Summary

SAPPHIREBEAR15
Ten-year old Chihiro and her parents are moving when her father takes a wrong turn. Her father thinks they've found an old amusement park and insists on exploring. Chihiro, scared to be alone, accompanies her parents. They cross a dry riverbed. Chihiro's parents find an unattended restaurant stall and gorge themselves while Chihiro wanders off. She finds an exquisite bathhouse. Suddenly a boy orders her to cross the river before nightfall. Spirits begin haunting the park, and when Chihiro returns to her parents, they have become pigs. Chihiro runs to the river, but it has flooded and is impossible to cross. The boy, whose name is Haku, finds her and says he has known her since she was little. He tells her to ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji. Kamaji and the worker Lin send Chihiro to the witch Yubaba, who runs the bathhouse. She gives Chihiro a job but steals her name. She is renamed Sen (千?), the first character of her name. Haku shows Sen her parents' pigpen. Among her belongings, she finds a goodbye card addressed to Chihiro. She realizes that she's forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names. If she forgets hers like he has forgotten his, then she cannot leave the spirit world.