Hey, readers, and thanks for checking out my newest story! The title of my story ("Where the Wild Things Are") actually came from one of my friends. As we were sitting around in my basement watching the movie for the very first time, she looked at the Ushioni (the creatures that get out of the elevator as Lin is trying to hide Chihiro) and the Onama-Sama (a few similar gods) and said "Boy, those guys look like the monsters in a book I read as a kid. 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Have you ever read it?" Neither me or my other friend had, but it was an interesting statement none the less. So the title is Where the Wild Things Are (although I don't own the title. It belongs to Maurice Sendak, and I hope that I do him proud with my writing by borrowing it). As for the Spirit World, Chihiro Ogino, her parents (Akio and Yuko), Haku, Yubaba, the gods and spirits of the bathhouse, and all the other characters I choose to use (excluding Yasuyo Kutaro. He's mine) are not mine, nor is acclaimed movie Spirited Away. Hail to the master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki!!!
Chapter One: As Clocks Break
Plump crocodile tears fell from a pair of large, dark eyes onto an open book. Chihiro sniffed quietly, rubbing the salty drops into the paper, slightly distorting the text. She pushed her homework aside, burying her face in her arms. She couldn't concentrate. While she sat here at home, her mother was waiting anxiously at the hospital. More tears slid down Chihiro's face. Her dad was too young to die! 45-year-olds weren't supposed to have heart attacks! She rolled slowly off her bed and let herself fall to the floor, pretending she was dead for a moment. After scolding herself for her immature rudeness, she crawled over to the chair by her desk, whereupon hung her schoolbag. She dug her hand deep down inside and, after a few laborious moments, produced a small cell phone. She quickly scrolled through the directory and called the number of a certain Yasuyo Kutaro. As she pulled herself up into the desk chair, her eyes caught on a small gallery of photos displayed in frames on her desktop. One in particular stood out to her. It was taken on New Year's earlier that year. Chihiro remembered handing her camera to an older couple to get her picture taken with Yasuyo. She felt a fond warmness toward the two frozen in time within that picture frame. He looked so handsome in his good clothes, and she had to admit that she looked kind of pretty in her dark red kimono. Her long brown hair was held back from her face in two soft buns, each nestled with intricate decorations and hanging jewels. That picture was taken when she was sixteen, but she had recently turned seventeen. She and Yasuyo had been together for just over a year. How time flew…
Chihiro frowned when she got his voice mail. She decided to leave a message. "Hey, Yasuyo…call me back right away, okay? Bye…" She sounded very defeated as she pushed the End button on her phone. She forced her tears back and attempted to contact her mom, but got the away message again. It was the fourth time already this hour that her mom hadn't answered. What was happening?! She had watched him clutch at his chest that morning at the breakfast table, biting at the inside of his mouth until blood seeped through his teeth. His face was bright red, his eyes watering. She could still hear the guttural moans and grunts of pain as if they were coming from his throat at this very moment. The last time she had seen him was when the emergency crew of medics were carrying him quickly out on a stretcher. Her mom gave her quick directions to stay home from school before running to catch up with the medics, asking frantic questions that echoed back to her as they left. Her mom was usually practical and no-nonsense. She was really scared, which made Chihiro really worried.
She wiped fresh tears from her cheeks, wanting to reach back and find a happy place she could resort to…back when things were okay. She pulled a framed photograph out from behind numerous others. A 10-year-old version of herself smiled knowingly while her parents' proud, wide grins drew the viewer's attention to the house behind them. The house they all lived in now. This was taken the day they moved in. The day after all that weird stuff had happened.
Memories of the strange and unusual world of gods and spirits…the place of very dream…the home of every nightmare. The spirit world she had found herself in had, over time, become a silly fantasy. A childish delusion. Being carried to the side of the river when he was younger was all a coincidence. Pure luck. Lin was not real and No Face was not real. But most of all, Haku was not real.
She put the picture face down on her desk, moving back to her bed. She laid down, her face in a pillow. She drifted deep into a restless dream of burning boilers and vast seas of rain, gods and bathhouses, and the twisting, twining flights of a single dragon…