Chapter 3 – The tunnel
Chihiro climbed down from her secret place to the unused road leading to the forest. She started to follow it. She entered the forest more determined and more scared than ever. She passed in front of abandoned old shrines that looked like small houses. Suddenly images ran through her mind, flashes, memories perhaps? In them she heared herself asking:
"What are those things?"
And her mother anwering:
"Houses for the guardian spirits."
The recollections were too real to just be figments of her imagination, they had to be true. They must have been from the last time she came, a year ago. She walked for quite a long time, in the dark, some kind of unknown strength enabling her to continue without turning back. Her mind was burning, as if it was failing to remember something it desperatly knew it had to recall. As if it knew something was there but always out of its reach. Perhaps the answer to what had happened during the three days the memory of which she had lost. Chihiro had had this feeling before in the last months, but never so vividly. She let out a cry as she saw in the distance the statue of a so-called guardian spirit that she mistook for someone. Finally she arrived in front of a tunnel covered in vegetation. It was made of brown bricks that at the entrance created an arch. In front of this tunnel was another statue of a guardian spirit.
Chihiro could just feel that it was what was behind this place that had been calling her. Determined, she took a deep breath and entered the tunnel. She slowly walked through it; it was dark and damp, until she arrived at a dead end – part of the tunnel had collapsed.
Disappointed she turned back. For some reason she was sure that what was behind that tunnel would be able to help her understand why she was so attracted to the forest, and even more, what had happened the previous year.
As she came back out of the tunnel, she nearly had a heart attack as her eyes distinguished a figure in the dark.
"Lost, are we?"
The voice belonged to an old lady, although Chihiro did not recognize her, she seemed familiar. Out of this familiarity, and almost as if under a spell, Chihiro felt she could trust this person whose face she could not even see.
"I am not lost, I am searching for something, I'm not sure what, but I thought I would find it behind that tunnel. I'm fairly sure it is something I once knew but I seem to have forgotten it."
The old lady studied Chihiro for a bit.
"Perhaps you are not ready to find what you are seeking. It is after all difficult to find something when you do not know what you are looking for."
She paused.
"Don't worry, you should be able to find what you are looking for, if you are right in thinking that you once knew what it is. For I believe.." She stared at Chihiro's purple headband. "...that everything that happens stays inside of you, even if you can't remember it."
Having said that she left and quickly disappeared, leaving behind her a very confused twelve year old girl. Chihiro stood motionless and speechless for a while, and then returned to her home, her mind was burning.
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