The body that the Northern Alps mountain rescue team discovered at the bottom of a ravine belonged to Takashi Sakamoto, a seasoned mountaineer. He had fallen from a steep slope at around 2,800 meters above sea level and was found buried beneath the snow. At first glance, it seemed to be a typical mountaineering accident. But inside his backpack, they found a small notebook.
In it, written in a trembling hand, were the words:
“I was murdered.”
The police began an investigation, considering the possibility of foul play. They questioned the three climbers who had accompanied Sakamoto on the winter expedition—Murakami, Ishida, and Nishioka.
“The last time I saw Sakamoto was at a resting point just before the summit. The wind was howling, and he said, ‘I’ll catch up later.’”
Murakami was the first to give his statement.
“We headed to the hut ahead of him. But he never came back.”
Ishida testified next, his eyes lowered, shivering in the cold.
“Maybe he lost his way… but…”
“But?” Detective Murase pressed.
“He’d been saying strange things lately. Like, ‘I feel like someone’s out to get me.’”
The third climber, Nishioka, spoke up with a grim expression.
“Nonsense. Sakamoto was a careful man. This was just an unfortunate accident.”
But the three men’s accounts conflicted in subtle ways, as if they were hiding something.
The next day, Murase examined the notebook where Sakamoto’s note had been written. On that same page, there was another unsettling sentence:
“He pushed me into the ravine…!”
Yet something felt off. The ink of the note wouldn’t have flowed in the freezing conditions severe enough to cause frostbite. Which meant—the message may have been written elsewhere, or planted by someone after the fact.
Murase summoned the three climbers again, probing further. At last, he uncovered a crucial fact.
“You wrote the note, didn’t you?”
His finger pointed at Murakami. Murakami looked shocked. After a moment of silence, he spoke, as if resigning himself.
“I didn’t kill him! But after he fell, I started to think—maybe someone really had pushed him… But I had no proof. So I wrote that note, hoping the police would look deeper…”
In other words, Sakamoto’s death might truly have been an accident. And yet, something still didn’t sit right.
Just then, the weather took a sudden turn, raising the threat of an avalanche. The investigation had to be suspended temporarily. But Murase made one last move.
“Nishioka. You’re the one who did it, aren’t you?”
Nishioka narrowed his eyes for an instant.
“Got any proof?”
“No. But you’re too calm about all this. And the person Sakamoto said was after him—wasn’t it you?”
Nishioka took a slow, deep breath. And then he let out a low chuckle.
“You’re sharp. …Yeah. I did it.”
At that moment, the roar of an avalanche filled the air.
As the police team scrambled to safety, Nishioka vanished into the swirling snow.
Days later, Nishioka’s body was found. The full truth was swallowed by darkness, but among the mountaineers, the tale lived on.
“They say you can still find footprints in the snow up there—
as if someone is trying to tell us something…”
