A new curse and 8th mystery of school was about to emerge!
All the students would believe it, and could only pray that they would not be cursed.
We would be making a curse that would be believed by everyone, all the students and even the adults. Fear would be etched into their hearts as they prayed to be not affected by the curse.
However, even if everyone believed in the curse, the three of us, who were the perpetrator and the creator of the curse knew the truth. Such a feeling of superiority over everyone’s fear was truly exceptional as well as new to us.
During lunch break, we met behind the school building to discuss what kind of curse we should create and how we were going to spread it.
The thing we struggled with the most was naming the curse.
We wanted it to be a cool but a scary name at the same time. However, even after brainstorming for a long time, nothing good came to mind.
Therefore, after thinking for a while, we decided to use a temporary name until we could come up with a cooler one. And the name we chose was ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’. Needless to say, it sounded as cheap as the curse we made up.
Not only did it sound cheap but also cringy. Perhaps because it was named by a group of teenagers who were only good at seeking thrill and had cheap naming sense.
For the sake of naming this curse, the three of us looked around the school premise, and for some reason, the first thing that caught our eye was the character ‘骨’ (Hone). That was the only reason we chose to name it ‘Ohone’ (Bone).
After the character was chosen, without anymore twist, the word ‘様’ (Sama) was added. With the patched up words taken from here and there, the cringe name ‘Ohone-sama’ emerged.
Although the name was cringe, it was quite normal for us to choose that. Because this is Shikabone City, in the Yoshiyoshi Prefecture. The school is the Second Shikabone Junior High School.
Because people of this city have lived here for many years, they don’t usually bother to notice it. However, if one were to look around the city, they would notice the presence of the character ‘骨’ everywhere. From posters, to signs and telephone poles, it was seen almost everywhere.
When it caught my eyes, a creepy feeling suddenly rose inside me. The character ‘骨’ truly evoked a kind of fear that I didn’t realize before. But after all was said and done, what kind of curse was this ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’?
“Well, since its called Ohone-sama, shouldn’t it be related to bones or something?”
“…Hmm, but it shouldn’t be like a typical bone injury. It’s a curse, the Ohone-sama curse. It will be more like, you’ll be surrounded by bones.”
“What, being surrounded by bones! Ahahahaha!”
Finally, this was the backstory we decided for the curse. If you get ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’, you will only see bones around you. You will even be covered with bones. Although it wasn’t very appealing to me, it at least created a mysterious atmosphere, and was far better than telling that you will fall down and break your bones if you get this curse.
“But since it’s a curse, how will one be cursed?”
“We must think of something that will make people think they are under the curse.”
“Yeah, like if you do this or don’t do this, you will get cursed.”
“I’d like this curse to spread throughout the whole school, so that everyone would be afraid of being cursed.”
“Hmm, isn’t it okay to make the story the way we like? Ohone-sama is a mighty spirit who causes fear in everyone’s heart. He resides in this school and curses those who don’t follow the rules. Be aware of the curse spirit!”
“Oh, that’s right, it does sound scary. But that’s a lot of hassle.”
“Just leave it like that~”
Eventually, the backstory of the cursed spirit called ‘Ohone-sama’, who lived in the school and cursed people who were mischievous and didn’t follow the rules, were decided.
I hoped there was at least one person among my friends who was familiar with this kind of setting. Unfortunately, the three of us were clueless about such things, thus, the backstory ended up being as cheesy as the name.
But my favourite thing about the whole story is the way to undo the curse.
It was one of the things we decided from the very beginning.
If you somehow get cursed by Ohone-sama, you have to visit the Tanuki Shrine and put in an offering.
However, you shouldn’t offer very little money since it will only make the curse stronger. Therefore, you have to offer a decent amount that wouldn’t anger the god. It was something added solely by me.
This was our main purpose.
Since we knew the pin number of the offering box, we could open it anytime We want. If this story of ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’ spreads among people and they take it seriously and actually put in an offering, it will become our source of pocket money.
“The more it spreads, the more money we can get. And once it becomes big enough, we have to do nothing but sit and watch as people spread it on their own.”
“And once it is established like the Seven Mysteries of School, it will stay forever, right?”
“So in other words, we can make a living with this in the future too.”
The idea appeared so innovative to us that we decided to call it our own business.
After all, we were not blackmailing or threatening people to give us money. People who believe they’re cursed just have to put their offerings. And we will take that money once the offering box is full.
If this story spreads all over Japan, the three of us would have enough money to live happily for the rest of our lives!
Obviously, such a thing was impossible to happen. However, we were having enough fun imagining such things.
We knew well that most people, especially adults, probably won’t believe it. And even if for some unknown reason they did, it was questionable whether they would actually put in offerings to get rid of the curse. Even if they did, the amount would probably be at most 10 yen. So we thought, if we could get at least a total of 1,000 yen, that would definitely be a big success for us.
This is why mystery appeals to us, who like to imagine things and make scenarios in their heads. Perhaps we can become rich very quickly. It was this dream that made us more and more addicted to this game.
After the discussion, the setting for ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’ was mostly finalized. Now, it was time to spread it to the class, and then to the whole school. Although the three of us were best friends, that doesn’t mean we didn’t have any other friends. In our classroom, each of us had many friends.
If we told them the story and spread it as a rumor. First, we have to spread it in the class. Then in the same grade and then school…
Only after making sure that everyone in the school knew about the story will we stop spreading it.
…But I had doubts if anyone would believe the story of ‘The Curse Ohone-sama’ since they have never heard of it…
“It’s natural that they won’t believe it.”
“I guess we have to actually show that the curse exists. We need to stage it to prove its existence.”
“Stage it?”
“Hmm, for example. Won’t you get scared if you went to school in the morning and saw that the blackboard was covered with the character ‘骨’…”
“Eek, I’d definitely be creeped out, hahaha.”
“And then, we can leave a pile of suspicious bones on the podium!”
“I might even start crying if I came in the morning and find bones in my desk!”
In other words, to make the ‘The Curse of Ohone-sama’ believable, a demonstration of the ‘curse’ was necessary.
The excitement of pulling a really big prank was getting to our heads. The thrill was more pleasant to us than stealing money from the offering box.
“Maybe we should come early in the morning and write the character ‘骨 骨’ on the blackboard before anyone comes?”
“But the guys in the sports clubs who practice in the morning come pretty early, don’t they? Oh, but they don’t stay in the classroom. So it should be easy for us.”
“Only the three of us will be in the classroom, so even if we get caught, we will just say we were just chatting. It’ll be fine!”
So we decided that tomorrow we’ll come to school two hours earlier than usual and set up some suspicious traps in the classroom.
I didn’t like the fact that I had to throw away my most precious time of sleeping in the morning for this ridiculous prank. But it was this aspect that made this more thrilling.
The excitement of this couldn’t even be compared to the time we were lock-picking.
Since we gave each other code names and pretended to be spies while trying to open the offering box, we were determined to play this big prank which was silly and exciting at the same time.
