Disclaimer: I do not own Spirited Away. If I did, Haku would be my bodyguard.

Author's Notes: Finally, we reach the 1st chapter! Thank you, angelic-fualuna, for reviewing!

As for you, Yami, have you found a life? **Yes…A cursed one doomed for eternity to spend it with you!** Oh stop freaking out.


Spirited Away Again

By: Chi Yagami


Chapter 1

"Chihiro! Come on, Chihiro! It's getting late." Barbara Ajaxum didn't like to hurry her niece along, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Just a minute!" Chihiro called back to her aunt. "I'm sure it's here! Only, I thought that this was supposed to be a river. Uncle George, are you sure that 'Haku' refers to the Kohaku River?"

"I'm positive," replied George Ajaxum. "I remember reading in the newspaper that a huge flood suddenly appeared in the Kohaku River, knocking down the apartment buildings.

"Yah, I know it's strange," her uncle continued. "Only a couple days after you and your parents moved into town, a big flood occurred. Weather men said that snow from the mountains must have melted and somehow flowed down into this riverbed."

"But Uncle George," Chihiro responded, "I thought the snow didn't start melting until mid July."

"It doesn't, and that's the strange thing."

"George, it's getting late. Don't you think we should be heading back? We have a long way to go."

"Coming, Barbara. Just give me five minutes." His wife slumped up against the car and frowned.

"Now," Uncle George said as he turned to Chihiro, "you have five minutes to look around once more for this Hugo thing-"

"Haku. Its name is Haku."

"All right, you have five minutes to look for this Haku, and if you don't find it tonight, we'll come back next weekend. Deal?"

"Promise?" Chihiro asked.

"I promise," her uncle replied smiling. Chihiro smiled, too. Then she turned and ran down the riverbed farther.

"Don't go too far," her uncle called after her. Chihiro knew her aunt and uncle meant well, but couldn't they see how important this was to her? Finding Haku would bring back the joy and happiness she used to have, that strength and power within her. It would bring back her memory that she used to have; the memory she had before the accident.

The accident happened a month after she and her parents had moved into their new home, just three blocks down from her uncle and aunt's house. They had told her everything they had seen during the accident.

Supposedly, she and her parents had gone fishing that day with her aunt and uncle. In the morning, the family loaded onto two boats: Chihiro, her mother, and her father in one boat, and her uncle and aunt in another.

The day had been going well by noon, when the family hooked their boats together and had lunch out on the lake. The sky had begun to darken, but there were no signs of a thunderstorm anywhere. After they had finished eating, the family had unhooked their boats and began fishing again

Suddenly, as if it had happened on purpose, lightning came out of the sky and struck Chihiro's boat. Her relatives say that they saw her body fly off the boat and hit her head on a pile of rocks nearby. Then her parents had jumped off the boat and tried to grab her uncle's hand, but were swept away with the current towards a huger pile of rocks.

Her relatives said that it was a miracle when the doctor told them Chihiro was alive. That part Chihiro could remember like it was yesterday.

She had struggled to open her eyes. When she finally managed, Chihiro had found that she was surrounded by people.

"Who are you?" she had asked. "What are we doing here? Where am I?"

Her aunt and uncle had tried to identify themselves, but it didn't seem to work. She'd had no idea who they were.

"You're my relatives?"

"Yes," they had answered hopefully.

"Haku!" had been the next thing she said.

"What's 'Haku?'" the doctor had asked.

"Chihiro, what's Haku?" her relatives had asked. That was when the weird thing happened.

"Who, me? My name's Sen," she had replied.

Even today, Chihiro believed that her real name was Sen. The doctors had finally concluded that her memory bank had been permanently damaged. She would never remember anything before waking up in the hospital. Her aunt and uncle called her Chihiro and so did the kids at school.

She had finally settled into this new life six months ago. However, last weekend, she woke up from a nightmare screaming "Haku! Haku!"

The dream had been strange. She was flying on the back of a white dragon when suddenly they burned up, and she woke up screaming.

Uncle George had looked up "Haku" in a word meaning book, and found that it meant "Kohaku River."

Earlier today, her relatives had agreed that at five o'clock, they would go to the Kohaku River and search for this Haku. Now Chihiro was searching frantically all around for anything that reminded her of a Haku.

"Chihiro, time's up!" her uncle called.

"I'm coming," she called back. The search for Haku would have to wait until next weekend. She didn't blame her relatives, though. They lived a long way from the Kohaku River.

As she turned to leave, Chihiro felt a tug on her hair. A branch from a tree had pulled out her hair-tie. It was pretty strange how she'd gotten it. Her relatives told her that she had told them once that her granny had given it to her and that it was lucky. The funny thing, however, was that both of Chihiro's grand parents were dead.

"I was starting to think that you weren't coming," her uncle said as Chihiro climbed into the truck.

"My hair got stuck," Chihiro replied.

"Now remember, Chihiro, go right to sleep. You've been up late and you have school tomorrow."

"I know," Chihiro replied sulkily.


The first half of the next day flew by so fast that Chihiro wondered if she was starting to lose her memory again. By recess, Chihiro was quite sure she was having memory problems, because she couldn't even remember what she'd eaten for lunch.

Chihiro had just sat down on a bench to watch the other children play, when a huge gust of wind blew over the playground. It was so strong that it pulled out her lucky hair-tie. Chihiro gasped as she saw it float over the fence. She got up and ran after it.

"Where are you going? You're not allowed to leave school grounds," said a teacher.

"I don't care!" shouted Chihiro as she jumped over the fence. "I've got to get my lucky hair-tie!" Chihiro could hear the teacher yelling at her to come back as she raced into the woods behind the school. She could hear the sounds of cars passing by on the freeway on the other side of the woods.

Chihiro ran through the woods searching desperately for the hair-tie. She stopped when she saw a dirt road in front of her that was heading west or east. She glanced down and spotted the hair-tie. She quickly tied back her hair and looked to the west.

"Well," she said, "no point in going that way." She was right. To the west, the road stopped at the foot of a few trees, and behind that she could see a little bit of the freeway.

"Okay then, east it is," she said to herself. She walked along the dirt road looking all around her until she finally saw something interesting. On her right was the most bizarre statue she'd ever seen. It looked sort of like a mixture of Humpty-Dumpty and a snowman. Chihiro had the strangest feeling that the statue wasn't there for greetings but for warnings.

Chihiro began feeling tired. It seemed like it had been hours ago when she passed the bizarre statue. She was just about to give up when she heard a voice.

"Call me Granny…"

The voice echoed in her head. It sounded like an elderly woman. Chihiro started running down the path, hoping to see an old woman of some sort. She ran faster and faster down the road. The faster she ran, the bumpier the road seemed to get.

Chihiro stopped to rest herself. When she looked up, she knew her brain was going crazy. In front of her was an old pink building with a tunnel running through it. In front of the entrance was another one of those weird statues Chihiro had seen earlier while on the road. She had the strangest feeling she'd been here before.

Chihiro stepped towards the tunnel and gasped. She somehow knew that this place used to be an amusement park.

"I guess my parents took me here once," Chihiro said out loud, "but I have a strange feeling about going in that tunnel. Hey! Maybe the old woman's on the other side!"

She walked around the statue and into the tunnel. She couldn't see where it ended. After what seemed like hours to her, Chihiro came to the end of the tunnel. It opened up into a big room filled with benches. Chihiro thought the room belonged somewhere in a church. Then she noticed a doorway leading out of the room to the outside. She approached the doorway cautiously and peered out. It was nightfall. A field of grass covered with the statues lay before her. She decided to explore.

Suddenly, the wind blew a breeze into the room, and something rattled behind her. Chihiro turned and screamed.

Three skeletons were chained to the wall left of her, and they all wore signs that said, "BEWARE."