One of Indonesia’s most popular horror authors, Risa Saraswati, who writes under the pen name Jurnal Risa (Risa’s Journal), releases movies and comics as well as content on YouTube. On social media apps like Twitter and the online-writing platform Wattpad, smaller authors find their way to reach an audience of their own, gaining hundreds to thousands of likes on a single, mostly short, story.

Hanamizukimega is another of the many online horror authors whose stories have been released as physical books, taking advantage of the country's curiosity of the unknown and terrifying.

Mega, the woman behind the pen-name Hanamizukimega, said horror stories had always been a favorite genre of the masses. "In the past, people preferred horror threads on (online forum) Kaskus. The current generation prefers fun horror threads on Twitter. Then horror content on YouTube, makes readers prefer horror stories. Those who are new to mystical stories, usually become even more curious after reading or viewing the content," she said.

Many of the popular stories have one thing in common: they all claim to be based on true events. Though, as is the wont of internet urban legends, it is challenging to confirm whether these claims are valid or not.

Scary visions

Mega told The Jakarta Post that she started writing her stories after seeing these creatures herself - a claim she shares with many other online horror content creators. Mega has always loved writing, but these visions steered her in a more ghoulish direction. "At first, I didn't go straight to horror stories. My first work was in the romance genre, but then I tried getting into horror because I experienced these strange events myself."

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