed to stretch on forever, the darkness closing in around her as she sprinted toward the distant glow of the streetlights. Behind her, she could hear the woman’s laughter—low, guttural, and filled with malice.

Akiko didn’t look back. She didn’t dare. She only ran faster, her breath coming in ragged gasps as her legs burned with the effort. She burst out of the alley and onto the main street, where the lights of a convenience store shone like a beacon in the night.

She stumbled inside, her chest heaving, and collapsed against the counter. The cashier, a young man with bleached hair and a bored expression, looked up from his phone, startled.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice tinged with concern.

Akiko nodded, though she wasn’t sure if she was okay. Her mind was still reeling, her heart racing. She glanced out the window, half-expecting to see the Slit-Mouthed Woman standing there, watching her. But the street was empty. No sign of the ghost. No sign of the nightmare that had just unfolded.

For a moment, she allowed herself to believe that she had escaped. That it was over.

But deep down, she knew it wasn’t.

In the days that followed, Akiko tried to push the encounter out of her mind. She threw herself into her work, focusing on the numbers, the spreadsheets, the routine of her office job. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

It started with small things—a fleeting shadow in the corner of her eye, a chill in the air when there shouldn’t have been. Then the nightmares began. Every night, she would dream of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, her grotesque smile, her hollow eyes. In the dreams, the ghost would ask the same question, over and over again: “Am I beautiful?”

Akiko would always answer yes, and the ghost would always laugh, a cruel, mocking sound that echoed in her mind long after she woke.

She stopped sleeping. The nightmares were too vivid, too real. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the ghost. She heard her voice, felt her presence. The bags under her eyes grew darker, her skin paler. Her coworkers noticed, but she brushed off their concerns with a forced smile and a quick excuse.

But no amount of work or distraction could erase what had happened in that alley. The fear clung to her like a second skin, a constant weight on her shoulders.

One evening, a week after the encounter, Akiko found herself walking home from work again. She hadn’t meant to take the alley, but somehow, her feet had led her there. She paused at the entrance, staring into the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest, and for a moment, she considered turning back, taking the long way home.

But something compelled her forward. A morbid curiosity, perhaps. Or maybe it was the ghost herself, drawing her in, pulling her back to the place where it had all begun.

She stepped into the alley, her breath catching in her throat. The air was thick with fog, and the buildings loomed tall and oppressive on either side. Every sound seemed amplified—the rustle of leaves, the distant hum of traffic. Akiko’s footsteps echoed against the stone walls, unnervingly loud.

And then, just as she reached the middle of the alley, she heard it again.

“Am I beautiful?”

Akiko froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. She turned slowly, her eyes scanning the shadows. The ghost was there, standing just a few feet away, exactly as she had appeared before. Tall, slender, her face obscured by the surgical mask.

Akiko’s breath came in shallow gasps. She had known this would happen. She had known the ghost wasn’t finished with her.

The woman stepped forward, her eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Am I beautiful?” she asked again, her voice soft and sweet, just as it had been before.

Akiko’s mind raced. She couldn’t outrun her. She couldn’t escape. The ghost had found her again, and this time, she wouldn’t let her go.

But Akiko had learned something in the week since their first encounter. She had read the legends, the stories, the warnings. There was a way to survive this. A way to outsmart the ghost.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “You are—average,” she said, her voice trembling but firm.

The ghost’s eyes widened, and for a moment, she seemed taken aback. Her head tilted slightly to one side, as if considering Akiko’s words. The air grew heavy with tension, and Akiko could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

Then, slowly, the ghost’s lips curled into a twisted smile, and she let out a low, guttural laugh. It was a sound that sent chills down Akiko’s spine, but she stood her ground, refusing to let the fear consume her.

The ghost stepped back, her eyes still fixed on Akiko. “Clever,” she murmured, her voice low and dangerous. “But this isn’t over.”

And with that, she vanished into the fog, leaving Akiko standing alone in the alley, her heart still racing, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

In the days that followed, Akiko waited. She knew the ghost would return. She knew the encounter in the alley had been just the beginning. The Slit-Mouthed Woman was not a spirit easily appeased. She was a force of vengeance, a manifestation of pain and rage, and she would not rest until she had claimed what she wanted.

But Akiko was no longer afraid. The fear that had once gripped her heart had been replaced by a steely resolve. She had faced the ghost, looked her in the eye, and survived. She had learned the rules of the game, and now she was ready to play.

The nightmares continued, but they no longer held the same power over her. She would wake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, the ghost’s laughter still ringing in her ears. But instead of cowering in fear, she would sit up in bed, take a deep breath, and remind herself that she was still alive.

She would survive this. She would outsmart the ghost, just as she had before.

And when the Slit-Mouthed Woman returned—as Akiko knew she eventually would—she would be ready.

But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, the ghost never reappeared. The fog that had once lingered in Akiko’s mind slowly began to lift, and she found herself able to focus on her work again, to sleep through the night without waking in terror.

Perhaps, she thought, the ghost had finally moved on. Perhaps she had found someone else to haunt, someone else to torment. The thought brought Akiko a sense of relief, but also a lingering unease. Because deep down, she knew that the Slit-Mouthed Woman was never truly gone. She was always there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.

And when that moment came, Akiko would be ready.

Or at least, she hoped she would be.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman had become a part of her now, a shadow that followed her wherever she went. She would catch glimpses of her in reflections, in the corner of her eye, in the flickering of streetlights. But she never spoke, never asked her haunting question again.

Akiko had learned to live with the presence, to accept the unease as part of her reality. It was a strange kind of peace, knowing that the ghost was always there but no longer actively pursuing her. She had survived, and that was enough.

For now.

Because in the back of her mind, Akiko knew that the game wasn’t over. Not really. The Slit-Mouthed Woman was patient, and she would wait as long as it took for the right moment to strike.

And when that moment came, Akiko would have to face her again.

But until then, she would live her life as best she could, always aware, always vigilant.

Because some legends never truly die. They linger in the shadows, waiting for their next victim.

And Akiko knew that one day, the Slit-Mouthed Woman would come for her again.

But she would be ready.

Or at least, she hoped she would be.