She first caught my trail when I lost my job.

I did not recognize her as a monster, while she lurked within the shadows on the edge of my despair, nor when she stepped into the light, offering all the answers. We grew close, as she seduced me, took me under her wing and sang me her sweet song. How different my life would be, had I turned my head away from her first whispers. Once those sweet nothings hit my ear, I was lost.

Spurred by her honeyed words, I was set, like so many others, on a path leading to Aokigahara, at the foot of Mount Fuji; another wandering soul looking to find a place among the yurei. There, she promised, I would find answers. I would find redemption.

No wind stirs the Sea of Trees. No birds sing their songs. The forest is still as Death, even as her spectre haunts my footsteps. I cannot hear her, but I know she is there.

One cannot capture the haunting beauty of Aokigahara with mere words. The trail I walk upon is marked with pink plastic tape, a sign left by park wardens, warning me away from the melancholy embrace of Aokigahara’s deepest corners. The trees themselves, twisted, ancient beings, are like lost souls, silently seeking out the damned who wander into the forest, hoping to wrap them up and steal them away into endless twilight. Caught in that place between life and death, the ghosts of my people flood this silent forest, waiting eternally for their suffering to end. If one listens closely to the silence, past the sound of one’s own heartbeat, it is said you will hear the wails of those lost souls.

Voices break the silence.

I come to a split in the trail. One choice. Two destinies. Two hikers are coming down one of the paths. A man and his lover. Tourists drawn by the beauty of Aokigahara, but warned to stay away from the darker corners of the forest, those trails marked by pink tape. They seem startled at my presence, but unafraid. Death is not chasing them, for they have weapons with which to fight. The man moves around his girlfriend, placing himself between her and me. When they disappear from sight, I hear their conversation resume. Already they have forgotten me. Just like everyone else.

I choose the other path. My destination is not the same as theirs.

I hike deeper into the forest.

A sign, staked to the side of the trail. The same pink tape that marks the path hangs from it in ragged strips, beckoning my eye. It reads: ‘Please Reconsider!’

I ignore it. I have considered enough.

My pockets are empty, with no weapon to fight what nips at my heels. I am penniless. I am defenseless. I am unworthy. The demon knows this, it is why she chose me.

I see a book, hidden within the bramble off the side of the trail. I stop to pick it up, though I already know its title.

Kuroi Jukai by Seicho Matsumoto. I am right. It is the story of a boy and a girl who take their own lives in Aokigahara, star-crossed lovers to the end. This copy is old. It falls apart in my hands, the innocent victim of a sorrowful owner and the uncaring caress of weather and time. The same book, dog-eared and worn, is stuffed into the pocket of my jacket.

I drop the decaying book back to the forest floor. Over time, it will rot into nothingness. Just like its owner.

I must run now. I have wasted time, looking at the book. I can feel the whisper-thin promises of the monster.

The scattered remains of human lives litter the trail I follow. Packages of pills, their blisters broken and empty; a down jacket, long bereft of an owner; a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, sitting idly next to an empty duffle bag. As the refuse grows more common, I know I am almost there. It is almost time to take a stand, to follow through on the promise I have made.

I run faster.

I trip. My face hits the ground, a tooth knocked loose on a rock. I spit dirt. I spit again; blood speckles the foamy saliva.

I get up and look at what caught my feet. A corpse. Its head now lies a few feet away. The eyes are gone, rotted away long ago, but the cavernous holes left behind berate me for my carelessness. The skull grins, wicked and jeering.

A single centipede crawls from the skull, a scavenger hunting for last scraps of meat. Death has no compassion. I almost gag. I almost turn back. But instead I run, faster than before.

Aokigahara is said to be a place of purgatory for the yurei, the lost souls of Japan. Those who no longer believe in life go to the Sea of Trees so they can find death. Tales speak of the trees themselves – malevolent spirits, whose tempestuous lies entrap those weak of will, make ill-kept promises about what waits beyond the veil.

Though no wind touches the branches of those trees, still they rustle with the whispers of the dead.

Death follows me through the forest, for Aokigahara is its stalking ground.

Another body. It hangs from a tree. A woman, her neck broken. One shoe lies in the deadfall below, slipped from its foot in the days after her death.

I stop and stare at the woman, wonder what we might have had in common. What similarities might have led us down this grisly path, to find the same sad end.

I will never know.

I leave the main trail. A narrow deer track, marked again by conspicuous pink tape. It seems as good a place as any.

I can feel Death breathing down my neck, though still she makes no sound.

The tree is monstrous. It caps a rocky hill, blocking anything from growing within the circle of its shadow. At the foot of the hill is a skeleton, dead longer than I have lived.

I climb the hill.

Hanging from the boughs of the tree is a long electrical cord, tied into a noose. As the body rotted, the cord held strong. Eventually the neck snapped and the skeleton fell.

This is it. The end.

How different things could have been.

I can outrun her no longer. Her promises are too strong. The monster has found me, finally come to claim what is hers.

The limbs of the tree are solid and evenly spaced, as if crafted for climbing. I think of my mother as I climb. She is dead. Will she be there, waiting for me on the other side?

Or will I join the yurei?

I wrap the cord around my neck.

I jump.

Death catches me at last, wraps me in her cold embrace.