Previously: The Cabbagetown Tunnel Monster.
Type: UL (Unexplained Location).
Period/location of origin: Unknown, Japan. The first documented mention of subject, known as Hitsuka Station, occurred in early 2012 in a post published at Japanese online message board 2ch within a thread titled, ”Mysterious Experience, Mysterious Story ~enigma~ Part 77.” Hitsuka Station seems to be located somewhere along the Seibu Shinjuku rail line, which connects Seibu Shinjuku Station in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo with Hon-Kawagoe Station in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. However, its precise location has not been determined.
Appearance: Subject — the aforementioned train station called Hitsuka Station — appears to be a railway station accessible from the Seibu Shinjuku line of the privately-operated Seibu Railway. Similarly to previous Encylopaedia subject Kisaragi Station, subject does not appear to have any attendants or railway employees on staff; additionally, it lacks any stairs or ticket gates. While all of these details are certainly unusual, what makes subject truly stand out is the fact that it, along with everything in it, is entirely white in color — so white that it might best be described as “colorless.” The only detail within the station that is not white is the sign indicating the station’s name: “Hitsuka Station” (in the original Japanese, “ひつか 駅”) is written in black.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
Modus operandi: Subject will ensnare targets by luring them onto a train they believe to be on their usual route home and waiting until they fall asleep. When a chosen target awakens, they will find themselves on the same train, although it will be mysteriously devoid of all other passengers or train personnel: Target will be the only person aboard.
The train will not be moving at this time. Instead, it will be stopped at the platform of a station. Should target examine the station outside the train window, they will find they do not recognize it; in many cases, they will never even have heard of it.
Should target venture off the train and step onto the platform, the train will depart after approximately three minutes — without them. They will be left on the platform of this strange, colorless station, alone, and seemingly with no way to leave.
However, target may not be as alone as they think. At this point, they may be approached by what appears to be a small child approximately five or six years of age, sporting a bobbed haircut and dressed in a kimono. This being has been classified as Subject 1A.
Subject 1A will inform target of several key pieces of information: That they have arrived in a place where living humans are forbidden to enter; that there is a station beyond the station in which they currently stand; and that, if target were to continue to that next station beyond Hitsuka Station, they would likely never return. This station — Hitsuka Station — is, as Subject 1A may put it, “one step before death.” The next station, therefore, can only be one thing: Death itself.
If they are feeling charitable, Subject 1A may choose to return target to the world from which they came. If Subject 1A does choose to return target to their original world, target will suddenly find themselves back on the train, sitting in the same seat they had been occupying when they began their journey. They will appear to have missed their stop; the train will be roughly two or three stations ahead of their intended destination. The other passengers on the train will also not be the same passengers with whom target was originally riding.
Target will not know how they got there. They will just know that, somehow, they are there.
Target may also find at this point that they are missing a small item or article of clothing they had previously been wearing or carrying with them.
They will not know where it has gone.
They will never find it again.
And one last thing: Before target is deposited back in their home world, Subject 1A will inform target that they can only return them once. There will be no next time — because the next time target finds themself at Hitsuka Station, it will be for their final journey.
Containment: Unknown.
Additional notes: On Jan. 9, 2012, a 2ch user who did not identify themself by name published a post to the occult board describing their experience with subject, which they said had happened the previous day (Jan. 8, 2012). This user had taken their usual train all the way to the last station, a substantial distance away from their home station, in order to attend a kagami biraki ceremony (鏡開き) held at their kendo dojo to usher in the New Year.
Kagami biraki is traditionally performed on Jan. 11; it may be assumed that, for logistical purposes, this particular dojo chose to perform it on a different day that better suited its students. In 2012, Jan. 11 was a weekday — a Wednesday — which may have been inconvenient for some. Jan. 8, meanwhile, was a Sunday, and therefore likely a day off for many.
In any event, on their return journey home following the ceremony, the 2ch user fell asleep on the train and later awoke to find their train stopped at Hitsuka Station. Their experience as they wrote it matched subject’s modus operandi precisely, right down to the missing item upon their return — when they found themself back on the train, a knit hat they had been wearing was suddenly gone, never to be seen again.
The user had previous knowledge of Kisaragi Station, but was still unnerved by their experience with this new ghostly station. They did not think they had dreamed it, but vowed not to fall asleep on the train ever again.
They wrote that they “just wanted someone to tell [them] it had actually happened.”
This 2012 account appears to be the only available report of subject that is currently accessible. Whether there have been others is not known.
Although the writer of this account — indicated in the 2ch thread by the ID RaLFMpPb0 — initially only identified the stations they were traveling between as “H Station” and “S Station” on the “Nishi-S Line,” they later noted that they live near Saginomiya Station, which is located along the Seibu Shinjuku line of the Seibu Railway. The last station on this line is Hon-Kawagoe Station. Therefore, it was concluded that this 2ch user had been traveling on this line inbound from Hon-Kawagoe — H Station — toward Saginomiya Station — S Station — when they found themselves at Hitsuka Station.
The Seibu Railway is a privately-owned and operated railway company. It has existed in its current form since 1945, although at least one of the many pieces that came together to form the company — the former Kawagoe Railway — dates back as far as 1894.
Currently, the Seibu Railway has two different line groups: The Ikebukuro Line Group, which consists of the main Ikebukuro line, the Seibu Chichibu line, the Yurakucho line, the Toshima line, and Sayama line; and the Shinjuku Line Group, which includes the main Shinjuku line, the Seibuen line, the Hajima line, the Tamako line, the Kokubunji line, and the Tamagawa line. The main Shinjuku line is the one along which Hitsuka Station may be located — or at least, from which it may be reached, which, notably, is not necessarily the same thing.
It is worth noting that the station after Hon-Kawagoe is Minami-Otsuka Station; in fact, at least one other user commenting on the 2012 2ch thread pointed out the similarities between “Otsuka” and “Hitsuka.” However, the original poster was adamant that what they saw as Hitsuka Station was not Minami-Otsuka Station.
Regarding the item or article of clothing targets may find missing after their return to their own world: It is unknown whether this item should be viewed as the cost for Subject 1A returning target home, or whether the attainment of this item is functionally necessary in order for Subject 1A to perform whatever feat they undertake in order to return target home — that is, it is not clear whether the item is a price, or whether it is fuel.
It is also not known whether the item should be viewed as a trade or not. Some sources note that the item may be freely given to Subject 1A in exchange for target’s safe return home; however, the original 2012 2ch account seems to imply that target simply found the item to be gone when they found themself on the train again — that is, if it was a trade, they did not initiate it, and they did not have any say in whether they accepted it on those specific terms.
Please note that Subject 1A is not, despite their appearance, a small child.
It is not known precisely what Subject 1A is.
But whatever they are, it is not human.
Recommendation: Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep on the train.
Ever.
Resources:
Original 2ch post in its original context. (Post #78; in Japanese.)
Original 2ch post, singled out and reproduced. (In Japanese.)
Outline And Discussion Of Hitsuka Station, One Of The Strange Stations In Japan. (In Japanese.)
Otherworldly Stations That Exist In Japan Besides Kisaragi Station. (In Japanese.)
Toshiden Theatre Shorts: Hitsuka Station.
Seibu Railway line information.
***
Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Twitter @GhostMachine13 and on Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available now from Chronicle Books!
[Photos via Suikotei, Ippukucho, LERK/Wikimedia Commons, available under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY 3.0 Creative Commons licenses]
Leave a Reply