Boring…
I Want to Sleep…
Fuji-Q Highland’s Senritsu Meikyu was very different from an ordinary carnival haunted house.
Instead of walking through a tiny sequence of rooms and leaving within ten minutes, visitors entered the massive abandoned-hospital attraction in small groups and followed its long, oppressive route through Jikyu General Hospital.
When Daniel Mercer learned that Atlas, Sadako, and Emily could enter together without him, his eyes immediately brightened.
“Well, in that case, I’ll make the noble sacrifice and stay outside,” Daniel said with exaggerated regret.
“You three should enjoy yourselves.” Atlas immediately understood that the man who had survived Sadako’s death stare on a movie set was apparently still afraid of a haunted attraction, but he chose not to expose him and simply nodded.
Before entering, the staff confirmed that Atlas, Sadako, and Emily understood the attraction’s safety rules and handed them dim flashlights.
They were also told that if the experience became too intense, they should follow the marked emergency exits and contact staff instead of continuing deeper into the hospital.
One employee deliberately emphasized that there was no shame in quitting early, although his teasing expression made the challenge obvious.
Atlas naturally understood what the employee was doing.
Haunted attractions often encouraged customers to push farther by challenging their pride, otherwise half the frightened visitors might leave before experiencing the best sections.
Atlas shook his head confidently.
“I don’t think we’ll need an emergency exit.”
The employee smiled.
“Good luck, then.”
He had heard countless confident guests say similar things before walking inside.
Many of those same people returned screaming, pale-faced, and clinging to whoever happened to be closest.
Once Atlas’s group disappeared through the entrance, the employee quietly notified the scare performers farther inside that another overly confident group was approaching.
The instant Atlas stepped into the hospital, the atmosphere changed completely.
Weak fluorescent lights flickered above narrow corridors while unsettling hospital noises and distant metallic sounds echoed through the building, and a strange medicinal odor lingered in the air.
Even knowing it was artificial, Atlas immediately felt goosebumps spreading across his arms.
Emily unconsciously grabbed his left arm.
Atlas glanced at her nervous expression before looking toward Sadako on his right, only to find the genuine vengeful spirit slowly yawning.
She looked less like someone entering one of Japan’s most famous haunted attractions and more like someone trapped in a particularly boring business meeting.
A vague figure suddenly appeared farther down the corridor.
Atlas quickly raised his flashlight and illuminated a nurse covered in fake blood, carrying a severed prop head in one hand.
“I died so horribly…” the performer moaned while slowly approaching them.
She delivered the line perfectly.
Unfortunately, her targets were disappointing.
Emily nervously watched her while remaining attached to Atlas’s arm, but Atlas merely stared for a moment before continuing forward.
Sadako didn’t even bother turning her head and calmly walked past the fake ghost as if the woman were part of the furniture.
The actress stood there silently.
Inside the attraction’s monitoring area, staff members watching the available feeds noticed the group’s unusually calm reaction.
One of them frowned before informing performers farther along the route that the guests approaching them appeared unusually difficult to frighten.
If the normal scares weren’t working, they would simply have to try harder.
Atlas continued forward while various effects activated around them.
Doors slammed without warning, objects moved in the darkness, distorted hospital announcements echoed through the corridors, and performers occasionally emerged from blind corners.
Sadako remained completely indifferent, while Emily gradually tightened her grip on Atlas’s arm.
Atlas, meanwhile, had quietly grabbed Sadako’s cold arm with his other hand.
Her skin felt unnaturally chilled, but right now that coldness somehow gave him an enormous sense of security.
Atlas silently comforted himself while walking forward.
What am I afraid of?
These are all fake ghosts.
I’ve got the real Sadako Yamamura walking beside me.
The first several sections gradually conditioned them to the environment, but Atlas soon noticed the scares becoming more aggressive.
The corridors became darker, the background noises more disturbing, and the performers appeared more frequently.
It felt as though everything earlier had merely been preparing visitors for the more oppressive sections deeper inside.
Eventually, the three reached a room designed like a morgue.
Atlas pushed open the door.
Rows of hospital beds filled the dim chamber, with white sheets covering human-shaped figures resting on nearly every one.
Atlas didn’t need supernatural perception to guess what was underneath them.
His imagination was already doing enough work.
Sadako glanced down at the hand gripping her arm.
“Your hand is shaking.”
Atlas immediately answered, “Your arm is freezing.
That’s why.”
Sadako stared at him for a moment but didn’t expose the obvious lie.
The three slowly moved between the beds until they reached the center of the room.
Atlas already knew something was about to happen, yet the cramped space, darkness, and expectation still made his heartbeat accelerate.
Sometimes anticipating a scare was worse than actually seeing it.
Then several white sheets suddenly flew aside.
One grotesque hospital ghost after another sat upright.
The scare performers twisted their bodies into unnatural poses and immediately rushed toward the three visitors while shouting.
Atlas’s carefully maintained courage disappeared for half a second.
“Run!”
He grabbed Emily and tried pulling Sadako toward the exit.
Sadako didn’t move.
Atlas pulled harder.
Nothing.
She continued walking forward at the same leisurely pace while a group of fake ghosts surrounded them.
Realizing he couldn’t drag her anywhere without making the situation even more embarrassing, Atlas straightened his back and forced himself to walk calmly beside her.
Emily stared at them in disbelief.
“You’re seriously walking?”
“Emily, don’t panic,” Atlas said while gripping Sadako’s arm even tighter.
“I’m right here.”
Emily froze.
Atlas reached back with his free hand, gently caught her sleeve, and gave her a reassuring smile.
“If you’re scared, close your eyes.
I’ll guide you through.”
Her heart suddenly began beating faster.
Strangely, it no longer had much to do with the ghosts surrounding them.
Emily stared at Atlas for a moment before lowering her eyes.
“Okay…”
She closed them and allowed him to lead her forward.
For that moment, she felt completely safe.
The scare performers were dumbfounded.
They had surrounded the group while twisting their bodies, growling, and delivering threatening lines, yet the three visitors seemed to have become progressively less interested in them.
Atlas was pretending not to be frightened, Emily was walking with her eyes closed while blushing, and Sadako looked like she might fall asleep.
One performer lunged toward them.
“I’ll take your lives!”
Another crawled beside Atlas.
“You can’t escape!”
Sadako yawned.
Atlas scratched his ear.
Emily touched her warm cheeks.
The performers nearly lost their professional composure.
Could you people at least pretend we’re scary?
Their reactions made the entire performance feel ridiculous.
Under the increasingly desperate attempts of the hospital ghosts to terrify them, Atlas, Emily, and Sadako calmly walked out of the morgue.
Once they disappeared into the next corridor, several performers remained behind wondering what exactly had just happened.
Even the attraction staff following their progress found the situation strange.
Senritsu Meikyu was designed to exhaust visitors through a long succession of oppressive hospital environments and sudden scares, yet this particular group seemed remarkably resistant.
The long-haired young woman was especially offensive to their professional pride because she had maintained the same sleepy expression from the moment she entered.
Soon, Atlas reached another hospital section resembling an operating room.
Sadako stopped beside him.
She genuinely looked bored.
“You’ve had your fun,” she said.
“Now it’s my turn.”
Atlas immediately glanced toward Emily, who was standing nearby with her head lowered and cheeks still slightly pink.
He leaned closer to Sadako and whispered, “Fine, but control yourself.
Don’t hurt anybody, and definitely don’t kill anyone.
I don’t want another ambulance.”
Sadako gave a small nod.
Then she looked toward the surveillance cameras.
Electronic interference spread through the attraction.
Several active monitoring feeds suddenly dissolved into static, confusing the staff watching them.
Screens flickered one after another as the affected cameras stopped giving useful images.
At the same moment, Sadako’s ordinary clothes changed.
A familiar white dress covered her body.
Her long black hair slipped forward until it completely concealed her face.
Atlas’s eyes widened.
Emily was still standing right there, and Sadako had transformed without even attempting to hide what she was doing.
Before he could stop her, Sadako calmly explained, “Don’t worry.
She’s already inside an illusion.”
Atlas looked toward Emily.
She was standing quietly with an absent smile on her face.
Sadako added, “Right now she’s thinking about you.”
Atlas became speechless.
This ghost was becoming increasingly difficult to manage now that he had removed most of her compulsory restrictions.
Atlas rubbed his forehead before looking at Sadako’s white dress.
One question he had wondered about for a long time suddenly came to mind.
“Why do you always wear this whenever you’re going to scare someone?”
Sadako slowly raised her head.
A single eerie eye appeared through the curtain of black hair.
“Because when I died…”
Her voice became unnaturally quiet.
“…this is how I remember myself.”
Sadako disappeared.
Atlas stood motionless for a second.
Then a violent shiver ran down his spine.
After spending the last hour surrounded by fake corpses, fake ghosts, professional scare actors, blood effects, and carefully constructed hospital sets, Atlas suddenly understood the difference.
Those things had created fear through skill.
Sadako created it simply by existing.
“The real thing really is different…”
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