“Did you see any suspicious people or behaviour yesterday?”
Well, I’ve got an idea of who it was, but I don’t want to testify to the police and be held up for hours. It should be fine if I just say nothing and leave it to the police—or is it not?

Today, I will introduce one of the most terrifying Hitokowa (human horror) urban legends.

This is the experience of one woman.

She lived alone in an apartment with several floors in Tokyo. She worked as a hairstylist during the day and often came home late at night.

One night, she got home late that day as well, and it was close to midnight when she arrived at the entrance of her apartment. She lived on the fifth floor, so she pressed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive.

The elevator arrived on the first floor. Its doors opened. Then, there was a person dressed in black standing there. The person was wearing a hood, so she could not see the face clearly, but she could guess he was a man out of his body shape.

She was a little surprised because it was late at night. But if she had thought about it again, it would not have been that strange. In Japan, convenience stores are often open 24/7, so people may buy food and drinks late at night.

She reconsidered this and greeted the person with a “Good evening”. The man, however, did not reply and even kind of pushed her away to get out of the elevator and walked away.

“What a creep. What’s wrong with that guy?”

She was a little annoyed, but she was tired late at night and wanted to go to bed early for work tomorrow, so she decided to forget about it for the moment and went to sleep that night.

The next morning, as she was getting ready to go out to work. The doorbell rang.

“Who could it be, so early in the morning?”

When she opened the door, there was a male police officer standing there.

He said. “Sorry, I know it’s so early in the morning. But, actually, there was a murder in this apartment yesterday, and we have to proceed with the investigation.”

“What? A murder?” She was very shocked, as she had never imagined that such a serious matter could happen near her flat.

“Yeah. So, I would like to ask you, did you see any suspicious people or behaviour yesterday?”

As you can probably guess, she had an idea of who it was, to be honest. You know, the man in black that she met in the elevator hall yesterday. She clearly had a suspicious feeling about him.

But on the other hand, she also knew that when you testified to the police, you would be detained for more than half a day or something more or less. And she had been busy at work and didn’t wanna get distracted by anything.

So she knew it wasn’t a good thing but said to the officer, “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything in particular.”

Hearing this, the police officer replied, “I see. If you remember anything else, please contact the police.” He said that and left.

A few weeks later, she was on holiday for the first time in a long time that day. She was casually watching the news on TV. Then, the apartment where she lived appeared.

The reporter said. “There was a murder in this apartment a few weeks ago. But the suspect was arrested yesterday.”

“Ah, so it’s true that there was a murder in this apartment after all. Well, but it’s good that the murderer was caught.” She was accepting the fact like that.

But the moment she saw the murderer’s portrait on the TV, she was speechless with fear.

“This man is that policeman!”

According to the later police investigation, the man stated that he had returned to the apartment, falsifying his identity as a police officer, to find out if anyone had seen him.

“Yeah, I saw a man in black that day.”

What if she had told that policeman like this on that day? It is frightening to even imagine what would have happened.

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