DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spirited Away, I know your all heart broken about that but deal with it!
"Yes, Kiki, did you leave a hair tie in our house before we moved? No? Okay, sorry to bother you. Oh, you should come over some time; I'd love for you to see the house! All right bye." Chihiro hung up the old fashioned kitchen phone and looked down into her hand once more with a sigh. The band sparkled as she moved it around; a picture of the bath house was still stuck, hanging on tight in her mind.
It was like a wonderful dream, good while it lasted but it was over too quickly. Leaving them only with pictures of what the dream had been. Chihiro felt the same about the hair tie and the strange visions attached to it. But it felt more like an old memory than a dream.
As she gazed out the window something caught her eye. It was floating around in the sky; at first she thought they were birds. But they looked to flat for that. She sighed and looked up at them in wonder, trying to depict what they were exactly dreamily. Of course they were birds, but they seemed to give her the same feelings the box had.
.0
The baths were particularly crowded today and everyone was rushing around doing this chore or that errand. They hardly noticed, in their rush, that a short stumpy white haired Yubaba was grumbling past with a tray of grayish substance that resembled food.
She followed the elevators all the way up to the roof of the bath house, what she found there was open air, and more importantly a small, rectangular building. It was almost like a closet, however it was in the middle of the roof. It was windowless, and only large enough for a person of six feet to stand in it comfortably and spread their arms out in any direction.
Yubaba opened the door to this building gingerly and put on her best fake grin. "Haku, look lunch."
The light from the doorway flooded into the tiny room, it lit up on a ghostly looking boy. Kohaku flinched at the sudden exposure and inched more into the darkness. "Ko…" He whispered.
Kohaku had not grown at all for many years, his once neat hair was messy and had lost it's sheen in the darkened room, as had his skin, it was sickly and almost green in the light that was let in. His eyes had long since lost interest in his small dark world but he looked bewildered at the woman who stood before him.
"Oh dear boy, are you still doing that?" Said Yubaba, trying very hard not to let her frustration show, she grinned and put the tray down in front of him. "Now what is your name?"
"Ko..." He was persistent.
The woman turned and walked out of the small room, she closed the door angrily. "This won't do anymore." She said to herself "If not me, then perhaps her." Then she began to make patterns in the air. Soon enough a short brown haired girl appeared from the spells floating about. She clutched the bottom of an oversized green and white striped t-shirt that almost hid her pink shorts. Yubaba smiled at her work and led the illusion back into the dark room.
Seeing this phantom gave Kohaku a start, he very nearly lunged for her open arms but he was suspicious. She smiled at him lovingly and bent to his level. "Haku." He had a million things to say but nothing would come out, he merely let himself be covered in her warm embrace. "Haku won't you come out? I can't see you again until you do." The illusion said sadly.
"Now, what is your name?" The old woman loomed over Kohaku ominously.
"H-haku." He said slowly in a raspy voice that hadn't been used in quite some time. A sinister smile broke over Yubaba as a rolled contracted burned it's way into existence.
"Yes!" She snarled.
.0
"Mommy! Let's go s'plorin!" Mitsuki's voice came loud and clear on her dazed mother's ears.
Chihiro smiled at the idea and agreed. Her daughters definition of "'splorin" was to stumble down the hill until she got confused or scared of being lost. Chihiro reminded Mitsuki not to wander too far and began down the hill as well.
Mitsuki's cry's of excitement faded into background noise as Chihiro enjoyed the autumn weather. The leaves had just begun to fall and the colors were stunning. Red's and oranges and yellows hung over them like a warm blanket. There wasn't very much that the brunette woman enjoyed more than her daughter's laughter on an autumn day.
On this day, Mitsuki got all the way to the bottom of the hill, a first for the little girl. She had come to a stop abruptly and Chihiro hurried down the rest of the hill to see what she was looking at. "Mommy, what're these?" The child asked pointing at some small boxes that looked like cement blocks with holes in them. "They look like little houses!"
"They're shrines, people set them out for the spirits who dwell there." Chihiro said, she could vaguely remember her mother saying something like that as a child. Everything about the shrines and the pathway they were on brought back the same feeling that the hair tie did. There wasn't time to dwell on the dejavu, however, because her daughter had begun darting down the path.
"Mommy, mommy! Hurry!" Mitsuki called as she ran along, her mother smiled pleasantly and began to make her way down this road.
Soon enough they reached an odd looking statue in front of an old red bricked building. Mitsuki stopped and as soon as Chihiro walked up she hid behind her.
"What is that? Is it alive?" The child pointed to the statue.
"It's a statue." Chihiro said fighting off the dejavu that was plaguing her. Without any thought she was walking into the tunnel, Mitsuki, a nervous wreck, tied to her side.
"Where are we going?" Asked the three year old.
"To the end of the tunnel of course."
The tunnel was dark, the only light came from either end, it was damp and a musty smell hung in the air. The light at the end of the tunnel framed a grassy scene, rolling hills and a picturesquely clear sky of blue, almost cloudless.
They approached the end of the tunnel and felt the tug on her shirt from her daughter disappeared.
"It's an old amusement park."
Chihiro snapped her head around; she could have sworn she heard her father speak. Shaking her head she looked down to Mitsuki. Her eyes widened. No Mitsuki.
Worry pulsed through her as she looked around but her daughter was nowhere to be seen. "She wouldn't have gone back through the tunnel alone." But her daughter had disappeared.
The mother began a frantic search for her daughter but the further she got from the tunnel the less she remembered what she was doing. By the time she reached the remains of what was once a stream she had completely forgotten the reason for her search.
As she stared at the rock bed curiosity took over, it all looked very familiar to her, the landscape was almost pulling her forward. She crossed the old river and walked in a daze to the town ahead.
There were restaurants lining either side of the street she walked down, no one was manning them, of course. Eventually she came upon a buffet with food piled almost to the ceiling. Once again, visions sprang up, this time of her mother and father boorishly eating the dishes in front of them. "They shouldn't..." She trailed off, only to be answered by the illusion.
Don't worry, daddy's got credit cards and cash
And then they were pigs. The vision was startling and familiar; Chihiro shook her head free of it and kept walking. It wasn't long before she came upon a bath house.
Another set of videos began playing behind her eyes. The blue haired boy, accompanied with dark figures, and a man with eight arms. The visions just kept stabbing at her, demanding her attention, they were so obscure they had to be a dream. Yet that's not how they felt.
Without realizing it she had stepped closer to the bath house, when she looked up her eyes were met by a familiar face. Staring her down were two people that had seemingly appeared from her memory. The first was the blue haired boy that had been highlighted in many of her visions. And the second, a smaller version of herself.
For a moment she stared in awe back into the eyes of the boy who seemed just as astonished as she was. The world was still and her mind was thrown into a whirlwind of confusion, then, as if kicked into high gear she turned and ran as the young Chihiro burst out yelling.