The Red Room Curse (Akai Heya) is one of Japan’s most terrifying and infamous horror stories. It tells of a mysterious dark web website that, once visited, brings unimaginable horror to those unlucky enough to see its sinister message.
The Red Room Curse became even more disturbing when, years later, a real-life tragedy echoed the gruesome details of the legend.
What do you think? Is it just an urban legend, or could the curse be real? Could there still be a dark web website spreading the curse? Some say that those who investigate too deeply find themselves trapped in a nightmare they can’t escape…
In this article:
The Red Room Curse
Tatsuya was a shy, quiet boy who had always found comfort in the glow of his computer screen. A computer geek, if you like. An expert at navigating the internet’s darkest corners, often seeking solace in the digital world since he struggled to connect with people in real life.
But that day, something felt different.
First, the same bullies (Haruto, Riku, and Yuma) picked on him. Again. They pushed him into the mud, and all his clothes got dirty.
Then, as soon as he finally got home, his parents started nagging him again—about his worse and worse grades, his constant isolation, his lack of friends.
Their words still echoed in his head as he stormed up the stairs. He slammed his bedroom door shut and turned on his computer. A welcome escape into the online world he knew so well.
A Cursed Website?
That night, as the hours passed, something gnawed at him. He remembered hearing rumors at school of a dark web website. But this one was different. Not like any other website he visited. It was… cursed.
Those who visited it were never the same. He overheard some of his classmates saying something about a computer virus. But others didn’t agree. They believed it was something much worse.
Regardless, he had to see it with his own eyes.
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So, Tatsuya spent the next hours browsing forums and chat rooms, digging through obscure dark web websites. He was determined to uncover any trace of this so-called Red Room curse.
His room was silent except for the faint clicks of his mouse and the hum of his computer. Time blurred. Soon, it was almost morning, but he had found nothing.
Exhaustion started to set in. Disappointed, Tatsuya finally decided to shut everything down and go to bed.
The Pop-Up
Just as he was about to close his browser, something strange happened. A small red window appeared in the bottom-right corner of his screen. At first, he thought it was an ad—a mundane, red-bordered pop-up that read, “Do you like | ?” in simple, block letters.
Annoyed, he tried to close it. But it wouldn’t go away. He clicked furiously a few more times. Nothing. The red box stayed.
Suspecting a virus, he ran his antivirus program. After a few minutes, the results: no virus detected.
“No virus? What could it be, then?”
Tatsuya tried rebooting his system, unplugging and reconnecting everything. But no matter what he did, the red window remained.
Frustration turned to dread as the monitor began to flicker. A deep red glow started to pulse from the back of the screen, lighting up the dark room in an eerie glow. The box on the screen changed.
“Do you like the | ?”
Unfolding Horror
Tatsuya’s finger twitched as he clicked inside the red box again. The text shifted once more:
“Do you like the r| ?”
He felt something strange, like a pressure building behind his eyes. His temples throbbed, and a ringing sound built in his ears. Still, his hand continued to click.
“Do you like the re| ?”
Each new word made his body feel heavier, and the red light from the monitor grew more intense. The glow filled the room, seeping into every corner like a blood-soaked fog.
“Do you like the red | ?”
His eyes were watering, stinging from the constant flashing of the screen. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. No use. The words continued to form.
“Do you like the red r| ?”
Tatsuya’s body trembled uncontrollably. Sweat dripped from his face, and his skin started to tingle. Like it was being pricked by a thousand tiny needles.
He clicked again.
“Do you like the red ro| ?”
And two more times.
“Do you like the red roo| ?”
“Do you like the red room?”
The ringing in his ears grew louder—almost unbearable, like nails scraping across a plate. It felt as if the screen was screaming at him.
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His eyes and ears started to bleed. Warm trails of blood running down his neck. He tried to stand up, to break free from whatever force was holding him there, but his body was frozen. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to the floor.
The room spun violently around him. It felt like his skin was on fire, burning from the inside out. The red light from the monitor consumed everything.
Suicide?
The next morning, his parents found his body slumped in the office chair, still facing the computer. Blood was everywhere. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—it was as if the entire room had been painted with it.
The monitor still glowed faintly, the red window filling the screen with the message: “Do you like the red room?”
Horrified, his parents called the police. But despite the grotesque scene, the authorities found no signs of forced entry. The door had been locked from the inside. Same for the windows.
The police were baffled. No apparent injuries on the boy’s body that could explain the amount of blood splattered around the room. No weapon. No signs of struggle. Nothing.
The case was ultimately ruled a suicide. However, how he did it remained a mystery.
The Curse Spreads: Nevada-tan
Believe it or not, the Red Room curse does not end there. In fact, it resurfaced in an even more gruesome way.
On June 1, 2004, in Sasebo, Japan, a horrifying incident shocked the nation. A girl known as Nevada-tan, only 11 years old, brutally murdered her classmate, Satomi Mitarai, inside a school classroom. Satomi, 12, had allegedly posted nasty comments about Nevada online.
Nevada waited until the two were alone, then attacked Satomi with a box cutter, stabbing her multiple times. The crime was savage—Satomi’s arms were severed, and her blood was used to smear symbols across the walls.
When the police questioned Nevada-tan, they were chilled by her cold, detached response. She showed no remorse, simply saying, “This is what I had to do.”
Since they couldn’t get anything from the girl, investigators searched her belongings, hoping to find some clue as to what had driven her to commit such a gruesome act. They couldn’t find much. The two girls were friends and never had any conflicts before.
However, the police did find something strange on Tan’s laptop. In the lower-right corner of the screen was a small red window with a strange question inside: “Do you like the red room?”
Once again, this eerie connection was dismissed as irrelevant, leaving the true horror of the Red Room curse unsolved. Yet, for those who know the story, the question lingers: what happens when you answer “Yes”?
