111 - Square

【スクエア、sukuea】

['Sukuea' is a transliteration of 'square', sounds pretty weird, doesn't it?]

One person stands at each of the four corners of a classroom, with A at the first corner and B, C, and D at the subsequent corners in the same manner.

The first person walks toward B and taps the second person on the shoulder.

The second person then walks to C and taps the third person on the shoulder, and the third person walks to D and taps the fourth person on the shoulder.

At this point, the first person is at position B, so even if the fourth person walks to position A, there should be no one there.

However, for some reason, the fourth person taps someone on the shoulder.

Thinking it strange, they take a closer look, and sure enough, the person whom the fourth person should have tapped on the shoulder is not there.

What was this person who should not have been there?

Nobody knows.

Apparently, this rumor is based on the following ghost story.

Five climbers were lost in the snowy mountains and managed to escape to a mountain lodge. Unfortunately, one of them died, and the remaining four started playing this "Square" game to stay awake and continued endlessly until they were rescued.

However, later, upon closer examination, they realized that it was strange for this behavior to be repeated. The story goes that the ghost of the dead climber seemingly participated in the game.

It seems likely that only a taste of the contents of this ghost story was taken out and spread as that puzzling rumor.

In addition, similar to this "Square" rumor, there is another one called "Kaijin Answer ['Kaijin' means something like 'mystery person']". Ten people form a circle and make a simultaneous cell phone call to the person to their right.

Although all of them are supposed to be busy, a single one of them connects to "Kaijin Answer".

"Kaijin Answer" will answer any question, but there is a one-in-ten chance that it will ask a question in return, and if the caller fails to answer, a part of their body will be ripped off.

However, it turns out that "Kaijin Answer" is a rumor that was artificially spread through the Internet. It is likely that the person who spread the rumor knew about the "Square" rumor and mixed and matched it with the modern tool of cell phones and other urban legends, such as "Satoru-kun".