Video Will

The Video Will is a scary story about a man who is passionate about mountain climbing and wants to record a message for his family in the event that he dies accidentally. It is based on a Japanese horror story.

One of my co-workers died recently. His name was K. We were quite close and he would sometimes invite me to spend time with his family.

K’s hobby was mountain climbing. He was really enthusiastic about it and spent a lot of his free time climbing. Whenever he had a day off, he would either be climbing mountains or scaling cliffs. It was his passion.

About half a year before he died, K told me something strange.

“I want you to make a video will for me, in case I die.”

K knew that his hobby was a dangerous one and that he could lose his life, so he wanted to record a video message in advance. In the event of his death, he wanted me to show it to his family.

I told him that if it was so dangerous, he should stop because he had to think of his family, but K flatly refused, saying he would absolutely never think about stopping climbing. I knew that there was no point in trying to persuade him otherwise, so I agreed to shoot the video.

We decided to shoot the video in my apartment. K sat on the sofa with a white wall in the background. I pressed the “Record” button and K started talking.

“Uh… This is K,” he said. “If you are watching this video, it means that I’m dead. I’m sorry for troubling everyone, but I had to continue my hobby. To my wife and daughter, thank you so much for everything.”

“To my mom and dad, thank you for bringing me up. To my friends, thank you for being there for me. I know you are all grieving my death, but please don’t be sad. I am having fun in heaven. I regret that I won’t be able to see all of you again, but know that I am watching from heaven.

“To my daughter, Daddy will be watching from above forever, so don’t cry. Please smile and say farewell. So, goodbye to you all…”

I stopped the video recording.

Of course, when we made the video, K was very much alive. However, six months later, he died in a climbing accident.

According to his fellow climbers, the accident was caused by sliding during climbing. Usually, they had a safety net below the area where they were climbing in case anybody fell. However, when K slipped and fell, he was quite far from the safety net and missed it on the way down. They said that the accident could not have been prevented.

The funeral ceremony was very sad. K’s wife and daughter were crying hysterically. His family were inconsolable. Even I couldn’t believe that K was really dead.

A week later, I decided that it was time to show the video will to K’s family. Enough time had passed, things had calmed down and his relatives said that if there was a video message from K, they would like to see it.

I took the DVD out of the case, put it into the player and pressed “Play”. His family and friends began to cry.

The screen was black and there was a high-pitched buzzing sound coming from the speakers. For a moment, I thought the video failed to record.

Then, suddenly, the face of K emerged from the darkness and he started talking.

I thought it was odd. We had shot the video in my apartment, against a white wall, but now K was surrounded by darkness.

“Uh… This is K,” he said. “If you are watching this video, … … … I’m dead. To my wife and daughter, … … … … for everything.”

As K spoke, the buzzing sound continued. It got louder and louder until it was so bad that his voice was difficult to hear.

“To my mom and dad… … … To my friends… … … I know you are all grieving my death, but… … … I don’t want to die! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! IDONTWANTTODIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

Everyone who was watching felt a chill run down their spines.

The buzzing got louder and louder.

“BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!”

K kept screaming and screaming.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!”

The buzzing and screaming merged into one terrible cacophany of noise. It sounded like the agonized screams of someone being tortured to death.

Just as the video ended, it looked like something emerged from the darkness at the edges of the screen. It grabbed K’s arm and pulled him away.

The screen went black. All of the family were crying and shrieking. His wife grabbed me and screamed at me, demanding to know why I would show them such a thing. His father punched me. One of K’s friends tried to calm everybody down by saying I was not the type of person who would play a prank at a time like this.

I apologized to everyone and told them that the DVD would be destroyed. There was nothing else I could say.

The next day, I took the DVD to a Buddhist temple in the neighborhood. As soon as the priest saw the paper bag containing the DVD, he said, “Oh, that’s impossible for us to deal with here.”

He told me I would have to take it to a different place where they would “do a spiritual cleansing”. When I went there, they told me, “You brought a treacherous thing!”

According to the priests there, K was being dragged into hell at the time I was shooting the video. They said they didn’t know how K managed to live for half a year after that. He was supposed to have died accidentally just after the video was shot.