Spirited Away: Return to home

Home Sweet Home

I stood by my window and stared outside at the sun glinting off the newly green leaves on the huge tree near the window. I rubbed my forehead and tried to convince myself to stop thinking about the dream I had about the spirit world. It's been about a week and so far, nothing has happened, and everything has been completely normal. I am now convinced that it was only a dream due to my sadness and wanting. I huff and sit down on my bed trying to focus on reading a book.

Suddenly, Misa bursts through my bedroom floor looking flustered, holding a suitcase with clothing sticking outside of the sides of it. She throws me a look and tells me, "Listen, I'm fed up with you moping about that dream you had. We are taking a vacation to Tokyo for a month and I don't want to hear any complaints!" She then continues to rip through my closet in a rush.

I shot her a look of disbelief and tell her, "We don't have the money to just run off to Tokyo for a month, unless you're magically hiding a bunch of money somewhere." She turns around and frowns at me disapprovingly. "Didn't I just tell you that there will be no complaining? We have collage money and money saved up from working. You need this Chihiro, you need to get away from here and your parents left you money."

I cringed when she mentioned the money my parents gave me. I felt a pang of guilt for thinking about using it for a vacation, but then again maybe she was right, and I need a change of scenery. I stared rubbing my temples again and considered what she was saying.

'I guess it could be a fun trip," I conceded slowly. She whips around quickly and starts jumping up and down excitedly. I laugh at her and help her finish packing some of our things. Before I know it, she's dragging me off to the car. I stop suddenly and remember that I am a working adult with a job. 'Hey, if we do this then we are both going to lose our jobs," I tell her horrified.

"I actually already have that taken care of and I have been planning this as a surprise for awhile now. Don't worry about it, I signed us both off for the month and got it approved," she says lightly turning to look at me with sparkling green eyes.

I smile sweetly back at her genuinely touched that she did all of this for me just so I could feel better. I got into the passenger side of the car and soon we were speeding off down the little mountain road. I pulled out my sketch pad and absent mindedly sketched out a picture of a dragon. When I realized what I drew, I touched it gingerly and smiled sadly.

Suddenly a quick hand appears in my vision and my sketch book is yanked out of my lap and tossed into the bad seat as the car swears a bit. I scowl at Misa who is scowling back at me. "We are supposed to be leaving behind your sadness. I roll my eyes and pointedly say, "You are so bossy and a dangerous driver. "Oh, you love me anyways," she says before turning up the radio and trying to get me to sing with her.

~~~~~~Later That Night~~~~~~

I was driving down the dark road trying to stay awake, but it was so dark that I could barley make out anything and the moon was hidden behind dark clouds. Everything looked the same and I briefly worried that we were lost. Misa was sleeping very peacefully in the passenger seat now after having drove a long time.

I started to see something up ahead. It was small at first and I squinted to get a better view of what was in the road. It almost seemed to be a ball of light glowing softly in the distance. When we got closer to the light, I tried to shake Misa awake to ask her what she thought it was but she continued to snore away. When we got even closer to the light it suddenly exploded into a blinding white light that stung my eyes.

I jerked the wheel back and forth trying to step on the breaks, but I lost control of the car. There was a shrill screaming in the background and then all was quiet, and everything went white.