Short Stories from Hell: Fuan no Tane

SO!

I stumbled over this short story from a manga while I was browsing tumblr. It was about a nurse that was delivering a baby over to the maternity ward after the mother's delivery. A pretty joyous occasion, all round! However, as the nurse is walking to the ward, she talks about an unspoken rule about running into something. Should you run into it, never acknowledge it, or talk about it. And it looks...well it looks like this:

Cute, right? D:

Since I'm getting back into the groove of diving into freaky ass shit (as I'm currently reading the Zero manga along with Dio XD ), I got HELLA curious about Fuan no Tane aka Seeds of Anxiety. It's actually a series of ghost stories, urban legends, and general superstitions. I haven't encountered one of these since I read The Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard way back when I was a kid. Seeing something like this in manga form is worse for me, largely due to the visualization of what's being told, though not without my imagination filling in the blanks of what's happening O_O.

Each set of stories is told with a certain theme. For this volume, there are 5 of them:

“School”Your standard fair of freaky ghost stories that happen up in a school. These stories can range from freaky visitors, to really and truly unexplained happenings. These stories just reassure me not to stay too long after school ends. Yes, I am a substitute teacher, but IT STILL APPLIES! Have you been around a school late in the day? It's kinda freaky O_O.

“I'm Following You” You know the classic question: “Do you ever get the feeling that you are being watched?” This series of stories highlights just that. It ranges from plain freaky to incredibly dangerous. The series actually kicks off with a combination of both. Don't let your imagination fill in the blanks for this one; at least, I wouldn't recommend it.

“Visitors” A little pebble, scrape, shout just outside? Ignore it, it's probably nothing. (And yes, that's all I'm saying on it >:3)

“Roadside Shadows” This one's a bit obscure, but that means that your imagination has to fill in the gaps (Be sure to mind them.). But I'll say this: You never know what's lurking in the shadows...unless you take a peek.

“Something Strange”

In your neighborhood…

Who you gonna call?

Whoever you can to get the FUCK outta Dodge! (Except for one of these stories, it's actually cute!)

Each of these themes comes with a small quip. Whether that quip is advice or a dare is up to your interpretation. There are a lot of stories in this series, but since they're all relatively short, most of them are easy to digest! M-mostly ^^; While some of the stories may miss their mark (as is the case with these kinds of series), some will put you in an uncomfortable state of anxiety. We'll highlight the ones that kick that creep factor up a notch as the month goes on!

“Please...hug me...”

--Choco (10/7/15)

(manga scans courtesy of mangago.me)

Alternate site links: Mangatown