dreams and nightmares - no. 88

the headless warrior

Japanese folklore tells the legend of a vampire-like creature called the nukekubi, meaning 'prowling head.'

 By day, a nukekubi is largely indistinguishable from an ordinary person. At night, however, its head detaches from its neck and flies away. The flying head of the nukekubi preys on mortal flesh. Once it finds its victim, it emits a paralysing scream before going in for the kill.

Often a nukekubi has no idea what it is. It might only recall dreams of seeing its room from odd angles. To vanquish a nukekubi, you must find its idle body at night and destroy it, thereby killing the head. There is one way to identify a nukekubi by day - it will have two or three wrinkles along the bottom of its neck.