Hello! To everyone reading this fic, thank you very much! DCMAISON, thank you for reading this and leaving a lovely comment! Much love!

Nervous, Chihiro types on the keyboard of the old computer in the town's small library, trying to search the write-ups of the town's local newspaper for the "spreading disease in the town." The number of articles that show is over 100, from seasonal colds to measles and insect-borne diseases that date from the formation of the town. They're too many. She tries to narrow them down from diseases that spread since a year before and types it with the keywords "vomiting and diarrhea." Her brown eyes light up. There, on the computer screen, are the articles about the disease that killed Baki and, could be, weakening her mother.

As her classmates told her, the disease has an unknown cause. The victims are from ages 15 and above, all residing in their town. There is no report of an outsider getting the same disease. As she read each article, the more Chihiro wonders if the illness is, after all, supernatural. According to the researches, everything is normal in the patients' bodies, but, for some unknown reason, they become unable to take in water and suffer symptoms of water-borne diseases.

Water.

Dehydration and symptoms of a water-borne disease - somehow, Chihiro thinks that their common ground is water.

Chihiro exhales. Now, time to search for a cure.

But no matter how much the girl looks, there is no certain cure. After days the bodies of the patients refuse to take any fluid nor any kind of medicine. They grow weaker and weaker at a fast rate until-

Chihiro cancels the page. A dark shadow looms over her heart.

Then, she slaps her face with her own palms.

No. She must not lose hope. There should be something - anything - that could help her mother. "But I still don't know if she has the unknown disease. Maybe she really did just eat something wrong," she tells herself. Remembering what her mother ate, they were all the same as what she and her father ate. And they're both fine. "Oh, mom. What on earth made you sick?"

"Chi-Chihiro!"

Chihiro swears she hears someone call her name. She looks behind her, at the other students seated at their desks, but no one is paying her any attention, engorged with whatever they are doing.

"Chihiro!"

That again. She looks at her sides. No one.

"Chihiro! Right here. In front of you!"

In front of her? But in front of her and the computer is a window...

"AH!" The girl cannot help but shout. A small white fox is standing on one of the branches just outside the window in front of her... talking to her!

Immediately, the librarian gets close to tell her to lower down her voice.

Surprised and frightened, Chihiro points at the creature and exclaims, "Ma'am, w-w-what is that?" It looks like a clean white fox with a fluffy tail and small brown eyes.

"What?" The madam looks at where she is pointing and, eyebrows knit together, says, "What are you talking about? The tree?"

"No, ma'am. That fox! That talking white fox!"

The older woman looks at the window again and then looks back at Chihiro. "What fox? There's certainly nothing there." Her frown is deep and she seems to exhale through her nose. "Are you making fun of me child?"

"Of course, not, ma'am! Can you not see it? I-I can't believe it. There! It's coming this way." The girl places herself behind the librarian, afraid that the creature would do her harm. "Please don't let it come close to me."

"Chihiro." The white fox, which is as big as a cat, speaks her name once more, then it says, "You're the only one who can see me. I'm Lin. Don't say you don't remember me. You need to come with me. The bathhouse needs you. Kamaji says you are the only one who can help us."

Bathhouse? Kamaji? What is this scary creature saying? And why does it know her name?

"Chihiro?" The fox walks through the window. It's now floating, defying gravity, and walking on some imaginary ground in the air!

Good gracious. Chihiro's so scared she starts to tremble.

And when it gets near her, she screams and runs away from the library, barely hearing the words that the librarian is saying. Head down, so that her face is unseen, Chihiro walks briskly through the streets, hoping that the white creature doesn't find her.

But it does.

"Hoi, Chihiro. Why are you avoiding me?"

'There's nothing there. There's nothing there. I'm just imagining it,' Chihiro tells herself. Suddenly, her cell phone rings. She fishes it out from her pocket and answers the call. "H-hello?"

"Chihiro-chan?" asks the unknown voice.

"Uhm. Who is this?"

"It's Michiko, Misa's mother. I got your number from my daughter. I called because your father suddenly collapsed while buying paint in our store." The line is silent then she says. "He's vomited twice."

Chihiro pales and the same pain she felt, when she discovered her mother got sick, clenches her heart. "W-where- Where is he?"

"Here in my store. In the La Luna Department store. I don't know where your family stays so I had to call you. I couldn't send him home."

"Thank you so much, Michiko-san. I'll be right there." Her feet start walking as fast as she can, too worried about her father to remember the creature that is following her.

Chihiro hails a taxi and goes directly to La Luna. Because it's a Saturday, the department store is filled with people. Not familiar with the place, it takes quite a time before the girl finds Michiko-san's shop.

When she finds it, a middle-aged woman with short graying hair greets her. "Chihiro-chan? Oh my, how you've grown! Come to the back. Your father's there." Chihiro still doesn't remember the woman but follows her into the room at the back of the store.

Akio is sitting at one of the benches, eyes closed and not moving. One side of his mouth has a little residue of his vomit. She uses her handkerchief to clean it as she feels the tears forming in her eyes.

No.

Not her father too.

"I'll take him home," Chihiro says to the older woman. "Thank you very much, Michiko-san."

One of the store's male employees helps her carry her father to the taxi that will take them home, then, once home, the taxi driver helps her lay Akio on the bed, beside his sick wife.

That night, as Chihiro cooks a simple porridge for her and her ill parents, she cannot stop herself anymore from crying.

"Poor Chihiro. Their disease is not of your world. Come with me to the spiritual world and let's ask Kamaji for a cure." It is the small white fox again. Chihiro almost forgot that it is following her.

"I'm not hearing anything. I'm not hearing anything." If no one else can see the creature, then maybe Chihiro is just imagining it. Is she going mad because of what is happening to her?

"Chi-hi-ro!"

Afraid, Chihiro takes a fistful of salt and throws it at the creature. Just in case it's some kind of a malevolent spirit haunting her for a reason she doesn't know.

"Salt? Hey! That's rude!" The creature complains but it doesn't disappear. "Why are you doing this with your friend?"

Friend? Is this what they call having an imaginary friend? But she's 16, not 6.

She hears her father grunt in his sleep. He must be waking up any minute now and he'll need to eat. Chihiro quickly pours some porridge into a bowl, took a spoon, heads to the master's bedroom, and slams the door shut behind her.

The next day, she goes to the hospital to ask for a doctor to examine and treat her parents. The old man with thick-rimmed eyeglasses shakes his head after checking her parents. "I am certain. They have the La Luna disease."

"La Luna disease?"

He places his equipment back in his black handbag. "It's the name of the disease spreading since last year and already claimed many lives. La Luna, because most of the victims went to the La Luna department store or had worked there."

Baki was working at La Luna. The first victim. Her classmate. "So you think it's something in the department store?"

"We cannot be certain. There are also victims who suffered from the disease but did not go there. Besides, it sells no food nor water and the air there was already tested. La Luna is the only department store in town. It could be just a coincidence that many of them went there."

"You believe that?"

"We wouldn't be calling it the La Luna disease if we were so sure." He stands, bag in his wrinkly hand. "I'll come back tomorrow to check up on them again." Sadness dances in his sunken eyes as he stares at Chihiro. "Do make sure your parents are comfortable."

The girl knows that he says this because there is nothing more that he can do, so she nods at him, heart heavy and panicking inside.

Monday and Tuesday pass by swiftly. Chihiro cannot go to class because she has to take care of her parents. It doesn't surprise her that on Wednesday afternoon, Haruka, Misa, Yumeko, and Airi knock on her house's door. They bring her fruits for her parents, asking how they are.

"They're fighting," Chihiro responds.

Nobody says that they're going to be okay because they know how deadly the disease is. Instead, they hand a notebook to Chihiro and tell her it has the notes that she needs to be able to catch up with her classes. It also contains all the homework she needs to answer.

"And there's something more, Chihiro-chan." Everybody goes quiet as Haruka speaks. Tears form in her eyes and slide to her cheeks. "Sayuri is dead."

"What?" Chihiro abruptly stands up from her seat, hand brushing the vase on the table beside her, making it fall to the ground. The flowers touch the floor and the water pours out from the vase, like the tears on her friends' faces.

After they leave, Chihiro stands at the door of her parents' bedroom. She looks at their sleeping forms. Since being sick, all they do is sleep, eat, drink, vomit and defecate.

"I told you we can look for a cure." It's the white fox again. How long was it beside her? She'd almost forgotten it, head filled with worry for her parents. "Kamaji might know something."

The doctor already told her they couldn't help her, but this creature says it could. Tears flow from her brown eyes. She needs to help her mom and dad... before they end up like Baki and Sayuri.

How much time do they have?

7, 6 days? 5?

She needs a cure.

Bravely, Chihiro faces the white fox and speaks to it for the first time. "What are you?"