-Catgirl-of-Bavaria- : Another chapter for my fans, however few they may be ;; Thank you so much to Tiafan and Xx.Eternal Rain.xX for the wonderful reviews! gives pocky 3
Here's the next chapter, enjoy!
Chapter 5 – Searching for the Answer
Chihiro woke sorely on her floor just below her bed. Rubbing her hip where she had landed, she tried to remember what had just happened.
"Ow…" she muttered. "That's a new one…" She whispered, thinking on the sprint through the little row of cafés.
She looked on the floor beside her where Shizuka was still fast asleep, regardless of any sound that Chihiro had made falling out of bed. Very quietly, Chihiro got to her feet and walked to her window, pulling aside the drapes and peering at the forest. She leaned to one side of the window, resting her heavy head on a balled up fist.
She called on her memory again, desperate for anything, anything that would bring his face back, or to have his name pass through her lips once more. She knew he meant both worlds to her, but still, he was slipping away, more and more each day. She hated the feeling of losing him again, as well as forgetting anything else that happened that time she was in the spirit world.
"I know you're out there somewhere," she whispered helplessly to the nighttime air.
Her eyes sank to the windowsill, and she noticed a thin layer of dust collecting the light of the moon. In the far right corner, a small spider was resting in the middle of her moonlit web. She could hear the calm, subtle breaths emitting from her friend of six years behind her.
She felt quite cool, in her spaghetti strap shirt and loose boxer shorts that she had worn to bed, but still, the anxiety that she felt was enough to have made her think she was in a sauna.
A breeze wove through the open window and her long brown hair replied, sending strands into her vision that was still transfixed on the little spider.
When she looked back out the window this time, she was drawn to the darkened figure of a huge, very old and gnarly tree that lay not far from the forest pathway that she had seen earlier. Her vision was drawn to the area at its feet, where a collection of moonlit squares gazed back up at her.
She stared at them for a few moments and remembered the little stone houses that she had first laid eyes on when she had come to this place six years ago. It was the first of the hints that led her and her parents to the spirit world.
"What are those stones? They look like little houses…" Chihiro had said, practically leaning out of the car window.
"They're shrines. Some people think little spirits live in them." Her mother had replied, quizzically.
Her eyes were glued to the shrines, remembering that day. Finally, she snapped back to reality and looked towards where the road had ended and the vague remnant of a pathway into the forest ensued. That pathway…
"That answer's got to be down that pathway!" She suddenly hissed, recalling that it had all begun with those shrines and that pathway. She clumsily backed away from the window, letting the drapes fall gracefully to cover it.
She checked her watch. 1:00AM. Just enough time to get into the forest and snoop around.
Hurriedly, Chihiro grabbed a pair of loose jeans and threw them on over her boxers. She grabbed her shoes from under the bed and quickly pulled them on, not even bothering with socks. She took some pillows and extra blankets and stuffed them under her blanket to fool Shizuka that she was still there if she just happened to wake up while Chihiro was gone.
A little silver glint on the shelf above her bed called to her, and she remembered it was where she'd left her silver bracelet. She stared at it, still leaned over her bed, midway through stuffing her blanket with a fluffy pillow. She couldn't see it through the darkness, but she knew that the dragon was peering back at her.
She nearly shivered, remembering how amazingly it looked like the dragon of her dreams.
She tore her gaze from it and continued her duty of forming a decoy of pillows.
She silently managed to get out of her room, down the stairs and out the door without so much as a squeak from the floorboards. She knew where each was and how to avoid them.
After grabbing a lantern from the doorside table, she ran behind the house and through the garden to stop at the very top of the hill that led down from her blue house to the edge of the forest. Gazing down once more at the gleaming shrines, she set out down the hill at a clumsy sprint.
-Catgirl-of-Bavaria- : Ack, another short chapter! Eep…Well, anyway, stay tuned, I'll put another chapter in a couple of minutes.