DISCLAIMER : If I owned Labyrinth, Jareth wouldn't be stuck inside my crummy made up world full of plot holes and spelling errors, would he?
CHAPTER ONE : Realizations
Things fall apart, they say. To Sarah Williams those words were never more true. Oh, they hurt... her memories. Memories of love, of family, they hurt. Her world had torn itself to pieces in the space of thirteen hours and yet it turned and turned again.
She had won. She had tried to smile but it had soon become the smile of desolation. Inside she felt only her heart breaking as she watched what she had originally thought to be her baby brother grow, only to see something slightly off and disturbing taking his place. At first she assumed she was going mad, that her time Underground in the Labyrinth had driven her around the bend. Her brother's doppelganger would often let his guard down, the creature lurking beneath the rosy cheeks and white blonde curls sometimes venturing out to play. No one else seemed to see past it's glamour, and so no one else noticed. But as time carried on and the months turned to years, it became undeniable.
Toby was a Changeling.
That significant night five years ago, in which certain words had been spoken, haunted Sarah's every waking thought. Try as she might to now distance herself from her supposed brother and family, she could never truly shake the guilt that pulled at her heart. There was no one else to blame for Toby's kidnapping, and it was her same uncaring adolescent-self's fault he was not coming back.
"I'm thinking of the future here, Sarah." Karen's shrill tone meant nothing to Sarah as she held the phone inattentively against her ear, focused on spooning the last remains of chocolate ice cream from an empty tub. Karen had been begging Sarah to come home for the good part of 6 months, to help with the unpleasantries of being knocked yet up again, she supposed. It must be hard to raise not one, but two little goblins. Sarah was quite determined never to return to the house she grew up in. Apparently the Changeling, now aged six, often asked after his sister. Of course he did, Sarah thought. He was probably somehow still connected to the Underground and to that ingrate who took her real brother away, no doubt trying to do some spying for his King.
Sarah grimaced and dropped the spoon back into the tub.
"Oh, you would think of the future, Karen. Because the past is far too painful." Hanging up, Sarah felt a lick of guilt at the spiteful words she had directed toward her step mother. Had she meant them? No, probably not. But she was never going back to her family again, no matter how much they pleaded with her.
It was quite the mystery ay the Williams household as to why their daughter had grown so distant and reclusive over such a short amount of time. One day Sarah was her normal loud and self-important teenage self, and the next she was quiet, remote and withdrawn. It seemed as though Sarah was striving for her independence far too early, although all her family could do was watch as she became more and more distant from them.
At nineteen, Sarah lived in a small and meek apartment in regrettably one of the more precarious parts of the city. It wasn't much, but it was cheap and in walking distance to Sarah's work. When she was younger, before any of the complications arose in her life, living on her own would have seemed dangerous and daunting but Sarah was almost surprised at how easily she had moved away and settled into her own space. Perhaps she was finally growing up, or perhaps it was just the subconscious relief of not living with Toby's insidious replacement.
Sarah worked part-time as a barista in a quaint coffee shop on the corner, not the most glamorous of job titles, but one she was thankful to have. The hours were lenient, and Sarah fitted them around her numerous small acting gigs and auditions. They were nothing serious, of course, but they paid bills.
But then, as it often likes to, fate intervened.
It was neither a sunny nor bright day when she saw him, her brother. It was bitter and overcast, and Sarah's breath hung in the cold air in front of her as she fumbled in her wallet for her bus card. She was heading into the main central shopping district that day, to collect something for one of her co-workers. She spied him just as she was making her way towards the back seat of the bus, out of the corner of a fogged up window. He was there on the frosty sidewalk, wrapped up like a burrito against the chilly weather, messy blonde curls sticking out from underneath a woolen cap. The connection was unmistakable, and as she stared at her brother, his eyes in turn snapped toward her direction. She had begun yelling frantically, no doubt disturbing the other passengers on board the bus, but desperate to stop the driver from taking off. Someone else was with Toby, of whom she couldn't make out at the time. The taller figure had taken Toby's hand and pulled his attention away from her. It must have only taken her all of ten seconds to jump off the bus and run to him, but by the time she had got there he had already vanished.
The stranger was him, she only knew after the fact. The taller figure was that of the enigmatic Goblin King, no doubt deliberately parading Toby around for Sarah to see, knowing full well that she couldn't do anything about it. That night she went home and willed herself not to cry, but to use the pent up guilt of over five years to her advantage. That so-called King had lied to her. He had lied over and over again and she had fallen for every single one of his tricks. Of course she had - she was only a child herself. Thinking back, she had realized he had no intentions of ever letting her, a little mortal girl, win her baby brother back. Why would he?
Sarah supposed that brief glimpse of her brother, her real brother, was the last straw that had broke the camel's back, so to speak. It had awoken something in her that couldn't be ignored, a sudden burst of motivation that drove her towards finally doing something about the entire situation. Sarah made it her sole pursuit to read up on folklore and what she supposed the King of the Goblins actually was. She soon begun to comprehend that his species primarily consisted of a bunch of tricky liars and thieves and surmised that the only way to ever see Toby again would be to confront the King one last time, and initiate some form of parlay.
Sarah stood from her seated position on the cold wooden floor of her kitchen, depositing the empty ice cream tub in the small sink. Her stomach was alight with the wings of a thousand angry butterflies, her nervousness swiftly beginning to set in. Was she really going to do it tonight? To say those horrible words again and summon Toby's kidnapper? What if it didn't work? What if nothing happened?
What-ifs often clouded Sarah's mind, but she used the driving force the King had unknowingly encouraged in her to refocus. She couldn't be held back by what-ifs and buts - she had to see her brother again, or at the very least try.