A/N: mm-kay! I didn't know that 'Jap' was some insult of some kind. *falls
to knees* PLEAZE! FORGIVE ME! then again, I didn't know that calling
somebody a 'burrito' was an insult either, and I learned that the hard way.
*runs away dodging flying coconuts* baka, that's what I am. 'NYWAY, thank
you thank you thank you for reviewing and telling me that! All of you! or
both of you! or however you wanna say it! *pauses, looks at audience, then
runs off screaming bloody murder* DON'T EAT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! Well,
okay, s'long as you start on my hair. *offers braid* been trying to get it
cut for some time now, ya? lol I love kitkats... used to do anything for
them... now a penpal got me hooked on these kitkat/reeses crossover things
called "Fast Break" and as much as it sounds like it, those candy bars
aren't diet candies. Got more calories in 'em then I have time to work 'em
off in the Kibbie Dome. -_-0 must snarf more kitkats. BUT I STRAY FROM THE
SUBJECT, heh, heheh, heh, ano, yeah, heh. *hold up hands* I'll stop ranting
now - THIS IS A STUPID A/N YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BOTHER READING IT!! that
does it. I order you to stop reading this A/N right... Now!
Disclaimer: I no own.
The Next Day
Third Person POV
.
.
.
The next morning Chihiro was in better condition, but still lightheaded. Rin dismissed this as lack of food, and went to the kitchens, feeding Chihiro en bed. Wasn't that nice of her? The other girls hated this. They begrudged Rin for being so cozy to the Human. She was Haku's responsibility, not theirs, and certainly not Rin's.
So, indeed feeling better after some food, Chihiro was worked from place to place. one slug spirit would call her over and order her to mop the floor, and just as she grabbed a towel, another would shout for her to get something. So in fact, Chihiro didn't really work at all that much that morning, but simply ran all over the bathhouse.
By lunch time, Rin had completely taken pity on her and shouted that Haku had told HER to look after Chihiro, and therefor, Chihiro would help only HER. There was a lot of shouting and arguing over this, and five minutes later Chihiro found herself flattened up against a wall, watching all of the women workers in Rin's department fighting.
This, of course, attracted attention, and pretty soon Yubaba had sent Haku down to right things out before she lost any more customers.
And, to Chihiro's and any new customer's shock, Haku managed to restore order, after listening to three different sides. He eventually switched the departments all the way around, putting Rin's to tend to the guests as they came in and setting a different department in their place. this didn't last long, though, because the girls continued to insist upon making Chihiro run all over, back and forth, left and right, every which way, trying to do things right. It didn't help that she tripped and fell every five minutes, so, they were all arguing again, this time across the bathhouse completely and totally.
At last, Haku told them that he would have Chihiro do something else for the remainder of the day OUTSIDE of the bathhouse if they didn't stop it.
Amazingly, they managed to get along for quite a while after that.
Ah, but shadow follows light and war follows peace!
And Chihiro found herself wondering why Haku was leading her down away from the bath part of the bathhouse afterwards. Heh. Can you imagine why -ever- she would wonder something like that?
"You seem to cause a lot of trouble wherever you go," Haku said dryly, pausing momentarily. He frowned slightly. Chihiro didn't seem to have very good balance....
"Gomen Nasai," Chihiro mumbled, ducking her chin. Haku felt a small twinge of guilt, but pushed it away.
"You didn't do anything," he pointed out, pushing her chin up. "This way." He turned on his heel again and headed for the kitchens. The Frogs would ignore her more likely, and it was simple enough to put a different piece of fruit in a bunch of bowels to be carried off to waiting stomachs.
Even Chihiro couldn't mess *that* up, whether on accident or no.
As expected, the head (frog) cook didn't like the idea of having a Human (Girl) working in his area, but when Haku described what she could simply do, he accepted (with a sigh) and told Chihiro she had better scrub her hands clean raw before he put her to work. Not that Chihiro didn't know what she was supposed to do, having heard her job description.
She was a little hurt as to what Haku had assigned her, but also grateful.
After (literally) scrubbing her hands clean (and raw) and they passed the frog cook's test, he pointed to numerous trays with little cup bowels on them, then to a large number of bowels filled with different (yet small) fruits of all kinds, and told her to put one piece of fruit in every bowel/cup. After he left, she found it was a quieter job, one that she didn't mind so much. At first she was slow, and once in a while a waiter had to stand around impatiently while she scurried from the fruit bowels to the empty ones and back, trying to fill a tray of bowels up. But she got the hang of it, and learned to grab a handful of fruits, therefore getting the job done faster.
Later on, her job became more complicated. Such as three grapes, two strawberries, one blueberry, nine salmon berries, three small slices of banana, and one small slice of apple in one tray of bowels, and just the opposite for another. Again, this was a bit hard to get used to, but soon she had the hang of it, and no more frog waiters were standing behind her barking out orders to hurry up and wash more, she stank of human.
She also found that she wouldn't go hungry, either. Whenever her empty stomach pointed out that it needed glucose, she would pop a berry into her mouth. There were many different fruits, and vegetables too, all mixed together, some that she had never seen, smelled, or tasted before in her life. After she ate one that she had never seen before (it was lumpy, dark purple, and crunchy with a burst of fruity flavor) she felt considerably more jumpier, and her dizziness, sickness, whatever lingered at the back of her mind was gone. She buzzed around for ten minutes, getting more trays done faster.
She got a new tray of empty bowels, and waited patiently for another order as the effects of the berry-thing wore off. Once the slip of paper was in hand, she ate another lumpy berry thing, and buzzed around once more, giggling like an idiot as she finished even more bowel trays faster and faster.
She was almost shocked that, after the last tray had been taken away, she was told to go to bed, clean up; they were closing down. Chihiro watched The Head Frog Cook (hereforth knows as Head Frog) leave, stuffed another lumpy purple dry fruity juiciness berry into her mouth, paused, giggled maniacally, and grabbed a handful each hand, stuffing them between her white shirt and pink shirt before bouncing cheerfully away. she found Rin (after getting lost a couple of times and eating over half of her Fruity berries) and Rin led her to the room, but before she entered, she was told to wash her hands and face, she was covered with berry juices.
Chihiro did as told, stuffing the rest of her lumpy purple berries in her mouth and swallowing at the same time while doing so, and shot back to the room and had her bedroll out in a flash.
"Aren't you tired?" Rin asked. "You look like you've just eaten half the Kikizake Berries!"
"Whatarethose?" Chihiro asked back without pausing for breath. "Causeifthey'repurpleandlumpyanddryuntilyouchewthemwithablastoffruityjuicego odnessthenIatemorethanhalfofthose!"
Rin stared at her. "Yes, those are Kikizake Berries, Sen" she said, all and the girls in the room burst out laughing gleefully.
"SHUT UP!" Rin shouted, then sighed at Chihiro, who was now literally bouncing up and down. "Sen, ano, those berries are very poisonous if you eat as much as five at once, they can kill you."
"OhsoI'mgonnadiewellthat'snotgoodi'dhatetodiebythewayit'saverybeautifulnight outsdiedon'tyouthinkiwishHakuwereheretoseeittoomaybeheisdoyouthink?" Chihiro replied, not noticing how she was now slurring slightly too.
All of the other girls laughed gleefully again and Rin bit her lip. "Come on Sen, I think you'd better find a way to throw the whole lot of them up."
Rin began to pull Chihiro out, and she bounced along beside her, babbling away nonstop without even pausing for breath or anything nor listening to Rin, not until she was in front of a toilet. For a while she babbled on about not needing to go, then squawked as Rin shoved two fingers down her throat, and she collapsed to her knees, ridding her stomach of the berries.
Rin rubbed her back sympathetically until she was done.
"Feeling a little better?" she asked softly as Chihiro groaned.
"Why did you do that?" Chihiro asked, though her voice was terribly slurred. It took Rin a moment to translate it.
"The berries would have hurt you very badly," Rin said. "and I think that you're still a little sick from whatever you ate before."
Chihiro groaned again. She was miserable.
CHIHIRO'S LIST OF TOP TEN REASONS WHY SHE CURRENTLY HATES HER LIFE:
her stomach ached like a bad case of PMS.
She was even more dizzy then before.
Because of numbers 1 and 2, she ended up throwing up again.
She was weak,
Shaky,
Sweating madly now,
Embarrassed ,
And a little hurt, not to mention sad and homesick
Once laying in her bedroll with everybody snoring around her, she was even more miserable, and was struck with a strange feeling of Déjà-vu.
When she finally got to sleep, she was plagued by different nightmares all including blood, Haku, and falling down into a cold blackness, so, ended up staring even more miserably at the ceiling as she was sweating even worse than before now, breathing hoarsely and shakily out her dry, raspy throat.
Sighing heavily, Chihiro kicked her blankets away and waited impatiently for morning to come so that her body would wake up and she wouldn't feel so bad any more. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy, and ended up in another fitful sleep. And she dreamt:
*** She was a little girl again, skipping happily along with her parents, along the beach at her old home. She ran out into the roaring waves of the ocean and dived into them, swimming easily out further and further, where the water was more calm. Suddenly, something was pulling her leg down, and she was ten-years-old once more, falling down under the ocean water, watching the surface become harder and harder to see and the water around her darker and quieter and calmer and colder. Suddenly, it went completely black and icy, then blood-red and warm... it was blood! She choked, trying to swim out of it. but somebody was holding her down. She twisted and saw Haku grinning at her, holding her firmly where she was. "You belong to me, Chihiro," Her eyes grew wide as darkness took over her completely..... ***
Chihiro screamed as she woke up again, eyes snapping open. She sat straight up like a bullet, then flopped back down, clutching her head and twisting into a fetal position, praying that the pain she had just put herself through would stop. It didn't dull to a simple thud in her temples and that constant ache in her stomach for quite a while, and tears slid down her cheeks from cracked eyes.
"Ow-oow," she groaned, and suddenly jerked awake as a cold hand touched her gently. The sudden movement didn't help, and she was back in her before position, squeaking weakly for whoever it was to stop, make it stop.
"Sen? Are you okay? Feeling any better?" Rin's voice echoed strangely, as though she were at the other end of a long dark tunnel. Chihiro cracked her eyes open once more and looked at Rin above her. "I guess not," she said, answering her own question so that Chihiro wouldn't have to open her mouth.
"Here, drink some of this. I got Kamajii to put his strongest spell on it, so maybe you'll be feeling a little better. Go on, here, I'll help you sit up without knocking yourself unconscious." Rin gently eased Chihiro into a half-sitting position on her lap, and offered the tip of a goblet to the ten-year-old's lips. Despite the nasty smell, look, and taste, Chihiro swallowed the whole lot and let Rin ease her back down, covering her with more blankets, and placed a cool cloth on her forehead.
"You have such a fever," she explained, chewing her lip. Chihiro turned her head slightly, looking up at her.
"I feel awful, Rin-san. Did those poison berries or whatever really do all of this to me?" she asked weakly, mentally cursing herself for it.
"I think that with the most you had, all they should have done was knock you fatally unconscious for a while. Maybe a small headache, but otherwise, nothing more." She sighed. "You already had a fever when you got here from the first thing you ate, I believe. What was it?"
Chihiro thought hard for a moment, then stopped this as it hurt.
So she thought slower, thus, Rin was quite sure that she had fallen asleep when Chihiro answered at last, opening her eyes again.
"It was a red berry," she said. "Haku-sama gave it to me, otherwise I would have faded away forever, he said."
Rin furrowed her brow. "Haku-sama? Shoot. Do you - can you tell me everything you remember about the red berry?"
"It was small, and hard to chew, and even harder to swallow."
"Well, that isn't much help. All berries here are small, hard to chew and swallow before they're ripe." She shook her head. "can you remember what it tasted like?"
"Nothing, I think..."
"Ah, okay." Rin stood up after switching the cloth on her forehead. "You go back to sleep, understand? I'm going to go find out what it was that you ate."
"W- Wait, Rin-san! I'll get eaten if I don't work hard! Don't leave me alone!"
"Don't worry, Sen. The other girls are working right now, and you're supposed to be asleep, right? Right. So, don't worry."
"But-"
"DON'T WORRY!"
"Hai, Rin-sama."
Rin smiled prettily and left. Chihiro waited for a second, then tried to think about happy sleepy things so that she wouldn't notice the aching all over and go to sleep again. However, the prospect of having a dream like that again scared her.
This knowledge didn't help that Chihiro ended up falling asleep again anyway and, OF COURSE, having yet another nightmare.
*** She was better again, and once more running all over hell-and-gone running errands for the other girls. After a while, Haku showed up and without anything being said, she followed him. He didn't seem to be aware that he was being followed, and so, unknowingly led Chihiro down through a tunnel she had never been aware before, through the wall next to the third floor elevator. The tunnel became darker and quieter, and the stench of blood and rotting flesh was everywhere. As they went deeper in, the walls, ceiling, and floor became cold, hard stone, and a mist seemed to settle in the growing blackness. Blood began to run from the top cracks of the walls. Still, Chihiro followed Haku. After a while, they were sloshing in the blood, and she gasped, stopping to clasp her hands over her mouth before inevitably vomiting. When she looked up again into the blackness, Haku was gone. A strange feeling of panic overtook her, and she immediately started to run. She gasped as everything went completely black, and she tripped and fell, falling face-first into the blood, falling through it, and endless bottomless ocean of it, and landed on her feet in a large cavern, candle- lit room. Chains hung on all of the walls, and skeletons, bloody corpses, decaying corpses, hung from them. A few were still alive! Fighting the bile that rose in her throat, she ran to the nearest one to try and free him - it was Haku! He didn't seem to be wearing anything, and was caked from head to toe in blood. Tears sprang into her eyes as she fought with the chains, then a shadow loomed over her. She looked behind and up quickly, and gasped as she met Haku's intense gaze. She looked back to the hurt and unconscious Haku, but saw that it was just a decayed corpse. She screamed and stumbled back away from it, right into Haku's chest. He grasped her shoulders, swinging her around, and slammed her again the wall next to the corpse, and chains out of no where yanked her feet and arms apart to a half-standing spread-eagle position. "Mine, Chihiro," he said, voice dripping with... evil? There was blood all over him, it wasn't his blood! "Hold still, Chihiro," he said. Haku raised a whip, ripping off her shirt, and brought it down with a SNAPCRACK! And Chihiro screamed harder and louder then she had ever screamed before... ***
She was still screaming when her eyes snapped open, adrenaline pumping, and saw Haku's face above her (she didn't notice Rin as she was in panic-mode). This, of course, scared the bah-jeebers out of her since she was still foggy from her dream and couldn't tell if it was real or not, so, jerked away, ignoring the pain, placing her hands to his chest and sitting up, using him to push herself away slightly before stumbling to her feet. She was still screaming bloody murder as all of this happened, and managed to choke back and simply breathe heavily when her back slammed against the wall. She had not been paying attention to where she was going.
~ "Mine, Chihiro."
Blood dripping off his face, clothes, hands...
"Hold still, Chihiro."
Whip a hairsbreadth away from her pale skin... ~
Chihiro screamed again, closing her eyes tightly and sliding down the wall, burying her head in her knees and clutching the back of it with her hands.
~ She was falling through the ocean of blood, going up her nose, in her mouth, ears, eyes...
"You belong to me, Chihiro."
Being held where she was, kicking, struggling weakly, weaker, his smirking face above hers, loving the blood... ~
Chihiro screamed again, louder. What was going on? Why wouldn't these flashes stop? Flashing in her mind. Finally, they did seem to stop, and she slowly became aware of somebody - two some bodies - holding her gently. Then she became aware of the snarling, ripping, white hot pain sneering its way around her brain and skull. Then she became aware of her stomach, which felt like it was in similar condition, her body ached all over.
She fell forward and threw up.
After that was done she just crouched there, hands clasping head, sobbing silently the pain was so great.
At last, after what seemed like forever in which she was centimeters from wishing for death instead, the pain dulled to the simple thud of a headache, and her stomach resumed its simple clenchedness of a cramp, or something like it. her skin and muscles continued to tingle as though they had been asleep and were not happy with Chihiro because she had woken them up.
Two hands were rubbing her back, two voices were murmuring softly, and slowly, even more slowly, she relaxed a little, tense muscles unclenching, lactic acid pouring through once more.
Sluggishly, slowly, she was aware of her mouth being rinsed out, being wrapped up in a blanket, bundled, carried.
"...Contagious..."
"... Hurt her and die..."
".... My room..."
"... Visit her every day..."
The voices slurred and swam before her, and Chihiro squeezed her eyes shut, still clutching her sweaty forehead, relaxing into whoever's grip held her.
After what was DEFINITELY longer then simply "forever" she woke up from the realm between sleep and consciousness. Where you could just lie in darkness and relax, sleep without sleeping or having to bother with nightmares.
It must have been dark out because the single window that was there spilled moonlight between the cracks of the gauzy blue curtains drawn over it. she didn't dare sit up or anything like that, past experiences taking their toll where they should have sooner.
As far as she could tell, she was alone.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . .
.
.
.
.
.
A/N: mm-kay, so, ya. whatever, if that was good or not, tell me, KK? It is YOUR job as a reader to (nicely) Constructively Criticize me! not that you absolutely HAVE to review. Of course.
Disclaimer: I no own.
The Next Day
Third Person POV
.
.
.
The next morning Chihiro was in better condition, but still lightheaded. Rin dismissed this as lack of food, and went to the kitchens, feeding Chihiro en bed. Wasn't that nice of her? The other girls hated this. They begrudged Rin for being so cozy to the Human. She was Haku's responsibility, not theirs, and certainly not Rin's.
So, indeed feeling better after some food, Chihiro was worked from place to place. one slug spirit would call her over and order her to mop the floor, and just as she grabbed a towel, another would shout for her to get something. So in fact, Chihiro didn't really work at all that much that morning, but simply ran all over the bathhouse.
By lunch time, Rin had completely taken pity on her and shouted that Haku had told HER to look after Chihiro, and therefor, Chihiro would help only HER. There was a lot of shouting and arguing over this, and five minutes later Chihiro found herself flattened up against a wall, watching all of the women workers in Rin's department fighting.
This, of course, attracted attention, and pretty soon Yubaba had sent Haku down to right things out before she lost any more customers.
And, to Chihiro's and any new customer's shock, Haku managed to restore order, after listening to three different sides. He eventually switched the departments all the way around, putting Rin's to tend to the guests as they came in and setting a different department in their place. this didn't last long, though, because the girls continued to insist upon making Chihiro run all over, back and forth, left and right, every which way, trying to do things right. It didn't help that she tripped and fell every five minutes, so, they were all arguing again, this time across the bathhouse completely and totally.
At last, Haku told them that he would have Chihiro do something else for the remainder of the day OUTSIDE of the bathhouse if they didn't stop it.
Amazingly, they managed to get along for quite a while after that.
Ah, but shadow follows light and war follows peace!
And Chihiro found herself wondering why Haku was leading her down away from the bath part of the bathhouse afterwards. Heh. Can you imagine why -ever- she would wonder something like that?
"You seem to cause a lot of trouble wherever you go," Haku said dryly, pausing momentarily. He frowned slightly. Chihiro didn't seem to have very good balance....
"Gomen Nasai," Chihiro mumbled, ducking her chin. Haku felt a small twinge of guilt, but pushed it away.
"You didn't do anything," he pointed out, pushing her chin up. "This way." He turned on his heel again and headed for the kitchens. The Frogs would ignore her more likely, and it was simple enough to put a different piece of fruit in a bunch of bowels to be carried off to waiting stomachs.
Even Chihiro couldn't mess *that* up, whether on accident or no.
As expected, the head (frog) cook didn't like the idea of having a Human (Girl) working in his area, but when Haku described what she could simply do, he accepted (with a sigh) and told Chihiro she had better scrub her hands clean raw before he put her to work. Not that Chihiro didn't know what she was supposed to do, having heard her job description.
She was a little hurt as to what Haku had assigned her, but also grateful.
After (literally) scrubbing her hands clean (and raw) and they passed the frog cook's test, he pointed to numerous trays with little cup bowels on them, then to a large number of bowels filled with different (yet small) fruits of all kinds, and told her to put one piece of fruit in every bowel/cup. After he left, she found it was a quieter job, one that she didn't mind so much. At first she was slow, and once in a while a waiter had to stand around impatiently while she scurried from the fruit bowels to the empty ones and back, trying to fill a tray of bowels up. But she got the hang of it, and learned to grab a handful of fruits, therefore getting the job done faster.
Later on, her job became more complicated. Such as three grapes, two strawberries, one blueberry, nine salmon berries, three small slices of banana, and one small slice of apple in one tray of bowels, and just the opposite for another. Again, this was a bit hard to get used to, but soon she had the hang of it, and no more frog waiters were standing behind her barking out orders to hurry up and wash more, she stank of human.
She also found that she wouldn't go hungry, either. Whenever her empty stomach pointed out that it needed glucose, she would pop a berry into her mouth. There were many different fruits, and vegetables too, all mixed together, some that she had never seen, smelled, or tasted before in her life. After she ate one that she had never seen before (it was lumpy, dark purple, and crunchy with a burst of fruity flavor) she felt considerably more jumpier, and her dizziness, sickness, whatever lingered at the back of her mind was gone. She buzzed around for ten minutes, getting more trays done faster.
She got a new tray of empty bowels, and waited patiently for another order as the effects of the berry-thing wore off. Once the slip of paper was in hand, she ate another lumpy berry thing, and buzzed around once more, giggling like an idiot as she finished even more bowel trays faster and faster.
She was almost shocked that, after the last tray had been taken away, she was told to go to bed, clean up; they were closing down. Chihiro watched The Head Frog Cook (hereforth knows as Head Frog) leave, stuffed another lumpy purple dry fruity juiciness berry into her mouth, paused, giggled maniacally, and grabbed a handful each hand, stuffing them between her white shirt and pink shirt before bouncing cheerfully away. she found Rin (after getting lost a couple of times and eating over half of her Fruity berries) and Rin led her to the room, but before she entered, she was told to wash her hands and face, she was covered with berry juices.
Chihiro did as told, stuffing the rest of her lumpy purple berries in her mouth and swallowing at the same time while doing so, and shot back to the room and had her bedroll out in a flash.
"Aren't you tired?" Rin asked. "You look like you've just eaten half the Kikizake Berries!"
"Whatarethose?" Chihiro asked back without pausing for breath. "Causeifthey'repurpleandlumpyanddryuntilyouchewthemwithablastoffruityjuicego odnessthenIatemorethanhalfofthose!"
Rin stared at her. "Yes, those are Kikizake Berries, Sen" she said, all and the girls in the room burst out laughing gleefully.
"SHUT UP!" Rin shouted, then sighed at Chihiro, who was now literally bouncing up and down. "Sen, ano, those berries are very poisonous if you eat as much as five at once, they can kill you."
"OhsoI'mgonnadiewellthat'snotgoodi'dhatetodiebythewayit'saverybeautifulnight outsdiedon'tyouthinkiwishHakuwereheretoseeittoomaybeheisdoyouthink?" Chihiro replied, not noticing how she was now slurring slightly too.
All of the other girls laughed gleefully again and Rin bit her lip. "Come on Sen, I think you'd better find a way to throw the whole lot of them up."
Rin began to pull Chihiro out, and she bounced along beside her, babbling away nonstop without even pausing for breath or anything nor listening to Rin, not until she was in front of a toilet. For a while she babbled on about not needing to go, then squawked as Rin shoved two fingers down her throat, and she collapsed to her knees, ridding her stomach of the berries.
Rin rubbed her back sympathetically until she was done.
"Feeling a little better?" she asked softly as Chihiro groaned.
"Why did you do that?" Chihiro asked, though her voice was terribly slurred. It took Rin a moment to translate it.
"The berries would have hurt you very badly," Rin said. "and I think that you're still a little sick from whatever you ate before."
Chihiro groaned again. She was miserable.
CHIHIRO'S LIST OF TOP TEN REASONS WHY SHE CURRENTLY HATES HER LIFE:
her stomach ached like a bad case of PMS.
She was even more dizzy then before.
Because of numbers 1 and 2, she ended up throwing up again.
She was weak,
Shaky,
Sweating madly now,
Embarrassed ,
And a little hurt, not to mention sad and homesick
Once laying in her bedroll with everybody snoring around her, she was even more miserable, and was struck with a strange feeling of Déjà-vu.
When she finally got to sleep, she was plagued by different nightmares all including blood, Haku, and falling down into a cold blackness, so, ended up staring even more miserably at the ceiling as she was sweating even worse than before now, breathing hoarsely and shakily out her dry, raspy throat.
Sighing heavily, Chihiro kicked her blankets away and waited impatiently for morning to come so that her body would wake up and she wouldn't feel so bad any more. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy, and ended up in another fitful sleep. And she dreamt:
*** She was a little girl again, skipping happily along with her parents, along the beach at her old home. She ran out into the roaring waves of the ocean and dived into them, swimming easily out further and further, where the water was more calm. Suddenly, something was pulling her leg down, and she was ten-years-old once more, falling down under the ocean water, watching the surface become harder and harder to see and the water around her darker and quieter and calmer and colder. Suddenly, it went completely black and icy, then blood-red and warm... it was blood! She choked, trying to swim out of it. but somebody was holding her down. She twisted and saw Haku grinning at her, holding her firmly where she was. "You belong to me, Chihiro," Her eyes grew wide as darkness took over her completely..... ***
Chihiro screamed as she woke up again, eyes snapping open. She sat straight up like a bullet, then flopped back down, clutching her head and twisting into a fetal position, praying that the pain she had just put herself through would stop. It didn't dull to a simple thud in her temples and that constant ache in her stomach for quite a while, and tears slid down her cheeks from cracked eyes.
"Ow-oow," she groaned, and suddenly jerked awake as a cold hand touched her gently. The sudden movement didn't help, and she was back in her before position, squeaking weakly for whoever it was to stop, make it stop.
"Sen? Are you okay? Feeling any better?" Rin's voice echoed strangely, as though she were at the other end of a long dark tunnel. Chihiro cracked her eyes open once more and looked at Rin above her. "I guess not," she said, answering her own question so that Chihiro wouldn't have to open her mouth.
"Here, drink some of this. I got Kamajii to put his strongest spell on it, so maybe you'll be feeling a little better. Go on, here, I'll help you sit up without knocking yourself unconscious." Rin gently eased Chihiro into a half-sitting position on her lap, and offered the tip of a goblet to the ten-year-old's lips. Despite the nasty smell, look, and taste, Chihiro swallowed the whole lot and let Rin ease her back down, covering her with more blankets, and placed a cool cloth on her forehead.
"You have such a fever," she explained, chewing her lip. Chihiro turned her head slightly, looking up at her.
"I feel awful, Rin-san. Did those poison berries or whatever really do all of this to me?" she asked weakly, mentally cursing herself for it.
"I think that with the most you had, all they should have done was knock you fatally unconscious for a while. Maybe a small headache, but otherwise, nothing more." She sighed. "You already had a fever when you got here from the first thing you ate, I believe. What was it?"
Chihiro thought hard for a moment, then stopped this as it hurt.
So she thought slower, thus, Rin was quite sure that she had fallen asleep when Chihiro answered at last, opening her eyes again.
"It was a red berry," she said. "Haku-sama gave it to me, otherwise I would have faded away forever, he said."
Rin furrowed her brow. "Haku-sama? Shoot. Do you - can you tell me everything you remember about the red berry?"
"It was small, and hard to chew, and even harder to swallow."
"Well, that isn't much help. All berries here are small, hard to chew and swallow before they're ripe." She shook her head. "can you remember what it tasted like?"
"Nothing, I think..."
"Ah, okay." Rin stood up after switching the cloth on her forehead. "You go back to sleep, understand? I'm going to go find out what it was that you ate."
"W- Wait, Rin-san! I'll get eaten if I don't work hard! Don't leave me alone!"
"Don't worry, Sen. The other girls are working right now, and you're supposed to be asleep, right? Right. So, don't worry."
"But-"
"DON'T WORRY!"
"Hai, Rin-sama."
Rin smiled prettily and left. Chihiro waited for a second, then tried to think about happy sleepy things so that she wouldn't notice the aching all over and go to sleep again. However, the prospect of having a dream like that again scared her.
This knowledge didn't help that Chihiro ended up falling asleep again anyway and, OF COURSE, having yet another nightmare.
*** She was better again, and once more running all over hell-and-gone running errands for the other girls. After a while, Haku showed up and without anything being said, she followed him. He didn't seem to be aware that he was being followed, and so, unknowingly led Chihiro down through a tunnel she had never been aware before, through the wall next to the third floor elevator. The tunnel became darker and quieter, and the stench of blood and rotting flesh was everywhere. As they went deeper in, the walls, ceiling, and floor became cold, hard stone, and a mist seemed to settle in the growing blackness. Blood began to run from the top cracks of the walls. Still, Chihiro followed Haku. After a while, they were sloshing in the blood, and she gasped, stopping to clasp her hands over her mouth before inevitably vomiting. When she looked up again into the blackness, Haku was gone. A strange feeling of panic overtook her, and she immediately started to run. She gasped as everything went completely black, and she tripped and fell, falling face-first into the blood, falling through it, and endless bottomless ocean of it, and landed on her feet in a large cavern, candle- lit room. Chains hung on all of the walls, and skeletons, bloody corpses, decaying corpses, hung from them. A few were still alive! Fighting the bile that rose in her throat, she ran to the nearest one to try and free him - it was Haku! He didn't seem to be wearing anything, and was caked from head to toe in blood. Tears sprang into her eyes as she fought with the chains, then a shadow loomed over her. She looked behind and up quickly, and gasped as she met Haku's intense gaze. She looked back to the hurt and unconscious Haku, but saw that it was just a decayed corpse. She screamed and stumbled back away from it, right into Haku's chest. He grasped her shoulders, swinging her around, and slammed her again the wall next to the corpse, and chains out of no where yanked her feet and arms apart to a half-standing spread-eagle position. "Mine, Chihiro," he said, voice dripping with... evil? There was blood all over him, it wasn't his blood! "Hold still, Chihiro," he said. Haku raised a whip, ripping off her shirt, and brought it down with a SNAPCRACK! And Chihiro screamed harder and louder then she had ever screamed before... ***
She was still screaming when her eyes snapped open, adrenaline pumping, and saw Haku's face above her (she didn't notice Rin as she was in panic-mode). This, of course, scared the bah-jeebers out of her since she was still foggy from her dream and couldn't tell if it was real or not, so, jerked away, ignoring the pain, placing her hands to his chest and sitting up, using him to push herself away slightly before stumbling to her feet. She was still screaming bloody murder as all of this happened, and managed to choke back and simply breathe heavily when her back slammed against the wall. She had not been paying attention to where she was going.
~ "Mine, Chihiro."
Blood dripping off his face, clothes, hands...
"Hold still, Chihiro."
Whip a hairsbreadth away from her pale skin... ~
Chihiro screamed again, closing her eyes tightly and sliding down the wall, burying her head in her knees and clutching the back of it with her hands.
~ She was falling through the ocean of blood, going up her nose, in her mouth, ears, eyes...
"You belong to me, Chihiro."
Being held where she was, kicking, struggling weakly, weaker, his smirking face above hers, loving the blood... ~
Chihiro screamed again, louder. What was going on? Why wouldn't these flashes stop? Flashing in her mind. Finally, they did seem to stop, and she slowly became aware of somebody - two some bodies - holding her gently. Then she became aware of the snarling, ripping, white hot pain sneering its way around her brain and skull. Then she became aware of her stomach, which felt like it was in similar condition, her body ached all over.
She fell forward and threw up.
After that was done she just crouched there, hands clasping head, sobbing silently the pain was so great.
At last, after what seemed like forever in which she was centimeters from wishing for death instead, the pain dulled to the simple thud of a headache, and her stomach resumed its simple clenchedness of a cramp, or something like it. her skin and muscles continued to tingle as though they had been asleep and were not happy with Chihiro because she had woken them up.
Two hands were rubbing her back, two voices were murmuring softly, and slowly, even more slowly, she relaxed a little, tense muscles unclenching, lactic acid pouring through once more.
Sluggishly, slowly, she was aware of her mouth being rinsed out, being wrapped up in a blanket, bundled, carried.
"...Contagious..."
"... Hurt her and die..."
".... My room..."
"... Visit her every day..."
The voices slurred and swam before her, and Chihiro squeezed her eyes shut, still clutching her sweaty forehead, relaxing into whoever's grip held her.
After what was DEFINITELY longer then simply "forever" she woke up from the realm between sleep and consciousness. Where you could just lie in darkness and relax, sleep without sleeping or having to bother with nightmares.
It must have been dark out because the single window that was there spilled moonlight between the cracks of the gauzy blue curtains drawn over it. she didn't dare sit up or anything like that, past experiences taking their toll where they should have sooner.
As far as she could tell, she was alone.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . .
.
.
.
.
.
A/N: mm-kay, so, ya. whatever, if that was good or not, tell me, KK? It is YOUR job as a reader to (nicely) Constructively Criticize me! not that you absolutely HAVE to review. Of course.
