The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara is the third story in The Liminal Zone.
Plot[]
Norio is terminally ill, and he and his girlfriend Mika agree to commit suicide together in Aokigahara Forest - known as a location for suicide. Unable to find a suitable spot to die, they decide to camp overnight, but are disturbed by a beam of light moving through the forest. It is still there the following morning. They realize that wherever the light touches, the trees are stripped bare. Norio and Mika trace the source of the light to a cave called the "Dragon's Mouth". Norio recalls a story that spirits of those who died in the forest flow out of the cave and make their way to the sacred Mt. Fuji.
Norio decides to wait by the cave to see the spirits reappear. Mika reluctantly agrees to stay with him, and they wait for hours until the spirits return late that night. Norio jumps into the writhing torrent of spirits, expecting to be taken to the land of the dead with them. However, he returns the following day, covered in residue from the spirits. He tells Mika that the symptoms of his illness have lessened. He no longer wants to die. He decides to find the spirits again to see if he can be cured completely; but doesn't return.
Mika goes home, but returns to Aokigahara two weeks later. She encounters Norio, who claims he's spent the whole time in the forest, bathing in the spirit flow. He even got another suicidal man, Mitsuya, to do the same. They have become addicted to the sensation and have no desire to leave. The spirits arrive again, and Norio and Mitsuya dive into the flow. Mika notices that the men no longer experience hunger or cold, and their bodies become leaner and more graceful each time they encounter the spirit flow.
A social media influencer arrives, wanting to record a video about the forest. He attempts to enter the Dragon's Mouth but soon returns, very distressed and only able to say the word "streamlined." He runs out of the forest. Norio and Mitsuya wait outside the cave for the spirits to return. They undress, feeling that they no longer need clothes. Mika is shocked, but they are proud of how beautiful their bodies have become thanks to the spirits. Norio and Mitsuya tell Mika that the last time the spirits arrived, they felt something different and more substantial. They are eagerly waiting for the next time to see what the change is.
The spirit flow returns, and Mika is accidentally swept into it. She doesn't return, and Norio and Mitsuya decide that she allowed the spirits to take her to the land of the dead. Mitsuya observes that their bodies have become "streamlined" with the spirit flow, and Norio remembers what happened with the influencer. He and Mitsuya decide to enter the cave. There, they find human bodies refined into bizarre shapes by the spirit flow. Mika is there with them.
Mika says that the people in the cave all came to the forest to commit suicide, but were carried away by the spirit flow. They allowed it to take them to Mt. Fuji and back through the cave, unlike Norio and Mitsuya, who always hold on to trees to prevent themselves being taken away. She tells them to trust the spirits and let the flow carry them. Norio and Mitsuya are reluctant, but at that moment, the spirit flow returns; sweeping them, and Mika, away. It is stated that this process happens endlessly with all those who came to the forest to die.