DISCLAMER: Sadly I do not own Spirited Away but if I did there would already be a trilogy and Haku and Chihiro will be married.
Revision: ~Febuary 13, 2016~
It was currently 8:38 pm cold and absolutely freezing. Emiko and her best friend Mayumi had gone out that night to go to a party but had gotten lost. Somehow with Emiko's bad driving skills they ended in a forest around the outskirts of town. Right in front of them was a lion dog with a strange looking tunnel behind it. The wall of the marble tunnel and the lion dog was covered in green moss(which they could slightly see because of the light from the car).
"Hey Emiko, what's this?" asks Mayumi
"Shall we go in?" Emiko's dark brown eyes sparkled in the darkness. "I've never seen this place before."
You see Emiko has this slight extreme obsession with ghosts and spirits and anything supernatural. Which is the total opposite from Mayumi who wants absolutely nothing to do the supernatural.
Mayumi shivered. "I'm really scared right now. Have you noticed the creepy stone things? I'm not even sure. You know I'm scared of g-g-g-g-g-ghosts." Mayumi stutters.
"Come on, Mayumi." Emiko coaxed. "If it's boring, then we'll just have to go back."
"Fine but only for a little while. I want to get out of here as fast as possible. But if something does happen like me fainting or getting kidnapped here, it's all your fault." Mayumi said reluctantly.
"Your being a just being a scardy cat, it's just an old tunnel."
"Well it's not my fault, you know what Daiki did to me in elementary. Of course I'm going to be scared for life."
The two girls walked into the old tunnel and found themselves in what looked like an old amusement park. Emiko couragiously led the way, Mayumi cautiously following. Then something caught her attention. "Hey, do you smell what I smell?"
"I think I might" She says as sniffs the air. "You're right it does smell really good."
The girls followed the scene and found a whole array of shops with hot steaming food, but no one was there. "What is that really nice food there?" Mayumi asked.
Emiko shrugged. "Hawaiian food?"
Mayumi giggled, then said "Nah. It's probably random Asian dishes. Hawaiian food is much more recognizable."
"Shall we buy some before the party?"
"But no one is here."
"I'm sure they'll be back... sometime"
"But aren't you hungry?"
Emiko thought about it. "Not really. I thought I could get something later, but then again, I think I'll save my money for the gashapon machines, movies or something."
The girls walked on. They came to a bridge, like a palace sort of building. It was red and gold, and traditional Japanese. It was unmistakably a traditional Japanese bathhouse.
"Oh wow, this place looks so expensive." Mayumi said awestruck
Emiko nudged her friend. "Look at that hot boy!" Mayumi looked, and sure enough, a male of roughly sixteen years of age with dark green hair just above his shoulders and piercing green eyes was standing on top of the bridge. His head snaps towards the girls and he gave a little sigh "Now two more have come."He begins stepping towards the girls, with an emotionless expression.
"It's getting dark. You two need to leave, quickly. Go back to wherever you came from, now!"
"Why should we?" Emiko demanded. "What's so important that we can't be here?" She smiled flirtatious at the boy.
The boy didn't smile. "I'm serious! You shouldn't be here."
"Come on, Emiko, let's just go I never even wanted to come here in the first place." Mayumi begged. "Stop flirting with him I'm sure he probably has a girlfriend or something."
Emiko gave a sigh. "OK, but we have to come back sometime."
The boy gave her a little push. "You have to leave! This is serious."
As the girls obeyed and ran for it, the lanterns the stalls were lined with began to light up.
Mayumi shivered. "They're lighting up all by themselves." She kept running. Emiko had stopped staring at the lights.
"Emiko!" Mayumi yelled. "We have to go! Remember what that guy said?"
"Those shadows...how are they alive?" Emiko murmured.
"Just let it go!" Mayumi cried. "Run now!" She grabbed Emiko's hand and ran. But the shadows Emiko was staring and that was not normal at all. They looked like normal people.
Suddenly Mayumi heard splashing below her trainers, and a cold shiver had fallen over her body.
"The rocks have become water!" Emiko screamed. Mayumi gasped now staring at Emiko.
"I-I...I can see through you!" she whispered. Emiko gave another scream as the two girls clung to each other like they were the last people in the universe, wishing this was just one of their pretend games from when they were little. But at sixteen, the girls no longer played those games, and this was real life.
Their terror was so great that they didn't see the boy from earlier coming towards them until he was less than a metre away.
His head snaps was the first to try to swallow her fear and speak to the boy. "Just tell us what's going on here now!" she demanded, trying to sound was not in a position to back up her friend. Already tears were trickling down her face. The boy gave a sigh. "I told you to leave. Now you're stuck here until the gate reopens. It could be one day or one month."
"What gate?" Emiko asked. "Why are we fading? What is this place?"
The boy didn't answer her questions. He held out two berries. "You each should take one of these. If you don't, you'll fade to nothing."
"Why should we?" Emiko challenged. "How do we know that those aren't poison?"
The boy gave her a serious look. "You could disappear, or you could try it."
Mayumi looked at the guy suspiciously but something inside told her that he was trying to help. She took one berry and ate it. She slowly began to calm down and stop crying as she became solid again.
"Take it Emi." she managed to say through her lessening tears. Emiko looked at her solid friend, and obeyed. She went back to normal, and then turned back to the boy. "Answer my questions, please?"
Mayumi tilted her head to one side, staring at the boy. Finally, she asked "Are introductions necessary? Cause if you want to know, I'm Mayumi , and this is Emiko." She was blurting out things because of her fear.
Emiko shoved her best friend. "This is hardly the time Mayumi!"
"But I suppose it's fair." the boy said. He sighed, thinking about how he once was given his name, lost it, remembered it thanks to one girl...and lost it again. He felt that he owed it to that one girl to help others who did the same as her family had. "You can just call me Haku." he told the girls. "Now we have to go. If you two want to survive here, we must leave. Come on."
He took Mayumi hand, and she took Emiko's, somehow knowing she was supposed to. Haku began to run faster than anyone could possibly run. The two girls ran after him, only able to because they were holding hands with each other and Haku.
When he finally stopped running, they were near the bridge that led to the bathhouse. "How could you possibly run so fast?" Emiko asked.
Haku again didn't answer her question. "We have to get across the bridge without anyone seeing you two. If they do, you'll be turned into an animal. Someone would've seen you sooner or later if I wasn't here, and you wouldn't still be human now."
Mayumi gasped. "You mean the thing about this is...magic? "
Emiko noticed something in Haku's voice. "You sound like you're not human. Am I right?"
"You could say that." Haku answered. "Now both of you have to hold your breath as you cross the bridge. If either of you let it go, everyone will see both of you. Just stick close."
The girls went across. "Take a breath...hold it." Haku quietly reminded them as they stepped onto the bridge. Emiko had taken flute lessons since she was ten and as a result could hold her breath for a long time. But Mayumi wasn't interested in learning any music, and was having trouble not breathing. The minute they stepped off the bridge, Mayumi let her breath out in total relief.
"Did we do okay?" she whispered. Haku didn't answer until they got to a secluded place of the garden outside the bathhouse.
"You two both did better than I expected." he told them. "But it's only a matter of time before someone else finds out you're here."
"Why is there a problem with someone finding us?" Emiko exclaimed. "I mean, if there's no problem with you?"
"Most of them hate humans." Haku explained.
"So what are you?" Mayumi asked shyly.
Haku sigh, but answered "Spirits."
Mayumi eyes were widened like with surprise.
Emiko stayed unusually calm, asking "But why would spirits hate humans?"
"Because some humans are destructive, they cut down forests, angering forest spirits, and other things." Haku told the wide-eyed girls.
"Can't we just get out of here?" Emiko asked.
Haku gave her an annoyed look. "The river is blocking the path, remember. I'll try to get you out of here as soon as possible, but meanwhile, you'll have to get a job here, otherwise Yubaba she rules the bathouse will turn you into something, most likely a pig or a lump of coal."
Mayumi trembled at the thought.
"What do we have to do?" Emiko asked.
Haku put one hand on each of the girls' foreheads, showing them exactly what they had to do in their minds. It was quicker than explaining everything. When he moved away, the two girls had different expressions. Mayumi looked scared and was blushing. There was a smile hovering on Emiko's lips, but she didn't let it go any further.
"So let me get this straight." she said. "We go-"
"Um," Mayumi interjected. "Haku, can I ask, has this happened before? You're acting like you've gone through this before a long time ago."
"A human girl wandered in here years ago." Haku admitted. "I'd met her ages before, and her parents had been turned into pigs for eating the food at the stalls down there." Mayumi sent a look to Emiko that said "Told you we shouldn't have gotten anything."
"I told her to get a job." Haku continued. "Kamaji couldn't give her a job, so he sent her to Yubaba, and she got a job here. I had to get her out of contract. Oh, and just in case it comes to that-" he got out a piece of paper and a pen and ripped it in half. He gave the pen to Mayumifirst, and gave her one half of the paper. "Write your name down, and put it somewhere safe." he instructed.
My name is Mayumi she wrote neatly, although she was puzzled by why she'd need her name written down. Once Emiko got her paper and the pen, she did the same.
"Now I have to leave." Haku said to the girls. "I've got my job to attend to. But don't forget, I'm your friend. Just trust me on that, OK?" Then he left.
"Okay" Mayumi and Emiko answered