Do you know the story of the Sideshow Daruma Woman?

It's an urban legend that was popular back in the day:

when a guy went on an overseas trip with his girlfriend,

she went into a fitting room at a local clothing store and completely vanished.

Even though he asked the local police to search for her,

she was never found.

After returning to Japan, he visited that country time and time again, but still no luck.

Then, traveling to that country again several years later,

he happened to step into a freak show on a whim,

only to find his girlfriend—her tongue cut out and her arms and legs severed—

being displayed and sold as a freak show attraction. A truly gruesome story.

Though this story has always been told as an urban legend,

I recently had a terrifying experience that made me think maybe it isn't entirely a myth after all, so please hear me out.

The story goes back ten years.

At the time, I was traveling around Asian countries as a backpacker.

Since my college days, I had been doing short pseudo-backpacking trips,

so I had experienced my fair share of travel mishaps, like food poisoning and muggings,

but I never dreamed I would go through something like this.

It was about three months after I started my journey.

At the time, I was staying at a guesthouse-like place in the suburbs of Country A.

Surrounding nature was beautiful and the food was great,

so I was thinking of extending my stay a bit.

Well, to be honest, the nature and food were secondary; the real reason I wanted to stay longer was the girl staying in the room next to mine.

She was Japanese like me, which was rare for a young woman traveling solo.

Apparently, she had arrived the day before me

and said she planned to stay for about five more days.

At that time, only the two of us were staying at this small guesthouse,

and being young and full of ulterior motives, I was trying to prolong my stay.

On the night of my second day,

when I came back from buying groceries, I happened to bump into her in the lobby,

and we ended up drinking together right there.

Maybe because we shared the common hobby of backpacking, we hit it off,

and stayed up drinking until the booze ran out.

After we finished drinking, I went back to my room and was soaking in the lingering excitement of our chat,

when I heard the shower running from her room next door.

Because it was an old guesthouse, the sound carried right through.

Thinking I should take a quick shower myself before bed, I headed to the bathroom,

wallowing in restless fantasies about her showering next door,

when I dropped my soap on the floor and bent down to pick it up.

That's when I noticed a tiny crack in the tiled wall.

Driven by male curiosity, I peeked through the hole and found it connected right to her bathroom,

allowing me to spy on her while she showered.

Excited by this unbelievable hole, from that day on,

whenever I heard the sound of her shower, I would quietly peek through it—

repeating this utterly pathetic routine.

On the night before her scheduled departure,

"Today's her last day, huh..."

In the end, we hadn't run into each other in the lobby since that night of drinking,

and lacking the courage to go over to her room and invite her out,

I was filled with regret.

Still, that night, I anxiously waited for the sound of her shower,

having reduced myself to a mere peeping tom.

"Shhhhhhh..."

The usual sound of the shower started,

and I rushed to my bathroom.

Excitement surging, I peeked through the hole.

About five minutes passed.

*Thud thud thud!*

I heard heavy footsteps approaching,

*BANG!*

followed by the loud crash of a door being slammed open.

She seemed startled too,

freezing in place with the showerhead still in her hand.

After a few seconds of silence,

*SLAM!*

I couldn't see from my peephole,

but it was probably the sound of the bathroom door being kicked in.

Two local-looking men burst into her bathroom.

"Eek—"

Before she could finish her scream, she was struck down,

collapsing straight onto the floor,

and was dragged out of the bathroom by the men, disappearing from view.

Holding my trembling legs with my hands,

I locked the chain on my door

and huddled under my blanket, shaking until morning.

I was too paralyzed by fear to do anything.

The next morning, as soon as the lobby opened,

I rushed to the owner and explained what had happened the previous night.

But then,

I received an unbelievable response:

"There is no girl staying here."

A cold sweat suddenly broke out across my back,

and my legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Were you half-asleep?"

The owner smiled as he spoke, but his eyes weren't smiling at all.

That day, telling him I was going out to shop, I left the guesthouse for good,

checked into a hotel near the airport, and returned to Japan the very next day.

After returning to Japan, I checked the news constantly, but no matching reports ever aired.

Even if I wanted to go to the police, I barely knew anything about her, and I had no evidence.

I convinced myself it must have been a mistake and that she was surely safe.

Back then, I was desperate just to keep my sanity intact.

Then, two months ago,

through an unexpected turn of events,

I had to go to Country A again.

This time, however, it was for business.

Although it was the country where I had suffered that shocking experience, I hadn't visited once since then.

Partly due to the pandemic,

the place had changed drastically over the past decade.

With the cityscape almost completely transformed, memories of the past didn't really resurface,

until all the memories of that night suddenly came flashing back in an unexpected place.

That day, I visited a mansion located a bit far from the city center to buy antiques.

Supposedly, it belonged to a businessman with immense wealth,

but after his business failed, the owner went missing,

and the mansion, along with numerous antiques, was foreclosed

and put up for sale.

Many of the antiques I handle are somewhat unusual,

rarely circulating on the open market.

Having heard information that there was a vast collection of items this time,

I made the effort to travel all the way overseas despite the ongoing pandemic.

The inside of the mansion was built like a palace,

with a gaudy, tacky interior resembling a Macau casino.

Just as I was told, a huge number of ornaments and antiques lay collecting dust—

an absolute goldmine for me.

People who didn't understand their value must have rummaged through them;

precious items were piled up in a messy heap.

When I asked the guide for prices, he said most were dirt cheap,

adding, "Call me when you're done,"

before quickly stepping outside, clearly uninterested.

Excited by items I rarely came across,

I searched around inside the mansion.

Whether collected out of the former owner's personal taste or for investment,

the array of antiques was diverse and completely lacked coherence.

It was right as I was walking down a connecting hallway.

Here, several paintings were left leaning against the wall,

and among them was something that made me gasp in horror.

Inside a massive picture frame roughly two meters tall,

a limbless human body was molded in three dimensions using a plaster-like material.

It looked like a stone statue cut sideways and affixed to a canvas—

essentially a full-body version of a death mask presented as a 3D painting.

The middle-aged man in the artwork had an expression of agony,

a truly grotesque piece of work.

There were three or four 3D paintings like this lined up,

but when I looked at one of them,

I experienced what was easily the greatest shock of my life.

Inside that 3D painting, a young woman without limbs bore an expression of anguish—

and that woman was none other than the girl who had vanished at that guesthouse.

There was no mistaking it.

It was the face that had haunted my dreams most over the past ten years.

The year marked on the artwork said nine years ago.

In the 3D painting, her face was almost unchanged from back then, with an expression looking as though she was about to burst into tears.

After that night, had her limbs been severed and cast in plaster...?

Sensing an inexplicable twist of fate,

I took action to trace her whereabouts using that artwork as a clue.

I'll omit the details, but I postponed my return flight and spent a considerable amount of money.

But what I realized was this:

Even if you live a peaceful, mundane life,

if you get caught up in a powerful, sinister force,

it can crumble all too easily.

When Japanese nationals are kidnapped in terrorist attacks

or caught in fatal robberies, it gets broadcast heavily,

but behind the scenes, there are countless harrowing truths that are never reported.

I can say this with certainty:

The story of the Daruma Woman is a true story mixed with fiction.

Finally,

I want to clarify that I used "Country A" for reasons I can never reveal, so please do not dig into this and treat it strictly as fiction. I have my own circumstances, and please understand that from an outsider's perspective, there are things that seem solvable but aren't. Also, I want to express both my apologies and gratitude for using this site in this manner as an outlet for my inner conflict.