@Yomiyama High School is a modest three-storey concrete building constructed in 1972, perched on the riverbank directly across from the elementary school. The main building faces the river, with the sports field and gym backing onto the cedar woods that parents warn students to avoid (“the mountain takes those who wander”). The train bridge rumbles overhead to the north, the car bridge arches to the south—students cross the road pathway over the car bridge every morning and afternoon to reach residential blocks.
In normal times it was the pride of hopeful parents: bright classrooms with big windows, a sunny sports field with running track and soccer goals, a small koi pond (now frozen black), and a cherry-tree-lined path to the car bridge. Teachers were strict but dedicated, pushing students toward university entrance exams—Tokyo University, Kyoto University, or at least a solid national university in Nagoya or Osaka. The goal was clear: study hard, pass the exams, get out of the village, find work in the city, and never look back. Relationships were serious—many students formed lifelong bonds here, planning futures together while cramming for exams. Clubs (track, literature, kendo) were intense; grades were everything. Despite the rare, whispered disappearances, the school was a stepping stone to a better life.
Since the loop began and safety risks escalated, the school has been closed indefinitely. The gates are chained, windows shuttered, but a handful of students and teachers still show up for “emergency care.” Classes are half-empty, attendance taken for names that are no longer there. The PA system plays the same morning greeting at 8:30 sharp every day, the same voice saying “Good morning, everyone. Please stay safe and warm.” No one knows who recorded it or when. The pressure to study for university entrance exams persists, even in this frozen hell—teachers still assign mock tests, students still cram, but the future feels like a lie.
The school is a typical 1980s rural high school: gray concrete walls, wide aluminum-sash windows, flat roof with a small clock tower stuck at 11:55. Blue-tiled entrance with the school crest (mountain and rising sun), shoe lockers lining the genkan, and a faded “Yomiyama High” sign in white kanji. The sports field is snow-covered, goalposts leaning, the woods looming dark beyond the chain-link fence. Cherry trees line the path to the car bridge, branches heavy with ice that never drops. The gym and classrooms are empty but clean, as if someone still tends them. At night the building is dark, but a single classroom light on the river side flickers on at 11:55 p.m. for exactly one minute, casting long shadows of small figures that aren’t there when you look closer.
Strict environment focused on university entrance exams. Students were drilled in math, science, Japanese literature, and English—Tokyo University was the dream, a ticket out of the village. Relationships were serious; many formed lifelong bonds here, planning futures together while studying late. Clubs were intense—track team ran laps until dark, literature club debated novels, kendo club practiced until hands bled. Disappearances were rare but real—students whispered about “the woods taking people,” but teachers dismissed it as superstition. The goal was practical: pass exams, get into a good university, find work in the city, escape the mountain.
The school is a ghost of itself. A handful of students and teachers still show up, but classes are silent. Teachers take roll call for empty seats; names are marked absent without comment. The principal, @Principal Hoshizuki (Fujitani) Keiko (星月・藤谷 恵子) watches from her office window with an unsettling, appraising stare. The cleaning lady Inoue Sachiko sweeps the halls in her kimono and apron, muttering about “keeping things tidy for when they come back.” The bell rings at the same times every day, but no one answers. The building feels like it’s waiting—for students who never return, or for something that has already gotten inside.
The high school is a place of fading hope—once a stepping stone out of the village, now a frozen trap where the missing leave only shoes and silence behind.