**Hello everyone and welcome to my newest fanfic! First off, I am a huge Labyrinth fan, but alas – it belongs to greater minds than mine. (RIP Jim Henson *sad face*) The characters in this story also do not belong to me, but the plot is 100% mine. Please follow and favorite if you enjoy. I love reviews – they keep me going! I'm setting the rating high only because I am not entirely sure how violent the battles are going to be, but I don't expect to have any explicit descriptions of sexual encounters. If that changes, I will make sure to notate that in the beginning of the chapter. That being said… ENJOY! Much love!**

Chapter 1

"Give me the child. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great…" Thunder rumbled in the distance. "For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great… Damn. I can never remember that line." I stared at the Goblin King and realization dawned on me. "You have no power over me."

I came awake with a start. I was in my room, in my bed. I reached blindly for the switch on my bedside lamp, blinking into the sudden light. I was alone. The clock read four am but I knew there was no going back to sleep. The nightmares chased away any hope of resting. After my battle in the Labyrinth, I convinced myself that it was all just a dream. A wonderful, scary, crazy dream, but a dream nonetheless. Well, almost.

I got up and moved into the bathroom, intent on taking a shower to clear my head. I turned the water on and let it get hot before submerging myself under the spray. I was so tense that the water didn't give any relief. I sighed. I had a huge project due in the morning, my art final. I had spent many sleepless nights working on the pieces, trying to make them perfect. Now, I didn't even want to look at them.

I got dressed and turned on every lamp in my apartment to banish the darkness. The kitchen was cold, but the promise of coffee kept my feet firmly planted on the tile. My apartment was small, but I liked living alone and it was all I could afford. My dad and step-mom were paying for school as long as I held down a part-time job for housing. I lived just off of campus, close enough to be able to walk to most of my classes. I had a bike locked in the rack behind the apartment building if I was running late.

I grabbed my sketchbook and settled myself onto the couch, my coffee on the little end table I had found at a yard sale for five dollars. I opened the pad and continued working on a drawing I had started of Merlin, my dog. It still made my chest tight when I thought of him. He had gotten sick last summer and was gone before I returned to college in September. Cancer was such an evil thing. We buried him under the old oak tree in the back yard, his favorite place to nap. It was selfish, but I was glad I wasn't home all the time. It wasn't the same without his wagging tail and unfailing love. Toby had convinced his mom and our dad to let him get a puppy, so at least he wasn't sad, but I didn't want another dog.

I made a mental note to call Toby after I got done school. I still couldn't believe he was almost seven. He was in the second grade and absolutely loved life. He had no idea how close he came to not… No. I refused to even think about it. That world was just pretend. It was all just a bad dream.

I got so caught up in my art that I didn't notice how fast the clock was moving. By the time I looked up, I had very little time to get ready for class. I threw my unruly hair into a messy bun and threw on the first clean clothes I found. Thankfully, most of my clothes were interchangeable. I pulled a sweatshirt on followed by my coat and was out the door.

I hit the café in the art building for another cup of coffee before I raced to my first class, Art History. I slid into my seat just as the instructor was taking roll. Dr. Ogden had a PhD in Fine Art, but still made the rest of us feel like we were in high school. We had assigned seats and had points deducted for talking. The class was tedious and all art majors had to take it at some point or another. To me, it was simply a necessary evil on the road to my dream of owning a gallery in the city.

Today's lecture was on the differences between Monet and Manet, and I quickly zoned out. I was still absorbed in the dream from last night and I doodled an owl on my notebook.

"Ms. Williams? Would you care to answer my question?"

Without looking up, I began to list the characteristics of Monet's watercolors. When I finished, I looked up and raised my eyebrow. The teacher knew I was listening even when it seemed I wasn't paying attention, but since I was acing his class, the worst he could do was attempt to embarrass me in front of the other students. True to that thought, he made some snide remark in my direction. The class laughed, but I didn't let it faze me. I just had to make it through two more weeks of his self-proclaimed class of hell. Then I was free.

I worked hard in all of my classes and had taken summer courses to make up for changing majors when I was a junior. I was going to graduate this spring and then possibly move into the city. I had some money saved up that my dad didn't know about. I lived frugally and I didn't want to rely on him or my step-mom any more than I already did. They thought following my dream of art was a waste of time, but it was the only passion I had.

At the end of the lecture, I was called to the podium as the rest of the students left. Dr. Ogden gave me grief about paying attention and gave me an additional assignment to make his point. I shrugged and grabbed my bag. Two pages on watercolors was something I could write on my break tonight at work. If he thought he was going to break me, he didn't know me very well. He simply didn't have that power over me.

"Shit," I muttered as I settled into my studio space for the next class.

Why had I thought that? The labyrinth wasn't real. It was merely what haunted me, a teenager's anxiety condition revealed or something like that. It wasn't something to dwell on.

And yet that was all I could do. In my studio, the finished works were all of the same horrible, wonderful dream. I had done the clock in watercolors. Ludo was done in oil pastels. Hoggle was painted spraying the fairies, the initial visual I had of him. Sir Didymus was upon his steed Ambrosias above the Bog of Eternal Stench, done in charcoal. However, pencil was my preferred medium.

I had every grade of graphite available, and used only the best shaders and erasers. I even had an entire set of Prismacolor Softcore colored pencils, a gift from Toby from last Christmas. He had saved up his allowance for three months to afford it. I had an entire portfolio of additional pieces, but I only had out one that I thought would impress Professor Amanda Hart.

She insisted we call her Amanda, as 'an artist shouldn't stand on airs'. She loved to explore ideas and was always open to something she didn't understand. This is why I felt that I could show her this world I had dreamed. All semester, she cautioned us about not refining our work, but kept being drawn to my raw work, claiming its brilliance. So I was ready for her when she came to grade me.

"Sarah, I must say that I am impressed. I asked for 5 completed pieces. I see you have easily mastered that requirement," she said, laughing. "The pencil owl is by far my favorite. The detail you put into it is amazing. It looks real!"

I smiled. She went over each of the other pieces that were hanging and studied them just as intently as she did with the owl. When she was done, she wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

"A ninety-six percent?" I asked, shocked. I was merely hoping for a passing grade, but I had no idea she felt so highly of my work.

"The other students won't get their grades until the end of the semester, but I wanted you to know how I feel about your work. You have the gift, Sarah." She pulled a stool over to my table and sat. "Now, why don't you show me the pieces that you are hiding?"

I shyly pulled my small portfolio out of my messenger bag. None of the pages were bigger than a sheet of copy paper, but they were the ones I loved most. They were the drawings of the labyrinth. Some of them were sketched quickly. Others I had spent the time shading and detailing. It just depended on my mood. They were the images I saw in my dreams. They were my nightmares. They were something so much more, but there were no words that could describe them.

The last page was the one I was dreading seeing. It was one thing to detail the owl. To give form to the man behind the animal was much more difficult. I had restarted this particular piece more times than I wanted to count, but the end result was worth it.

The Goblin King was draped across his throne, playing with a crystal orb and looking extremely focused on whatever he saw in the glass. Goblins and other creatures were scattered across the floor, drinking and partying. The faint shadow of a baby was in a corner, striped pajamas an all too familiar reminder of what could have been. He looked real enough to touch, and far too handsome. Maybe I had just made up his brilliance, but I somehow doubted that.

Amanda was silent for a long time as she flipped through the book. When she reached the king, my heart stopped beating. I wanted to grab the page and shred it, just so that his image wouldn't be sullied by anyone's impression.

"Simply amazing…" she murmured reverently.

I reached for my book and closed it, shoving it back into my back. She took the paper off of the desk and scratched out her first number, replacing it with something far higher.

"You deserve it," she said with a smile. "I look forward to seeing what you decide to submit to the Spring Art Show. I highly recommend the owl and the one of the king. They feel connected somehow and I think they would look wonderful framed together."

I stayed where I was after she left, staring at what I had created. If I hadn't needed to get to work, I probably would have let the memories, no… the dreams take over again, but I needed the money. I stopped at home to change my clothes and grab something to eat before my shift started at the diner.

I had a busy night, welcoming so many people that I thought I was going crazy. More than once, I caught a glimpse of white, a sarcastic laugh and my heart would race. There was nothing to suggest he was real, but I felt eyes on me, eyes that weren't there. I couldn't explain it, but I knew I was being watched.

"You okay, girl?" my coworker Liam asked, concerned when I dropped another tray on the floor. I wasn't a clumsy person, but I was off my game.

"Yeah," I replied. "I had a bad night and I had that huge project due today."

He and I had often talked about having trouble sleeping. He was an insomniac and could understand why I hated going to sleep. He was a business student at the college, but took online courses. It made it easier for him to sleep when he needed to. He was a nice guy, and we might have clicked romantically if he hadn't batted for the other team. Instead, he was one of very few people I might consider a friend.

My shift ended at midnight and the walk home was uneventful. Most of the students were cramming for finals instead of filling the streets with their drunkenness. I was grateful for the silence. I wasn't in the mood to deal with other people's problems. If I couldn't shake the funk I was in, I was going to have another terrible night ahead of me.

My answering machine was blinking and on it was a message from Toby, calling to just say hi. I smacked my forehead with my hand. I completely forgot to call him. We had this weird connection at times when he knew what I was thinking. He probably picked up on my mood and wanted to check in on me. I grabbed a Post It note and stuck it against the door so I would call him first thing in the morning. As it was Saturday, he would be watching cartoons and his mom wouldn't mind an early call.

I changed into lounge pants and flipped the television on. Channel surfing was normally a good way to distract me, but I was too on edge. Every little noise was making me jump. A storm was brewing outside and the first drops of rain hit the window. It may have been early December, but it wasn't cold enough yet for snow. The wind picked up and the tree outside my window wacked against the pane. IT was one of the few downsides to living on the third floor, besides not having an elevator in my building.

I gave up on staying in the living room and headed into the bedroom, hoping some light reading might lull me into dreamland. At least that was the plan, but the door to my balcony crashed open, sending leaves and water into my private space. I rushed forward to close it, but was shocked when a person dropped dead weight into my arms, soaking wet. I screamed and dropped them onto the floor, praying that I wasn't hallucinating. Then again, hallucinating might be a better alternative to having a possibly dead person on my kitchen floor.

I saw their back moving and sighed in relief. A dead person would raise a lot of questions. I knelt down and rolled them onto their side. Long blonde hair covered their face, but there was no mistaking who I was staring at.

"You," I whispered, backing away. I couldn't pretend it was a dream anymore. The Goblin King had found me.