Encounter in the white (2)

"Are you the one who guided me?"

The golden figure didn't seem to hear Chihiro's question.

That, or it either didn't want to or simply didn't care to act as if it did. Instead, it just stood in the same weird pose as before, as if Chihiro was merely a fly invading this white space, not worthy of its attention.

"No answer, huh?" Chihiro muttered, only to breathe out and look around, hoping to find something else he could focus his thoughts on.

He wasn't trapped in this weird, white space. It was merely a distant feeling, but he could tell that to escape from this strange place, all he had to do was to… open his eyes.

It was that simple. And yet, at the same time, it made opening his eyes the very last thing Chihiro wanted to do in the moment.

Opening his eyes meant leaving this space. And for as far as he could tell, this wasn't a place he could just enter any time he wanted.