Disclaimer: I do not own the Spirited Away franchise, although I wish I did.

Chihiro is now twenty. Ten years passed since she last was in the Spirit World, since then she had many boyfriends and a loving family, but her carefree life will soon be over.

Chapter One

Déjà-vu

I looked over my shoulder to stare outside the window. I smiled today was Saturday and I would be able to go back home. Classes at University were hard and I was really starting to get fed up with them, especially with my English teacher—he was a nice guy and all, but it was as though I was losing my English instead of improving it. I finished doing my bed and I walked out of the school residences with a few of my clothes for the weekend in my backpack. The apartments were stale gray and too small for three girls to live in them. They only had one small bathroom and no living room. Daddy got me a Lexus so that I would be able to get back home alone, without asking him or my mom for a lift. I couldn't wait to get back to my little blue house. Mom had promised me we were going to have Italian for dinner.

I jumped into my black car and slid the key in the key whole and I listened to the motor's silent purrs. I put the car in drive and I drove out of the drive way. I saw a bunch of students leaning on the wall of the College. They were talking and holding on to their books. A boy with a green jumper and mousy brown hair turned to look at me drive away. It was Peter Edinburgh. I sneered in disgust at the thought of his name. He was a transfer student from Scotland, and although he seemed nice at first, he was a complete douchebag. In fact all my ex-boyfriends were. It was as though there was a supernatural force that didn't want me to find love.

I took the first exit to get on the highway. I turned on the radio, the shrill voice of the announcer made its way into my ear, "COME ON DOWN! PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!" I was about to turn it off when he announced that the party was for the inauguration of the restoration of the Kohaku river. I smiled, ten year ago I had started a petition and the residents of the apartment buildings and condos found that the idea of a river running next to their building was very enticing, not to mention that my dad convinced them that the resale value would double if they had a river nearby.

For a brief second I wanted to do a U-turn and go see the river, but I had come to terms with my silly dream. In fact it was only a dream, nothing more. How could a grown woman still believe in dragons, witches, monsters, and Bath Houses for spirits? Daddy always told me I had a vivid imagination. When I told mom she laughed it off and gave me a sketch book so that I could draw my "Ideas" as she called them. At first that was all I did. I drew, drew and drew. I could have gotten carpal tunnel syndrome. Luckily I did not. Thinking back, I had drawn a boy, a dragon, two old ladies, a man with too many arms, a young woman, something black with a mask for a face, a big baby and a bird with an old lady's face, and a bunch of strange monsters. When I was younger I was so positive that they were real, everyone thought I was a freak. Then I went to high school, became a cheerleader and I got popular.

Sometimes I think that's why I stopped believing, all my friends would have thought I was freak and I was sick of being one. The only thing that made me believe that it wasn't a dream was the purple hairband that I carried everywhere with me, but mom said I had it way before we moved. I continued driving and I turned to look at the sea to my left. I sighed, it was only a dream. I needed to stop thinking of that especially now after midterm. I thought of Cho and Aimi and then I smiled knowing that they would probably turn all my silent questioning into jokes. The University was not far away from home, maybe forty miles or so. I hadn't seen mom and dad in so long. It was nice to know I was finally going home.

There was something that moved in the sea, and it jumped onto the beach, only to jump once again on the hood of my car. It was yellow and it looked like a giant chick. I screamed and the car swerved. I had almost lost the control of it, but I hurled the car towards the next exit to get off of the highway. Thankfully it was close by. At first the exit was a paved street, then it turned to rubble, only to become dirt road.

"Don't worry I got four well drive." I heard a voice say in my head. It was my dad's voice. I could see tiny little houses on the edge of the road. I drove quickly not wanting to linger on this road and I wanted to find a perpendicular street as fast as I could so that I could be able to go home and eat the pizza that my mom made for me. There was no street to get me back to the highway.

I think the road went on forever, until a large round statue filled with moss popped in the middle of this forsaken street. I slammed my foot on the break. Behind the statue was a red deserted stone temple. I put the car in park, and took out the key. I got out of my vehicle with my backpack. I moved towards the familiar building and I touched the stone façade, it was not stone… it was plaster. I walked closer to the entrance, it was a deep tunnel and I could not see a speck of light at the end of it. The wind was gently urging me to go inside. I saw a shade pass quickly by me and when I turned to see what it was—there was nothing.

"Weird…" I muttered as I started walking in the dark tunnel… this was all too familiar.

For some reason I knew that there was going to be a room that looked exactly like a train station at the end of the tunnel. I sat down on one of the wooden benches that were next to a stone pillar and I looked at the stained glass windows. I could see that the doors were wide open and I could see green fields and behind them a little hill with stairs and on top of those stairs was a frog. The amphibian's mouth was wide open and beneath him was growing, like on many of the other statues, moss. I got up and walked towards the stairs. I could not help but notice that there was a rocky trail right before the stairs.

Between the rocks there was water flowing, "I guess they were going to put a river here." I heard my dad's voice say once again. I jumped from rock to rock until I reached the stairs. There was an amazing intoxicating aroma that filled the air, but I knew better than to follow it, even if my stomach was grumbling loudly.

I walked around, but I noticed that they were only restaurants—could it be? I continued walking and went up the stair and came face to face with a bridge and a large building. I put my backpack on the floor and unzipped it. I moved some of my clothes around until I reached my sketch book. I opened it and found the page that I was looking for. I help it up in front of me. It was the same exact building! I was back in the spirit world. I was overcome with emotions, I had to sit down. I sat on the stairs and held my sketch book tightly in my hands.

"I have to be dreaming." I muttered looking in front of me at the multitude of restaurants. "This is not real… it never was."

I turned to look at the bath house—it was real, I was back. It was all so dizzying. I laid my head down on the stairs and closed my eyes; I was going to wake up in my bed, in my parents' house, first thing in the morning.

When I half-opened my eyes, I was in bed, but not on my mattress and not in my room. People were muttering around me, I could hear such things as, "Did you give her some food?" "Do you think it's her?" "I wonder why she stayed on the stairs?" They all seemed like familiar voices. I lifted my head up a bit.

"AH!" I screamed as I saw a giant toad in front of me.

"Wha? What is it?" It asked and I moved even more far away from it when I noticed it could talk. Behind him was an army of strangely dressed women, and weird frog like men… I lifted the bed sheets to my chin and blinked many times, thinking that maybe they would disappear that way. The toad in front of me got hit by a beautiful slender woman with brown hair that was tied back.

"Don't you see you're scaring her idiot." She said to him condescendingly. She looked at me and smiled. I wanted to smile back, but I was far too scared. "See what you did!" She scowled the thing again.

"Please don't be mean to him." I breathed with slightly more courage, I felt guilty for the poor thing… he didn't mean to frighten me.

"You haven't changed a bit, your still a big dope." She said as she looked at me. "Say thanks to the boiler man, he's really sticking his neck out for you." I remembered her—Rin—it was Rin! I flung the sheets off of me and jumped into her arms. She had been so nice to me. Rin had acted the same way a big sister would. She took care of me, brought me food, helped me with my shores around the Bath House… it was all coming back to me.

"Rin! Oh I can't believe that I thought you didn't exist!" I said to her, I turned to look around. These were all the employees of the Bath House. They had probably found me sleeping on the stairs and brought me in. I was mesmerized that I hadn't been turned into a pig.

"Yubaba is on her way." A man said as he walked in, he had an overgrown mustache, he smelled like smoke, he wore a brown shirt and he had too many arms. I couldn't help but recognize Kamajii instantly. He smiled at me and gave me a thumb up. "Good to see you again Sen."

"Kamajii!" I squealed in delight. It was not, after all, a stupid childhood dream. My friends existed. In my heart I knew that they always existed, but—I was so glad to know that I was not crazy. Then I realized that I hadn't left this place with the greatest memory of Yubaba. Now, I was really wondering why I hadn't been turned into a pig. I heard footsteps next to the door and I saw her short silhouette come into view.

Her eyes accessed the room and then they fell on me. She grinned, and took a puff of cigarette. She inhaled and held her breath for a second and during that second I started to think about all the things that she could do to me. I did not want to work for the Bath House; one time was enough, thank you. I guess she was going to turn me into a pig, or maybe into a lump of coal… I'd rather be a lump of coal that way I wouldn't feel any pain. She took one step towards me and shook her head. I gulped.

"Chihiro, what are you doing here?" She asked, but she was not rude or angry. Yubaba sounded genuinely concerned.

I shook my head vigorously and shrugged at the same time. I didn't know what to tell her. After all these years, I did not know what I was doing here either. She sighed and took another puff of cigarette. With her left hand she massaged her left temple. Her eyes narrowed as though she was thinking. "Did you feed her?" She asked Rin.

Rin shook her head.

"And she hasn't started to disappear yet, even though it's night time?" She questioned her again.

Rin shook her head again.

"Oh dear—well I might as well go get Kohaku." She said.

She turned to leave.

"Wait!" I called after her, "What is going on?"

"You've always belonged to both worlds Chihiro." Yubaba answered gently as she left. "This means I owe Zeniba some gold."

I looked at Rin and Kamajii waiting for answers.

"The Spirit World changed a lot ever since you left Sen." They answered and all of the employees nodded behind them.

"What about Haku—Kohaku, why is he still here?" I asked.

"He wanted to stay, when you left something changed in Yubaba. I figured it was because of Boh, he grew up to be a fine little bugger."