[drabble] Sen to Chihiro: The Sea Calls Me
This is for yokozuki, who requested Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi drabble-fare. XD

Spirited Away [Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi]
Chihiro, 595 words

On her fifteenth birthday, Chihiro's father took her to the beach. They went by train, as it was too far for him to justify spending the gas, and her mother packed shrimp and mayonnaise sandwiches to take along. Chihiro had never cared for mayonnaise, but her mother was working full time as a secretary at some big company an hour away, and couldn't be trusted to remember such things.

The weather forecast called for rain. When they got to the beach, it was cloudy, but at least it was not packed with screaming crowds, bratty children running around in next to nothing, throwing sand. Her father unfolded beach blankets while Chihiro and her mother staked out a spot on the sand and spread out their small picnic lunch. They ate mostly in silence, though it was a good silence, one that spoke of quiet contentment over the sound of waves on the shore.

At the end of the pier by the parking lot, there was a small, red flag waving in the breeze. "To warn people about the sharks," her father said, but Chihiro had never heard of any sharks. "Don't go swimming down there. It's dangerous."

She walked down to investigate anyway, after her parents had fallen asleep. The flag was much larger than it had looked from their picnic area. The sun came out from behind the clouds for a moment, warming the wood, and she took a careful seat on the creaking pier, swinging her legs just above the surface of the water.

She could have sworn for a second as she looked down, that something moved there. She dismissed it as just the movement of the water out of the corner of her eye, but there was a splashing from behind her, like someone dropping rocks in the water. Chihiro jerked her legs out of the water, spinning around, but there was no one there.

From far away, she heard the sound of a train's whistle. Something rustled about her head, like the flutter of wings, and she paused, poised to turn but almost afraid to, and then she realized it was just the red flag snapping in the wind.

The train's horn came again, and she closed her eyes, stretched her arms out and began to walk in the direction of the sound of water. One foot, then the other, small, timid strides that still did not falter. When her left foot met not wood, but air, she let herself fall in.

Water closed above her head. The air leave her lungs in a whoosh, but she felt curiously alive. When she opened her eyes, the water was filled with birds, sunlight shimmering on their scaled wings. She reached out one hand to them, but they scattered, leaving glimmering bubbles in their wake. She was not afraid when her vision began to black at the edges and her lungs gasped for air and found none. The fish-birds flickered back into sight, and she gave a sigh and closed her eyes as their cold feathers brushed her skin.

Who are you? she thought, and the feathers seemed to say, don't be afraid.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the cloudy sky and the frayed edge of their old beach umbrella above her, the shadow of her father on the other side packing up the cooler. "It's going to rain, Chihiro," he said. "We'd better start heading back."

She sat up. Her clothes were dry. The pier's familiar wooden shape loomed in the distance, but the red flag was gone.