Let me begin by saying that I am so nervous about posting this... I started writing fanfic over a decade ago, and have been writing original works (mostly poetry) for quite a bit longer than that, though most of it has gone entirely unpublished.

I hope I'm not stepping on any toes with too many similarities to other stories in the Spirited Away realm. I've only read very few of them, but the original story is very near and dear to my heart. It is the only Studio Ghibli film I've seen in the theatre and to say it was a life altering experience would be an understatement. I've seen it, quite literally, about 100 times since then.

So, to try to polish up my writing, which has gone neglected for far too long, I wanted to try my hand at my own sequel of sorts. I sincerely hope you enjoy this story. I'm not quite sure where it's going yet, since I just write as it comes to me. However, I already have several chapters completed and see no sign of writer's block, as of yet (knock on wood).

Here's to hoping Spirited Away is still somewhat relevant in the FanFiction community! Thanks for taking the time!

Chapter 1

"I don't know what to do anymore. I have no one left... please, if you can hear me, I just need a friend..."

Like so many events and mishaps before, the death of her parents brought her back to this familiar place. This hill, with its flowing green grass. Those buildings, with their chipping paint and crooked signage. She dragged her feet across the barren paths between the abandoned restaurants and sniffed the air, hoping to catch a whiff of the food she'd once denied there.

"There's nothing left for me here, in this world. Your world is the only place that's ever been kind to me..."

A light breeze floated past, catching her long brown hair in its tendrils. She looked up towards the path to where the bath house would be standing, only in a different dimension. Tears filled her eyes, though she wasn't sure she had any left to release.

"You promised..."

She came to the end of the path that led to the bridge. She took a deep breath, and held it, hand firmly gripped over her nose and mouth. She took a step forward, as the sunlight began to fade from the sky. Step by careful step, she crossed the long bridge, reliving a time long gone, relinquished to memory. When she reached the other side, she let herself breathe again.

"I finally got it... the practice paid off. Can you even see?"

She dropped to her knees, the tears that brimmed her eyes before finally finding their way down her cheeks and into the hands cupped upon her thighs. Quietly, she let them flow, catching the drops in her palms, watching them puddle there.

"I need this place... I need you."

A silvery, serpentine being hovered in the sky, high above, unseen by the distraught young woman. The creature floated downward, shifting form before landing just a few feet in front of the slumped human.

"Chihiro..."

It was only the wind, and her imagination, working their cruel pranks. It wasn't the first time she'd imagined such a thing. She stood, feeling defeated and pained. Ten years of this, tormenting herself with delusions of being able to return to a place that she wasn't even sure existed.

"Were you even real? This whole time, I've held on... maybe it's time I let go of you, too..."

"Don't let go..."

Her face twitched in frustration. Maybe she was crazy, as so many had suggested over the years. Even her own parents, before their fatal car accident a week earlier, had considered calling her a counselor because of the things she claimed to have experienced. Imagining a spirit world in your dreams was one thing, but hearing voices in the wind...

"You're 20 years old, Chihiro... it's time to get on with your life... and stop talking to nothing... and yourself..."

"Don't let go..."

She clenched her fists and barred her teeth in anger.

"Stop it! Just stop! If you're there, show yourself, once and for all! I've been through too much to just keep waiting around! I have no friends, my parents just died, I'm going to lose my job, no schools want me! If you don't want me either, just tell me! Do your worst, because I'm old enough and strong enough to face it now!"

"Not time..."

She whirled around on her toes and stomped across the bridge, down the steps.

"That's enough! I'm done with this. If I spend the rest of my life on a dream that won't come true, I'll have lived no life at all."

She picked up her pace to a full on run. Her dark skirt billowed behind her, her boots leaving deep imprints as her feet slammed into the dirt. When she reached the stairs that led to the makeshift river, she stopped in her tracks. Turning, she raised a hand to the emptiness around her.

"Goodbye. You won't be seeing me here again."

She turned and made her way down, fighting against a burst of wind flowing in the opposite direction. She pulled the hair out of her face, and twisted it up with a shimmering purple hair band, noticing the permanent indent on her wrist from too much wear.

"Please... Chihiro..."

Her back tensed as she felt a faint grip on her shoulder. She shook her head violently and bolted out of towards the tunnel that led out of the ruins, as fast as her weary legs would take her. When she reached the opening, she fell against it, resting her head upon the cool plaster frame.

"My imagination... it's not real. He wouldn't do this to me... It can't be real."

A figure peered out from the top of the staircase, watching the uneasy girl in the distance attempt to steady herself. It pained him so, to see her this way, the same way he saw her every time she had come before. Only this time she had been even more upset than usual. He thought he had heard her say she lost her parents... could that be true? The girl's only connection left to her own world, severed prematurely?

"It is time, after all..."

But the girl could no longer hear. She started to her car, but she couldn't pry her eyes from the hill beyond the river's boarder. Was that a shadow she saw? She blinked, but it was gone. She sauntered through the tunnel forelornly. When she got to her car, she opened to door and flopped down in the driver's sear. Flipping down her overhead mirror, she gave herself a once-over in the tiny reflective surface.

"You're crazy. It took you ten years to figure it out, but you really have lost it, Chihiro..."

It would be a long drive back, to a cold and lonely apartment, her only company being a TV she never bothered to turn on, a phone that never rang, and books that fell to shambles in her hands from years of dog-eared pages and bathwater stains. As she put her car in reverse and made to leave, she stole one last glance towards the ruins. The place she had been so many times these past ten years, both in reality and her dreams... the only place she really wanted to be... and now, the place she would never see again...

"You were too late..."