This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Soft_Letterhead3726 on 2026-05-12 23:34:42+00:00.

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When I was about 12, I went through a phase where all I watched on YouTube were urban legend videos. I was obsessed with them. One day I spent hours just going from one video to the next, and eventually I came across something called the Daruma-San Ritual. Some people also call it “The Bath Game.”

I kept watching more videos about it, and by that night I had already decided I was going to try it the next day. I knew I would be home alone, and that felt like the perfect chance.

The next day, after everyone left, I started getting ready.

For anyone who does not know, the ritual is based on a story about a girl who died in a shower. The version I heard said she slipped, hit the faucet, and gouged her eye out. The whole ritual is built around that moment.

You are supposed to be completely alone in the house. All the lights have to be off. It takes place in the bathroom.

You turn off the lights, close your eyes, and step into the shower. You keep your eyes closed the entire time. While you wash your hair, you repeat the same phrase over and over.

“Daruma-San fell down. Daruma-San fell down.”

You do not stop until you are finished.

Once you are done, you are supposed to rinse your hair, still with your eyes closed. People say that at that point, you will see something. A vision of the girl in the shower. Slipping. Falling. Dying.

After that, you ask one question.

“Why did you fall?”

Then you get out of the shower, still without opening your eyes, and leave the bathroom as fast as you can. You are supposed to go straight to sleep.

The next day is when it continues. The idea is that she follows you. It turns into something like Red Light, Green Light. If she gets too close, you say a specific phrase to stop her and create distance. At the end of the day, you say, “I cut you loose,” and it is supposed to end.

If you make it through without her reaching you, you are supposed to have good luck afterward.

So of course, at 12 years old, that was all I needed to hear.

I took my towel and clothes into the bathroom and got into the shower. I had to keep my eyes closed the whole time. I remember trying not to panic over how vulnerable that felt.

I turned the water on and started washing my hair.

“Daruma-San fell down. Daruma-San fell down.”

I just kept repeating it. Over and over. Trying not to think about anything else.

Eventually, I finished washing my hair and started rinsing.

That was when it happened.

Even though my eyes were closed, I saw something. It was not clear, more like a dark impression than a full image, but I could make it out. A girl in the shower. She slipped. There was a sharp movement, and then something violent. I could hear her screaming. Loud. Panicked. It felt too real.

I could not see her face clearly, just the motion and the sound.

Still with my eyes closed, I said, “Why did you fall?”

The second I finished the sentence, something slammed into my head.

I jumped and my eyes flew open.

The shower rod had fallen straight down and hit me. It was one of those heavy, retractable rods that had been up for over a year without any problems. I had not touched the curtain at all.

The bathroom was pitch black.

I stood there for a second, completely frozen, trying to process what just happened. Then I got out of the shower as fast as I could, turned the lights on, grabbed my towel, and ran out.

I left my clothes behind without even thinking about it.

I went straight to my room, blinking hard like I could reset what I had just seen. I sat on my bed, trying to calm myself down, trying to come up with any explanation that made sense.

The only thing I could think of was the steam. Maybe the heat loosened the rod and caused it to fall.

But the timing did not feel random.

It felt immediate. Like it happened because I asked the question.

Then I realized something that made it worse.

I never turned the bathroom lights off.

I was so focused on keeping my eyes closed that I forgot that part completely. I know for a fact I did not turn them off before I got in the shower.

So how was the room completely dark?

I keep thinking about that.

If I did the ritual wrong, then something was already off. And if something turned the lights off for me, then it means I was not alone in that bathroom.

I do not know if I finished the ritual properly. I do not know if it even matters.

All I know is that I never said “I cut you loose.”

And sometimes, even now, I still feel like something is just behind me.