Hi, Benny, my name is Mary and I will be interviewing you and hearing your story on what happened on June 25th when you and your friends were in Japan.

Well, Mary, it started on June 20th, 2015. My friends and I were going on a vacation to Japan to hike and camp in the haunted cave called Chibichiri Cave. we did it as a joke thinking we would go in there record us staying there for a couple of days to prove it was haunted but then things went horribly wrong.

We did some research on this cave to see what made it haunted and it turns out this cave was were around 180 soldiers and civilians committed suicide to avoid being captured. They killed themselves using poison, stabbing, and gunshots. People have written they feel something tugging on them and whispers in their ear when they are inside the cave. That is what we read on the internet and wanted to go see if those things were true, we wanted to experience what it is like to spend a couple of days with the paranormal.

Mary “Benny tell me what we're your friend's names? And what did they look like?”

There was Jacob who was 5’ 11 he had short brown hair but a well-built body. his girlfriend Becca was 5’ 4 but she had long black hair and was a workout fanatic like her boyfriend Jacob. They met in a gym of all places. and Kaleb who was tall about 6’5 and black hair and brown eyes he was a personal trainer and his girlfriend Jessica was about 5’5 with blonde hair who met him when she was looking for a personal trainer and then my girlfriend Misty. She’s 5’5 with black hair and green eyes and Who works in a wildlife sanctuary. Then there is me, I’m partners with Kaleb as we own our own gym and train people. We all work out together as a group after we close the gym every day. It’s how we bond as friends.

Before we left I can remember my mom asking me not to go because she had a bad feeling and I wish I had listened to her. Our plane left our small town of Blowing Rock North Carolina at 10:30 P.M. on June 19th. We flew for about 10 hours where we landed in San Francisco California. We had a 6-hour layover where we left the airport to go and get something to eat at this small sushi restaurant, we started our Japanese adventure a bit early you could say. Then we called an uber and got a ride back to the airport for about $15. We were on the plane at about 2:30 and taking off at about 3 o’clock. We had another long flight so I leaned my seat back and took a nap with my girlfriend cuddled up with me. We finally had landed around 11 p.m. in Okinawa Japan. Once we were all off the plane we talked and to see if anyone was hungry but we all agreed that we were tired and wanted to go to our hotel to sleep for the rest of the night and would meet back up around 10 a.m. the next morning to go meet our tour guide. The next morning we all meet in the breakfast haul in our hotel o grab a bite to eat before heading off. It was about an hour drive to where we needed to go but it took a little longer since we had to load up all our camping gear and stop to buy some food for our 2-day camping trip.

We finally met up with our tour guide and his name was Riku. Riku was smaller than us guys but the same height as all of our girlfriends. He was super energetic when we meet him. I do not know if it was because he was excited or nervous.

Riku asked us “ before we go in are you sure you want to pursue this adventure in the cave, nobody has ever camped inside.”

we all agreed we wanted too. We hiked up the side of a mountain for about 2 and a half hours to get to the cave a man was it a beautiful hike. There were flowers I’ve never seen before and the view of the city was amazing, Lots of photos got taken on the hike up there. With such a beautiful hike up there I was finding it hard to believe this cave could be such a terrible place.

Riku told us “ the spirits make the hike so beautiful to lewer people into the cave, do not let the spirits trick you.”

Jacob and Kaleb and I all looked at each other with kind of a concerned looked on our faces. It was a good thing all our girlfriends were ahead of us taking pictures because we know if they would have heard that they would have wanted to turn around and leave. Kaleb was walking next to me when he rolled his ankle going up the hill and Jacob and I carried him to a rock to sit and take a break to let it rest till he was good to go. Thankfully his girlfriend brought stuff to help with pain. I told Jessica “ by the end of this trip that bottle will be empty” we all laughed.

Riku said, “ laugh now because once you enter the cave there will be no laughing, the spirits caused him to roll his ankle.”

Misty asked me what he was talking about when he said “spirits” and then we had to explain to our girlfriends that he believes the spirits have already begun tormenting us. I told them do not worry Riku is just paranoid, there is nothing to worry about.

Kaleb was feeling good and ready to continue so we got up and walked the last 200 yards. Then we came to where the trail looked like it had stopped at the wall of the mountain. About 40 feet through thru the brush to our right there was this crack in the side of this mountain just big enough to turn side was and squeeze through. Once you were through there was a big gap where you could have been built in front of the giant cave opening. it was a huge opening right there. It had to be 25 feet tall by 20 feet across. We were all stunned on how we did not see this from below at all.

Becca made a good point when she said: “ that's probably why they all hid in here in this cave because you can see it from below because the wall of the mountain hides it.”

we all wanted our picture in front of opening like any tourist would want. You could see into the cave at all, it was a wall of black. If you walked into the opening about 10 feet someone outside the cave would not be able to see as you were engulfed in the darkness. We camped outside the cave the first night as we had a long hike ahead of us to where the paranormal is supposed to occur the most. Most people who go in this cave do not go as far as we are about to just for the fact that things start to get too weird for them. We built a fire with sticks and shrub we had around us and cook up some grub over the fire. It got cold that night, colder then we were expecting it too. It was a good thing I had my girl to help stay warm because we were high up in the mountains and the breeze was cold. I woke up the next morning and I was so cold so I got up to make a fire and when I opened the tent I saw all of our stuff had been scattered all over our campground.

Jessica asked Riku ¨what kind of animals live up here that could do this?¨

Riku replied and said “ the only animals up here are us and a few small bird species. This was no animal attack this was a warning, something does not want us up here in its territory.”

I looked at him and asked what he meant by that but did not speak a word. All he did was stare off into the darkness of the cave. After about 5 minutes he spoke and said

“best gather all our stuff up and clean up before we enter.”

it took us about an hour to pack up our tents and gather all our stuff up, then we headed into the caves at about 9 A.M.

When we stepped foot into the cave it got about 10 or 15 degrees colder than outside the cave and there was not even any sun shining. We got in about 25 feet and stopped to light our torches the tour guide brought us. He told us not to use gas lamps as the spirits do not like gas. I asked him if it was because some of them had died from gas poisoning. Riku looked at me and cracked a joke and said

“ well, you can ask them when we get to them”.

We all laughed. So we used old fashioned torches instead which all the guys thought were cool with but the girls weren't a fan of them. I felt like I was in some Indiana Jones movie. After we got the torches lit you could immediately see some bones on the ground but

Riku told us “those are fake bones that people planted here to scare people. Do not worry tho where I am taking you, you will see real bones from the people who died here”.

I was excited and we guys kept scaring the girls and making fun of them for being scared. The cave was pretty big for most the way, definitely plenty of room to walk. There was one spot that was really small, tight, and cramped. I can get claustrophobic so when I saw this I was starting to get nervous. Riku went through first and told us to push our bags in front of us as there would not be enough room to get through with them on our back. Jacob went first then Kaleb then all the girls and I were last, it took me a few minutes to work up the courage to go in and once I was in it was not to bad.

We came out on the other side and there was this big beautiful lake in the cave. It was very big about 50 feet across but it looked like it glowed. Riku told us it was from the microorganism that lives in there since they live in a part of the cave that sees no light their bodies glow and makes the water light up and shine bright blue. We were all shocked but found it to be cool. We decided to camp here for the first night in the cave. We all decided to go swimming in the water, it was about 80 degrees a lot warmer than any of us thought it would be. There was this waterfall where the water came from and we filled our water bottles up from there so was had something to drink. Misty and I swam on the other side of the waterfall where we spent about an hour together just some alone time. At about 8 o’clock we made a fire and hung up our clothes to dry out and made some dinner. We brought some canned soups we cooked up and ate. We pitched our tents and then Jessica had a smart idea since our soup cans were see through that we should fill them with the lake water so we could use it as a giant glow stick. It worked and now the girls had there owned little lamps to carry with them. We headed to bed around 10 or so but I could not sleep for some reason, then I heard what sounded like a little girl crying so I opened up the tent and peeked out to see what it was but did not see anything. I went back inside and just closed my eyes and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning I went to wake up Jacob and I told him to come to get some breakfast. I  asked if he was good because I was the 3rd person to try and wake him. He was sleeping so hard. He got up and came and ate with all of use. We made up lunches and burned all our garbage and they were ready to head of the most dangerous part of the cave. The next part of our hike is where things started to go bad for all of us. As we walked about an hour the trail had come to a cliff edge that was no there before. You couldn't even see the bottom of the dark pit where the trail and fallen in. Becca saw a small cliff edge that looks like it went around but the walk was was only about 6 inches for our feet to walk on. We all agreed that one of us would go first and test it out. Since I was the last one to go through the tight opening I had to be the one to test it out. I went and it was easy for me. Everyone went and then it was Jessicas turn and this scared us all. She was about halfway across when rocky ledge started to give out, we yield and told her to jump and we’d catch her. She jumped and right as she pushed up it gave out and she did not get a good jump. Kaleb reached out and his hand but he didn’t reach far enough. Their fingers grazed each other and Kaleb was not able to grab her. She fell about 60 feet and landed on an edge where we could see her but she was unconscious. We had some rope and lowered Kaleb down and he got her and brought her up. After about an hour she woke up and she besides is sore she had no broken bones but a bad headache, We figured she had a concussion. Riku said things will only get worse because the spirits do not want us down this far.

Things started getting worse comer night time. We had made it to the part where the people had committed suicide to keep from getting captured. Where we made camp that night was the worst night of our lives. All we could hear was screaming, the spirits started terrorizing us. They started attacking us and we didn't know they could physically hurt us, but these spirits were different than anything we had ever read about or heard about. They were like next level spirits, ones that needed help to be set free from the darkness they were trapped in. They scratched and clawed at us, ripping open our flesh making us bleed. We all thought this was the end, but then they all stopped just as we were on the edge of death. One of the spirits walked up to Riku and hugged him, she knew him. We heard him speak to her and ask her one thing,

“grandmother is it really you”.

Now we understood why he wanted him of all people wanted to be the one to take us here, he lost his grandmother and he wanted to see her one last time.  We all felt sorrow for Riku and his grandmother but at the same time, he looked happy. Riku had a big smile on my face with a few tears rolling down his cheeks as he hugged his grandmother one last time. As he was hugging her she started to fade away in his arms as if she was able to leave this horrible cave they were trapped in.

Riku turned to us and told us that “if spirits are stuck in the human world it’s because they have unfinished business here on earth or something they need to do before they can move on to the next world”.

She needed to see Riku one last time before she could move on and leave this world. When her spirit dissolved and faded away and she was gone all the other spirits started to fade away as well. Soldiers, mothers, fathers, and children all vanished before our eyes.

We were battered and bruised from the tormenting and attacks we had experienced it was over. The spirits were gone as we were inside an empty cave with nothing but us and skeletons from those who perished. Riku bent over and picked something up from what we believed to be his grandmothers remains.

Riku looked at us and told us ¨this was my grandmothers and she told me one day it would be mine¨.

It was a shiny gold necklace and on that necklace was a golden dragon that was about three inches long and had a red ruby for its eye and another at the tip of his tail.

Riku told us “ this necklace is a sacred necklace because it's not just any dragon it a necklace to worship the dragon god, they believed that way back in ancient times that this when they were in desperate times if the prayed to the dragon god he’d turn into a dragon and fly down here to save them”.

Riku showed us then put it around his neck, it looked really good on him. I kinda wanted a necklace like that because it looks so fearsome and majestic. We finally decided to start heading back out but we knew we had another day and a half before we were out so we decided to make camp after about 3 hours of walking. Let me tell you, after about 3 days without a shower plus walking and sweating inside such a humid and hot cave we were all starting to smell pretty rancid.

We knew we had one thing keeping us from getting out of this cave and boy were we all thinking about it and how'd we’d get through it. That night we were all talking about the cliff edge and how'd we get across since the ledge broke away, Jessica was definitely not in the mood to think about it considering she almost lost her life at that cliff edge. We all decided to not talk about it till we got there and that we should get to bed after we eat our supper. We all went to sleep knowing we might not be able to get of the cave made it harder to sleep. It was a long night that night, I could not stop thinking about it. Come the next morning I was exhausted from not being able to sleep, but once I got up and started moving around I woke up more and wasn't so tired which was a good thing. We pulled out some M.R.E. and got those going and ate those for breakfast that morning. It was a fairly quiet morning that morning as no one really said a word to anyone. We were all ready to just get out of this damn cave. I packed everything up and started heading back toward the one thing that had us all worried. After about an hour and half of walking, we came upon the cliff edge where we had no way across the 15-foot gap between us and the other side of the trail. The only thing stopping us was the fact that we had nothing to get across with. Misty my girlfriend had a good idea, she asked if anyone had any flares and I had a few I brought just in case. She told me to light a flare and drop it and see if there was another opening lower down that we could lower ourselves down with since we had a rope. I pulled it out and lit it and held my hand over the edge as everyone gathered around to watch. Then I released the flare and watched it fall after about a second it landed on a ledge. To our surprise, there was another bridge going to an opening on the other side.

We asked Riku if he knew where that trail leads to and he pulled out the map of the caves but that trail we found was not on any map he’d ever seen. He told us that he should go down first and check it out and make sure everything was safe. We got the rope out and tied it around this boulder and lowered Riku down. Once he was down he told

“wait here while I scout out this trail”

after about 15 minutes of being gone, he returned and waved us all down. One by one we lowered each other down, of course, the ladies went first and I was the last one. On my way down about halfway down the rope snapped and I fell. I landed right on my back on the edge of the path and bounced off but I was able to grab onto the edge and with some help got pulled back up. I fell about 15 feet but I was okay, a little sore on my back but I was still able to walk.

We started walking on this path had a bunch of what looked like red and blue and white crystal-like rocks sticking out of the cave walls. Riku told us they were colored diamonds, extremely rare as most people think diamonds only come in clear color. We all stopped and started breaking them off and shoving as many as we could in our packs and pockets. If we get out of this cave we are going to leave here richer then when we first entered. We each gathered about 25 pounds were of diamonds. All sorts of colors such as white, clear, red, blue, pink, green, and orange. Riku new a lot about diamonds and told us that

“141.7 carats equal one ounce. Times that by 16 you get 2,267.2 carats of diamond ore per pound. Raw diamond ore is worth about $6,000 per carat times that by 2,267.2 for each pound of diamond ore is worth $13,603,200. Times that by the 25 pounds of diamond ore we each gathered we walk out of there with roughly $340,080,000 in diamond ore for each person”.

We all looked at each other after hearing that and jumped with joy, finally, something good happened to us on this trip. We were all really in need for a win, now all we gotta do is get out of this cave. Right as we were about to leave we saw this powder of sorts in the cracks of the wall. We put on of the torches next to it to see what it could be and it caught fire but did not explode, it glowed all the way down creating like a lighted path like a runway sorta deal. It was neat to see as we walked the rest of the way it was guiding us and after a while, we saw the light of day shining through the cracks in the wall where the trail ended.

Riku said “somewhere on this mountain used to be a diamond mine but they stopped mining as the miners were not returning to work due to being terrorized by the spirits. I believe this is the diamond mine we are in right now.¨

It had looked like they blocked off the entrance to the mine with rocks and boulders. We had nothing to move the big boulders out of the way, we thought all was lost.

Becca said ¨the powder on the walls were sulfur and if we could gather enough of it and light it all at once we could blow the rock away.¨

The only thing is if it works and blows up well then we were risking blowing the top of the cave and having even more rock fall in the entrance and even the whole cave collapsing and crushing us and killing us all. This was our only option because we could not go back because the rope broke and there was no other path, the rock was too heavy to move by hand so our only choice was to blow it up. So we scrapped as much of the sulfur off the walls and sprinkled it all over the rock near where we saw light shining through from the outside. We moved down to where the cave had a turn so we were out of the way from the blast. Using our last flare we lit the flare and all took a deep breath as this was our last chance. I stepped around the corner and threw the flare and watched as it bounced and landed right on the sulfur I jumped back and we all heard a huge boom and a flash of red light filled the cave. When the smoke cleared we saw the one thing we did not want to see, the rocks were still there. Everyone started to panic and yell in frustration and horror thinking we were never getting out of here.

Kaleb walked over and start pounding on the rock releasing all his anger on it. The rock started to fall in small pieces. Kaleb yelled and told us to come over. We all ran and what we saw was the rocks were still there but the explosion made the break and crack into small enough pieces we could move them by hand. With everyone's last bit on energy, we were grabbing and throwing rocks behind us cutting our fingers open on the sharp edges but we did not care one bit. The drive to escape this god forgiving cave was so overpowering. Then, the next thing we know we all fall through the rock and were free from the cave at last. We all laid there on our backs crying and laughing and just overjoyed to be out breathing clean air. Even though we were all tired we all ran down the mountain in a hurry to get away from there and never to return. Once we were at the bottom we stopped and hugged each other. Riku thanked us, I asked him why he was thanking us and he told us

¨ you guys helped me see my grandmother one last time and helped set her free so she could move on. I got her necklace and now I will always have a part of her with me so thank you. I could not have done this without you guys.¨

we all took turns hugging Riku goodbye as we all parted ways.

He went back to his family and we all went back to the airport and cleaned up and were on the next plane ride home. Once we were on the plane we were finally able to relax as we were finally going home. We were all talking on the flight if we should tell people back home about our story. We were all pretty scared about the trip and none of us really wanted to talk about but Jacob said we are going to have to tell them something because they are gonna ask where we got all this diamond ore. We all decided if anyone wanted to talk about it we could and if someone did not want to talk about it that was their choice and we were okay with that.

Once we were finally home we got off the plane and finally went home and oh my was it so nice to sleep in my own bed. The next day we gathered our families and all met up with friends and we told our story to our family. At first, none of them believed us then we dumped out all the diamond ore and they looked at us and were shocked.

Misty told all of our families that ¨we had a gift for them¨

and they all asked what it was and Misty wanted me to tell everyone. So I told them that we are going to split all the money we make from this diamond ore equally between us and our families because this trip made us realize how important our families and friends are to us and we wanted to give something to our parents because without them we wouldn't have become friends.

Everyone jumped in joy and once we told them how much the diamond ore was worth and how much we had we all rushed to the only place in this state to sell diamond ore. They asked where we found this much diamond ore and we told them our story and they were shocked. They wrote us a check just over $2 billion. We all screamed and went to the back and had it divided equally.

Mary ¨Benny can I ask what you and your girlfriend did without your money¨?

Well, Mary, the first thing I did was bought my girlfriend a ring from the diamond we sold and married her. Then we bought our own house that we are sitting in right now. I got a new truck and she bought a new car as well. The rest well we put in saving and in a college saving fund for our baby boy that my wife is pregnant with. For the rest of the people well you'd have to go ask them what they did with their money but that's the end of my story Marry. I hope my story will help you with what you needed.

Mary ¨no thank you for your time, it was so nice to hear your story. I'll make sure it becomes a famous story, Have a good day Benny.¨

Goodbye Mary.