AN – Yeah, I know, I little bit off from it will be up in a week. Sorry. Unfortunately things have been getting busier and whenever I find fun time I think, 'If I have time for fun I have time to study.' Man, it's depressing. But as I was sitting here trying to find the energy to get started on my computer science project I thought, I might as well type up the chapter.
The disclaimers and warnings are the same as last time.
Chihiro entered the building after her parents. 'Well, this is strange,' she thought. The building looked like a cross between a church and the waiting room of a train station. There were wooden benches and a strange fountain that looked like a bird bath. The windows were circular with, and the glass was stain glass; red, yellow, green, and blue. But strangest of all was the utter lack of sounds.
She didn't hear any birds in the distance or the scratching sounds of bugs and rodents. Only the slap-tap of her parent's shoes and the soft thudding of her sneakers made any noise on the concrete floor. Chihiro strained her ears a harder. She could hear the small drips in the fountains and farther out, in the distance, she thought she heard something else. "Do you hear that?" her mother asked?
"Yeah," Chihiro concentrated on the faint sound. 'It sounds like… soft whistles, and gentle rumbling.' She brightened as she figured out the source of the noises. "A train!" She exclaimed.
"We must be near the train station," her mother stated. 'A train station,' Chihiro thought, 'with a train station nearby it will be easier to visit my friends and they could come see me.' The realization that she wasn't really that far from her old friends cheered Chihiro up.
"Let's go check it out!" Her father stated excitedly. "It will be fun. It's an adventure." Her father was acting like a little kid, getting excited about exploring a new place.
Chihiro briefly entertained the notion that it would indeed be exciting but quickly scraped the idea. She just wanted to get back to the car and to the new house as soon as possible. The sooner she got unpacked the sooner she could go visit her friends. She didn't want to waste any time. "Check it out. What? No! You said just a quick look. This sucks! Let just go back."
Chihiro's father ignored her protests and headed out the building. Her mother, however, was getting fed up with Chihiro's complaining. "Chihiro, stop whinnying. You're not ten anymore," her mother scolded her. Her mother moved to catch up with Chihiro's father. Soon both of her parents were outside the building. Her father was already out of sight.
"Wait!" Chihiro called out, "I'm coming!" 'Stupid parents, treating me like a kid,' Chihiro grumbled to herself. She hurried after her parents. Just as she stepped out of the building the wind ripped itself from the building with a howl. Chihiro spun around to examine the building. 'That's weird,' she thought, 'it almost sounded like the building was moaning.'
Turning back towards the direction her parents were headed she was surprised to see green fields. 'What happened to the forest?' Looking around there was no sign of the forest her father had just recently recklessly tore through. She turned back towards the building once again. Noticing he building she and her parents had exited was on a slight hill she quickly rationalized what happened, 'We passed through a tunnel. The forest must be on the other side of the hill.'
Out of the corner of her eye Chihiro spied a lump of rock. Upon further inspection she noticed it was another frog statue. Scattered through out the fields were a multitude of the stone statues. Some of them were standing upright; others were lying on their sides or crookedly tipped to one side.
She was distracted from her thoughts by her father's excited shout. "I knew it! It's an abandoned theme park," her father sounded pleased with his conclusion. "They built them everywhere in the ninety's. Then the economy went bad and they all went bankrupt." Her father looked at Chihiro, "You should know that from your history class." Chihiro grimaced at the thought of her history class. Her teacher was so boring.
"Don't remind me of that awful class," Chihiro frowned as she remembered the monotonous droning of her teacher. Students are wont to exaggerate the bad parts of a teacher, but in Chihiro's case her teacher had a truly boring voice that was made worse by the scattered half-formed ideas that permeated the flow of his lectures. While she lost in her thoughts the small family came across a dried river bed.
"See? They were going to put a river here," Chihiro's dad said while crossing the rivulet. He held out his arm to help his wife across. Chihiro avoided the slippery algae covered rocks as she picked her way over to where he parents were standing. "Do you smell that?" Her father said sniffing the air. "It smells delicious! I wonder if this theme park's still open." Chihiro paused in her trek across the rocks to smell the air. 'I don't smell anything,' she grumbled to herself before continuing to the other side.
When the entire family made it across the stream Chihiro's father took after the source of the smell. "Hurry up dear," her mother told her before heading after her father. Chihiro trudged along after her parents scraping her shoes on the dirt trying to remove the muck that clung to the sole's of her shoes.
After she had removed the algae to her satisfaction Chihiro took in the sights around them. All of the buildings were colorfully decorated. Traditional banners and neon signs littered the building's façade. Strangely all of them advertised the same thing, food. "All of the buildings are restaurants," Chihiro's mother commented.
"Yeah mom," Chihiro rolled her eyes, "I noticed." Either her mother didn't notice or didn't care about Chihiro's attitude because she kept on walking. Chihiro sighed, 'This trip is stupid. This theme park is stupider. All restaurants, that's real smart.'
"I found it!" While Chihiro was grumbling her father had located the source of the smell. Now that she was closer Chihiro's nose was tantalized by the delightful smell wafting from the open doorway. Her father ducked into the door, followed by her mother. "Hello? Anybody here?" Her father called out. "Huh," He scratched the back of his head, "Oh, well. We can pay them when they get back." He gathered some plates and started heaping food onto them.
Chihiro's mother seated herself on one of the stools before helping herself to a small roosted bird. "I wonder what this is called," she said before taking a bite. "Oh, Chihiro, You must try this. It's delicious."
Chihiro was horrified at the sight of her parents helping themselves to the food at the stand. "No way! You're going to get in trouble," she vehemently opposed her parents' actions. 'It's stealing,' Chihiro thought, 'I can't be caught stealing. If I have a record then I'll never get a license.' Whether or not this was true she didn't know but she wasn't going to chance it.
Chihiro quickly left before she could hear her parents' protests. Turning back to check if she was being followed she saw her father heap three plates full of food. 'Pig,' she thought. "You're going to turn into pigs if you keep eating like that!" She shouted at her parents.
Chihiro wondered around the small town waiting for her parents to finish stuffing themselves. At the end of the village farthest away from the dried river bed she came across a sign for a bath house. Just beyond the sign was a large wooden bridge and beyond that there was the bath house. 'It's huge,' she thought staring up at the impressive structure.
The bath house was several stories high and certainly the largest one Chihiro had ever seen. While she was admiring the height of the bath house she noticed a stream of black smoke coming from a smoke stack on the side of the building. 'I thought this theme park was abandoned. The smoke stack is active and there was hot food sitting out, it has the signs of an operational park but where are the people? This place keeps getting weirder and weirder.'
A low rumbling interrupted Chihiro's train of thoughts. "A train," Chihiro called out before rushing to a railing in the middle of the bridge. Climbing up onto the railing for a better view she looked down. "Holy Shit!" she cried out upon looking down. There were hundreds of feet between the bottom of the bridge and the ground below. The train was a small moving shape on the tracks below.
"Holy shit," Chihiro repeated to herself while balancing on the rail. Even though she was intimidated by the sheer height she still clung to the railing, like the way people stare at car accidents. "Damn it," she swore, "this whole trip is such a stupid idea!"
"What are you doing here?"
I apologize for it being so short. I'm doing some research on Japanese mythological creatures before I get into the next chapter. That's way it stops right before she meets Haku. If anybody knows the Japanese name of the clothing Haku and the servants (Rin and Sen) wear please let me know. It will save me time from having to research it myself.
I've changed my pen name to Kumoriko1, so look for the next chapters under that name. I've also updated my profile so be sure to check it out for the latest news relating to Sanctuary.
