Yahaba Island

Yahaba Island is a 38.14 square kilometer island on the outskirts of Kami Bay, Horokoshi. Once a rural municipality of Kimanjin Canton, villages dispersed between the northeast coast and the forested rocky interior. Earliest settlement is reported to be at 400 CE where fishers moved in.

In 1665, the Yellow Wasting epidemic was ravaging across mainland Horokoshi and some have decided to take refuge on Yahaba Island until the pestilence can pass. However, they unknowingly brought the deadly disease to the island. Many fell ill and eventually perished with a reported mortality rate of 50%, with two thirds of the deaths being Yahaba natives.

In 1667, Horokoshi was at war and the navy needed a forward post to guard the Kami Bay. With the Yellow Wasting still making waves across Horokoshi, the military coming to Yahaba Island and removing the natives sent them into their own second wave with the disease. From this point on, Yahaba Island was no longer a civilian establishment.

After the war concluded, the military built a small fort, lighthouse, and harbor, and the island would be reserved as a resupply station for naval ships protecting Kami Bay. Over the 1700s, the island base would be gradually used more as a port checkpoint for imports, and temporarily house quarantines for diseased ships.

In the 1800s, the island had seen significant renovation to the base, and the military allowed the construction of a mental institution. Patients of the Yahaba institute suffered the worst conditions in any mental institution in Horokoshi at that time.

By 1910, Red Death first arrived to Horokoshi at Yahaba Island. The quarantine spiraled out of control as military and medical staff had contracted the deadly pathogen. Mass graves were created to bury the dead, but it was not enough. The military was more superstitious at the time, so they permanently closed the island from government use and banned the public from settling on the island. Today, it is a hotspot of ghost-spotting tourism.