Muffins: Welcome to Spirited!
Judai: It's like Spirited Away, only with different stuff happening and with different characters!
Muffins: *sobbing* Best Studio Ghibli film EVER!
Rei: I do something in this!
Jim: Me too!
Karen: *growls*
Jim: I agree.
Muffins: What did Karen say?
Jim: *pats Muffins on the head* Never mind…
Muffins: Don't do that! It makes me feel short…
Johan: *facepalm* Once this lot have stopped being silly, this can actually start.
Muffins: Yes, quite. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh GX, blah blah blah; I don't own Spirited Away or Studio Ghibli, blah blah blah, if you think I do and you sue you'll be wrong 'cause I just said I don't own any of the stuff damnit!, blah blah blah! Enjoy the thing!
~Spirited…~
"How much longer?" Judai called from the back seat of the car
"We're nearly there Judai. I think." Rei poked her head between the two front seats to smile at Judai.
"I'm just not comfortable having Karen eyeing me like that; plus it's been a while since she last ate so…" Judai fidgeted and glanced at Karen. Karen glared back. Judai shivered, it was like she could understand every word. Karen growled quietly. Judai meeped and looked away quickly.
A voice came from the driver's seat. "Rei?"
"Hello? I'm here." Rei twisted round to look at Jim.
"You said 'I think', and you were meant to be checking if we went the right way."
"Oh."
"So can you tell me where we took a wrong turning, or are we meant to be in the middle of a forest?"
"Well… The thing is… Umm…"
"You completely forgot to check?"
"Yes, that would be the case."
"So can you find where we are now?"
"Hold on a sec." Rei began rooting around in the bag of stuff at her feet. "I swear I put it in here somewhere… Or maybe it's in the boot…"
The three friends, Jim, Rei and Judai had gone on holiday together during the summer holidays, so of course Jim had to bring Karen. Now they were returning home after a relatively uneventful week at the beach, and after Judai managed to get Jim to take the same wrong turning four times on the way there (they only went the right way the fifth time because Jim and Rei decided to steal the map from Judai), Rei was given the job of navigating on the way back. Jim could have done it, as he actually knew how to read a map correctly, but didn't trust any of the others to drive his car without crashing it or damaging it beyond repair, so insisted on driving instead. Despite Jim lacking an eye, and so depth perception, he was still the best driver out of the three, so no-one argued with him on that point. This would have been fine, but for the fact that they couldn't make the trip home in one day, so had to stop at a hotel overnight.
"So how long is it gonna be now? Karen's still looking kinda peckish…" Judai looked nervously out the window, where sunset was approaching, albeit quite slowly. "And it's gonna be dark soon…"
Rei pulled out a map and began unfolding it. "Umm… Here we are, in this patch of wood here." Judai, Jim and Karen leaned over to see the dark green blob on the map she was pointing at. "There's still quite a way to the place we're staying at tonight, but it looks like there's a small town on a little island thingy nearby, so we could see if we could stop there for the night."
"One problem with that."
"What's that?"
"The car's stuck in mud, we'll have to walk."
"Oh." Rei peered out of the window and saw that yes, the car was indeed, stuck in mud. "That should be fine, come on guys." Rei pushed her door open, and squelched down into the mud. The others followed, willingly on Karen's part, but less so on Jim or Judai's.
After about five minutes, during which Karen had fallen behind, so Jim had taken pity on her and strapped her to his back, they came to a town just like Rei had said they would.
"That's strange, there's no-one here." Judai looked around a little worriedly.
"That can't be possible, there's got to be someone here!" Rei looked around too, her eyes searching for hints of human habitation.
Jim similarly scanned the nearby buildings, his eye drawn to any movement, however small. He was the first to spot the lights.
As the light from the sun dimmed and cast a red glow down the street, Jim spotted lights on in a building nearby.
"Hey guys look at this, someone does live here." The other two gave a sigh of relief. A house with a sign above the door had a soft electric light coming out of its windows, signalling life in the town.
Rei was ecstatic. "We can sleep now! Then we can set off tomorrow and get home as planned! Come on!"
Judai was more wary. "The lights are on, but I can't see anyone in there… Are you sure this is a good idea?"
Jim rolled his eye "Do you have a better one?" He knocked on the door and it opened quietly.
Rei peered around his shoulder. "The door's unlocked, maybe we could find somewhere else…"
Jim motioned at the sunset. "There isn't time, pretty soon it'll be dark and then we're stuck, we can't go looking for anywhere else now." He started into the building.
"Wait up!" Rei follow quickly behind him.
Judai didn't. He had looked over at the sunset when Jim had gestured at it and had seen a figure silhouetted against it. "Hey, guys, there's someone…" Judai looked and saw his friends had already disappeared into the house. He could come back and look for them later, but if he let that person disappear, he wouldn't be able to find them again.
He ran, following the person down a series of streets and alleyways until they arrived at a bridge, similar to the one he and his friends had crossed when entering the town. The figure and looked at the sunset.
Now that the person had stopped moving, Judai saw that it was a boy about his own age with spiky, slightly messy teal hair and large apple green eyes wearing a blue uniform-like outfit. He was standing in the middle of the bridge, looking out at the sunset with a far-away look on his face, like he'd lost something precious to him.
Judai called out to him "Hey! Do you know where I and my friends could stay for the night?" The boy looked over, and his eyes widened, he ran over to Judai.
"You shouldn't be here!"
Judai blinked. He had been expecting something a bit more friendly. "What?"
"You shouldn't be here, they're lighting the lamps. Go, I'll distract them. Run now and you'll make it, don't stop for anything."
Judai was confused. "But why do-"
"You have to get out of the town before the trail of lamps, or the connection will be lost! Go!" the boy pushed Judai back down the street and blew a lot of small crystal fragments from his palm which drifted towards a large building at the other end of the bridge. Judai decided to take his advice, and ran, following the trail of lamps that lit silently one by one with a soft orange glow. He came to the building Rei and Jim had entered before the lamps there had lit, and found the light inside it had gone out. He guessed he'd have long enough to look for them and still leave the town in time, so he ran inside.
"Rei! Jim! We have to leave now! We can't stay here!" He heard a small sound come from the front room, and ran in to find Karen sitting on her own, surrounded by two small piles of clothes. Judai recognised Jim's neck scarf, eyepatch and hat in one pile and Rei's sleeveless red jacket and tall red boots in the other. His friends had disappeared. Judai ran out into the street, and found that the lamps at the other end had already lit.
Judai reached the dried-up river he, Jim and Rei had crossed earlier using the bridge and saw the lamps by the bridge a little way along the bank were still lighting. He ran forward, feet crunching through the dried up plants coating the riverbed. In the corner of his eye he saw the last lamp light, and was swept away in a wave of water that came thundering out of no-where down the river.
He emerged a little way further down the river, coughing up water, soaked to the skin and shivering. His friends had disappeared, he was all alone in this strange town, and had just nearly drowned. He crawled to a nearby tree and leaned against it, panting. He was shaken by what had just happened, and needed some time to rest. He fell into a doze.
Meanwhile, the boy with teal hair and green eyes was searching frantically for the boy he had met on the bridge with two shades of brown in his hair and eyes the colour of melted chocolate. He knew the boy hadn't made it home; he needed to help him, or the boy would be in danger. He didn't know why that mattered; something just told him the boy was important.
~Spirited…~
Muffins: Cliff-hanger!...?
Johan: Unless you've seen the movie.
Muffins: Nope, I've changed some of the plot from the movie, though I'll admit it's not much different.
Judai: I'm all soggy now! Why did you make me nearly drown?
Muffins: It's to make it more dramatic!
Judai: *glares*
Rei, Jim and Karen: And now where not in the story anymore, bye! *disappear.*
Muffins: The beginning was written really different to the end…
Judai: That's 'cause you were awake when you wrote the first bit, and half asleep when you got to the end!
Muffins: Too true… I'm too sleepy to keep writing so yeah bye 'til I do the next bit. *Falls over and starts snoring on the floor.*
Judai: *stares* that was quick…
Johan: Review if you want to, Muffins is usually asleep or tired, but she could read them when/if she wakes up.
Judai: Byeeee! *waves*
