There is an urban legend about the Human-Faced Dog. It was a rumor that spread widely among elementary and middle school students across Japan in the late 1980s, and according to one theory, it was deliberately planted to study how rumors spread among children. As the name implies, it features an apparition: a dog with a human face. Like most urban legends of its kind, it's laden with sinister embellishments—claiming that if it passes your car at breakneck speed, you'll crash, or that encountering it brings terrible misfortune.

Today, however, much like the Slit-Mouthed Woman, Hanako-san of the Toilet, or the statue of Ninomiya Kinjiro that runs at midnight, it is treated merely as a product of the urban legend boom of the '80s and '90s—to put it bluntly, a "dated" ghost story. Unless someone is an absolute coward, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this modern era who genuinely fears the Human-Faced Dog. And yet, I once met a woman who said that while she didn't believe in ghosts, she was terrified of the Human-Faced Dog—or more accurately, terrified of "a dog with a human face."

The following is a personal account told to me by a woman named Kana, who lives somewhere in I Prefecture.

When Kana was in the sixth grade, her classmate Mayuko passed away. Shortly after the new school year began, Mayuko fell ill and was hospitalized, dying less than three months later. While Mayuko wasn't exactly the center of the class, she was a bright, energetic girl who took the lead in physical education and recess games. Because Kana was naturally shy, she had never been close to Mayuko, but the death of a classmate she shared a schoolhouse with was nevertheless shocking, and she remembers crying at the funeral until her voice went hoarse.

Children, however, are callously resilient creatures, and within a couple of weeks, the death of a classmate she hadn't been close to had been pushed into a far corner of her mind.

Then came a certain evening. Back then, Kana was attending cram school, and on late nights, she often didn't head home until after 7:00 p.m. Her parents were traditional and weren't the type to drive out to pick up their daughter, so even on late nights, Kana walked home alone. That evening was enveloped in a remarkably thick fog. The air felt heavy and clammy, making her skin crawl just walking through it. Though accustomed to walking dark roads alone despite her young age, she found herself hurrying home faster than usual.

—*Owwan, owwaann…*

That was when she heard it. Out of nowhere came the whimpering of a dog, stopping Kana in her tracks. Kana adored dogs. Whatever anxiety she felt toward the eerie, fog-drenched night vanished instantly, overcome by the desire to pet an animal. Where was it coming from? Judging by the pitch, was it a puppy or a small dog?

Whether it was a stray or a pet out for a walk, she wanted to pet it if she could. She just wanted to hold it. With that thought, she turned a corner and walked toward the sound.

—*Owwan, owwaann, kwwuuu…*

Before long, the whimpering sounded again, closer this time. It seemed to be just ahead. Urged on by curiosity, Kana broke into a jog and entered a narrow back alley. She felt a subtle sense of wrongness, but unable to pinpoint what it was, she kept moving. There were no streetlights, and the dark path stretched on ahead. Eventually, she emerged into a slightly open area and spotted a small shadow standing there. It was definitely shaped like a dog. From the silhouette, it was about the size of a puppy with black fur. A Black Shiba Inu, Kana thought. Seeing no collar, she wondered if it had escaped from someone's home. Half out of concern and half out of a desire to pet it, she ran over—and the dog turned toward her.

In that moment, Kana says she felt less "scared" than utterly "baffled."

The dog had a human face. It looked as though a dog's head had been shoved directly into the middle of a human face. Kana froze on the spot, paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the sight. What was most horrific was the face itself—it belonged to Mayuko, the classmate who had died half a month earlier and whose funeral Kana had attended.

—*Owwaann, uugghh, uwaauugh...*

Hearing the cry again, now knowing it came from a dog with Mayuko's face, Kana finally realized what had felt so wrong earlier. That was Mayuko's voice. It sounded as though human vocal cords were being forced to imitate a dog's bark. It was a harrowing whimper that made her own throat ache just listening to it.

"Mayuko...?" Suppressing her terror, Kana called out tentatively.

At her voice, the dog with Mayuko's face flinched back in fear. Its mouth—panting heavily in ragged breaths—opened with a wet, sickening squelch.

—*Ah, ugh, e-eh...*

The voice that spilled out was terribly halting, yet retained faint traces of human speech. "I think she said, 'Help me,'" Kana recalled. Faced with the incomprehensible reality of a dog bearing her dead classmate's face begging for help—or so it sounded to her—a childlike impulse to do something surged within her. What should she do? Should she catch it and bring it home first? Pondering this, Kana took a step forward. But her foot stopped dead when she noticed something.

Near the exit of the alley. Someone was peeking out from behind the shadow of a building, watching her. It was a short silhouette. Backlit by the gloom, the face was invisible, but judging by the frame, she assumed it was a young boy.

Only his attire was bizarre: he was clad in white burial shrouds. The boy was grinning wide—the corners of his mouth stretched upward into an unnatural, grotesque sneer as he stared at Kana. Perhaps because they were both children, Kana instinctively understood the meaning behind his smile. It was the look of someone watching eagerly to see if their prank would work.

—*Oh. He's waiting. He's waiting for me to touch Mayuko—*

In that moment, the terror of this monstrous situation—which had been paralyzed until now—surged violently from deep within her. Kana turned on her heel and fled all the way home, sobbing hysterically. ...As she ran away, she heard heavy, frantic stomping from behind—*thump-thump-thump-thump!*—accompanied by an ear-splitting canine shriek—*OWWAAANN!*—but Kana lacked the stomach to stop in her tracks.

Fortunately, she made it home safely, but predictably, when she told her parents what happened in the alleyway, they refused to believe her. Instead, she was scolded for being disrespectful and telling strange lies about a deceased classmate. Ever since that day, Kana lost her affection for dogs. Not only could she no longer tolerate urban legends about Human-Faced Dogs, but she also couldn't stand watching those TV shows that dubbed human voices over animals.

However, when Kana shared this story with me, she mentioned that she had recently asked her mother about the incident once more. To her surprise, her mother replied, "I remember that clearly," regarding the bizarre story her daughter had told her years ago.

"It wasn't something to tell a child back then, so I kept it from you. That Mayuko girl... her illness was actually mental. She was hospitalized for psychological issues. But while she was in the hospital, she suffered a heart attack or something—and that's how she died."

Knowing that Mayuko had passed away under such strange circumstances, Kana's mother had secretly felt creeped out by it all along. While she hadn't heard details about the specific condition, she had heard rumors that Mayuko had "suddenly lost her mind one day." Whether there was any connection between the events leading up to Mayuko's death and what Kana experienced that night remains unknown.

"Except..." Kana added, her expression darkening.

"I've met three people so far who say they've seen a dog with a human face and a smiling boy chasing after it. Every single one of them either grew up in my town or still lives there."

Though Kana's experience happened more than twenty years ago, the 'third person' she met had experienced it early last year.

"I wonder why Mayuko died..."

Was that "dog" really the Mayuko she knew in the first place?

If so, why had Mayuko become a "dog"? Who was that boy in white burial shrouds chasing the "dog"? Why was the "dog" fleeing from him in such terror? And is the "dog" still running from him, even now?

—*On that day, at that moment, in that alley... if I had picked up that dog with Mayuko's face, what on earth would have happened to me?*

"In the end, I still don't know a thing." So saying, Kana frowned. Just as I finished listening to her story, a young boy walking a black dog passed outside the coffee shop; I want to believe it was merely a coincidence.