Spirited Away - Chihiro's Return
By Natalie U.
Chapter 1: Run Away, Escape
"Give us your bag, now!"
A girl backed herself up against a wall, defenseless. She groaned at how foolish she could be to get herself into such a situation. Had she not insulted a classmate at school this morning (even if what she has said was in fact true), she might not have the classmate's boyfriend and gang come to deal with her. She now suffered the consequences of her foolishness.
She held her bag tightly in her hand, thinking as fast as she could as to how she could solve the situation. She was up against four boys far stronger than she; however she was the fastest sprinter in the school so that even they couldn't catch her. She glanced around at the four of them, thinking quickly.
Then it hit her. She braced herself for something challenging and very brave.
"You want my bag? Here, have it!"
She shoved the bag as hard as she could into the boy confronting her and ran for her life. The other boys were in too much shock to really notice her run, but they soon recovered and darted after her. She ran across roads, through parks, over barbed wire, and all over the grassy fields. She was loosing them, and wasn't really concentrating on where she was going, but anywhere that would put more distance between her and those boys.
She eventually came up to a forest, but not just any old forest. It was the forest she and her family had driven through nearly four and a half years ago, to find...
The cries of the boys became louder as she spotted them hurtling through the hills coming ever nearer. She decided to take her chances, and ran through the forest. She kept on the path for about five minutes, until she realized that she was getting tired, and that the only way she was going to get rid of the boys was by going off the path. She took a sharp left into a dense patch of scrub, used a leaf to brush away her shoe-prints, and hid herself as silently as she could.
When the boys came to where her shoe-prints had abruptly stopped in the middle of the pathway, they were utterly confused. Her heart was beating so fast, hoping that they wouldn't discover her, for if they did, they would do much worse things to her here (in solitary confinement) than out in the open. They eventually gave up the search and turned back, still baffled about her where-abouts. But they did agree to stand at the entrance to the forest, until the next morning if need be, because they felt if she had gone in, she must have to come out at sometime.
She waited until their voices couldn't be heard at all before changing her sitting position and taking a glance around the forest. She could not exit the forest by the way she had come. So she decided to continue along the path, running as fast as she could so that she could get home quickly and not arouse any suspicion. She was suddenly taking back to her original thought of what she might find. But sadness filled her heart, for she was more afraid of what she would not find.
She ran down the path, which didn't seem to have been used in at least a few years. She could not remember what the path to the destination that she knew looked like, and as she tried to imagine it she lost all her senses.
She felt a dull thud in her head when she seemed to come back to herself. She regained her sight and found herself sitting on the floor of the forest, facing a stone figure she had noticed in this very forest four and a half years ago...
She had to take a deep breath before getting up to see the same tunnel. This was too much for her. She turned her back and walked away, but not far enough so that she wouldn't hear something calling "Chihiro...Chihiro..."