I was walking in a long dark corridor, my footsteps echoing and deafening my ears. There was no one in sight. The marbled corridor seemed to stretch itself more and more as I walked forward. The only source of light was a tube on the ceiling. The walls on either side were thick, old and there were writings over them. I could not make out what it was nor could I stop by and say hello. I kept on walking straight not knowing what I was looking for, but whatever it was, it was crucial I find it.

Suddenly, I felt a quick movement behind me. I stopped and shivered. The air around me turned cold and touched me with its damp fingers. Another sound came after that. Not of footsteps, but of a huge gust of wind. Then, I was greeted by whispers. Whatever the whispers said, I couldn't make any of it out. I decided to take an another step. I walked forward and quite suddenly the floor started shaking. The next thing I knew, the floor was breaking apart. There was nothing under the floor except darkness. It was a strange feeling as I started falling downwards. I tried to scream but I couldn't. I was falling down and down.

"Aargh!" I groaned as I hit my head hard on the wooden floor.

I opened my eyes and sat up, rubbing my left arm. I looked around and was relieved to see I was still in the shop. Just a dream.

"About time!" I heard a familiar  voice and looked up at the person saying it. In front of me stood a nineteen year old girl with short blonde hair. She was holding the sides of her black skirt which she wore with an off-white top.

"What's up?" I asked her rubbing my head. It still hurt. "Oh I don't know" she replied with a frown, "I just gave a girl a task to do; which was to sew the ribbons on the hat and here she is snoring on the table so loud the whole Market Chipping could hear."

I grinned at her.

"Oh yeah sorry, Lettie" I said as she pulled me up "I will do it now."

"You better do it," she said turning away towards the door.

She stopped at the door and looked back at me.

She asked "you are sweating all over. Did you had a bad dream?"

"Nope" I lied.

Lettie gave me an expression of 'you look like you saw a ghost' and walked away. I waited for her to go downstairs then sank in the chair and sighed. Stupid dream.

I stared out of the window and like always, I admired the view from the hat shop. It showed the railway station and in a distance, the Waste full of witches and wizards. I had been staying in the hat shop with Lettie since like forever. It was my home.

I did have a family but their house was far away from Market Chipping. As far as I remembered, the last time I visited them was like six months ago. Lettie and I were sisters. She was the only member of my family who lived with me.

Lettie ran a bakery shop popular throughout the town but nowadays she had come to join me at the hat shop. She was doing a good business. Lettie loved cleaning and doing everything on time. She was kind of strict but at the same time, cute. I often helped her in the shop. She had a great deal of customers each day.

I turned to the hat which rested untouched on the table. There was also an open book lying on the table. It was the one I was reading earlier before I drifted to sleep. It was the story of a girl who was captured and was now escaping. I closed the book shut and put it aside. I picked up a needle and a thread. I lifted the hat and examined it. It was red coloured.

"I suppose pink will suit you" I told it as I pulled out a pink ribbon from the bundle and started sewing it to the hat.

While I was at it, I recalled my dream. Dark corridor was the only thing I remembered. The dream often stopped by in my head. I couldn't make any sense out of it. It won't come true, I reassured myself. After all why would I ever be in a corridor and anyways, there was no such place near Market Chipping. But I was still unsure.

"I better check out around Market Chipping" I announced to absolutely no one. I had done that before. It is very easy for me to walk around the Market and check on everything considering the market was so small. I knew everyone around so had no fear of getting lost.

"Ouch!" I cried. I dropped the hat and held my finger. The needle had stuck into it. It was bleeding.

"Oh my gosh, (Y/N)," Lettie's even tone rang up in my ears "what have you done?"

"It's nothing!" I said hastily covering my finger with my hands." Lettie marched up towards me. She merely ignored what I had said and snatched the hat.

"What have you done to this hat?" she demanded.

I looked at her unbelievably. She was talking about the hat not my finger. I glanced at the hat and my eyes widened. There was a big black hole in the middle. It looked as if someone had burned it. The pink ribbon was attached to it in a funny way.

I gasped and said "how did-"

Lettie was too busy to notice what I was saying.

"You sure you're feeling okay?" she asked after a minute.

"Er-yeah" I lied again.

"I don't know about it, (Y/N)" she sighed "it is so unlike you. You are acting weird today."

"It's nothing, really" I said forcing a smile on my lips. Lettie looked at the hat and then stared out of the window.

Suddenly a few young girls came running upstairs, giggling.

"What happened?" Lettie asked them as they pushed their way to the window.

Lettie clearly seemed cross.

"It's Howl's castle, miss" the youngest girl cried going red "and look- it's so close."

Me and Lettie automatically turned our heads and stared outside the window. Up in the Waste something was moving. From a distance, it just looked like an over sized ball staggering on the Waste. The rest part of the Waste was covered in thick mist.

"It hasn't been this close before" Lettie said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps Howl's in the Market" I said staring consecutively outside the window.

"Maybe" one of the girl said.

"Only I wish I knew how Howl looked" another girl said dreamily.

"He'd run away the instant he sees you" the third girl teased.

"As if he'd be interested in your heart" the second girl shot at the third one.

Then they both giggled. Suddenly a loud voice echoed somewhere above us. We all stared upwards at the sky and saw air planes flying. There were quite a lot of them. Somehow they looked unusual. It was because they were military aircrafts and not the normal ones. This surprised me very much.

Why on earth would be there military planes?

I was brought back from my imagination when one girl said "look! The castle is gone!"

"It's just hiding," the second one said "it doesn't want the planes to see it."

"Lettie?" I asked Lettie "why are there military aircrafts now?"

Lettie twiddled her thumb and replied "I don't know."

"I think we should visit mom and dad" I said "I want to make sure they are doing alright."

Lettie reacted a great deal to this. "No way you are going there. They are all perfectly alright."

"Then why are you stopping me?" I asked curiously.

"Enough already" Lettie said walking away "come down girls. (Y/N)," she added "you ought to take a break."

After that all of them disappeared downstairs chatting about Howl and I was left alone in the room.

I felt that Lettie was hiding something from me. Why would she stop me from visiting my family, our family. If there were war ships, I guessed there'd be a war and my dad was an army officer. I just felt I should check out how they are getting on and I would.

I stared at my hand which I had pulled back behind my back. The bleeding had stop but I couldn't help thinking about how the hat got burned. It was unusual and things like that often happened to me. I stared out of the window. The planes were gone and so was the castle.

I thought about Howl. A few months ago, this creepy thing appeared in the Waste. It moved all day and all night that sometimes I wondered where it got its petrol from. At first people were terrified considering it was the Witch of the Waste. I had never really seen her but the rumors about her suggested that she was quite scary and cruel. She had been living on the Waste, terrorizing people and kidnapping them. Then one day she disappeared. That was a few months before Howl's Moving Castle came. It's what everyone else calls it but trust me, it was not a castle. Soon enough, rumors about Howl passed through Market Chipping like fire. They said he ate young girls hearts. It is also said that he doesn't have a heart but how on earth would he have survived without a heart. Once a girl reported she saw Howl pulling out a girls heart. She also said that he was handsome enough to attract anyone. Afterwards people worried about young handsome boys. They said "what if one of them is Howl?"

As for me, I was not the type to just stand by while the rumors go on. So one day I went to the Waste and chased the castle to see what it was. It was insane but I did had fun. What's more? Even the castle gained up speed.

I was the only one to see his castle up close and it is more of a junkyard heap than a castle. Its legs were so thin that one of these days, it'll fall apart. I couldn't get inside the castle neither could I reach it so I returned back.

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