*Curtain rises*

Hi everyone, this is my first Labyrinth piece and I thought I should open this up. This is more of a Prologue than a chapter, please review I can only improve with criticism and thus criticism of all kinds are welcome. Now on with the show!

Chapter 1: Introducitons

I have known Sarah for, well, forever. At least it feels that way. When I first met her I thought I was looking into a mirror except my eyes were more of a light brown and her hair was a few shades darker than mine and a few personality differences. Ever since we first met in English we have been inseparable. This would have been when we were about fourteen or so.

My parents had passed away when I was three. I had been left to the care of my grandparents who lived just outside of Los Angeles. Sarah and her family had acted like a real family to me. You know, like the perfect families you see on the television and I even looked the part. Sarah and I would go to the park, read fairy tales, get dressed up into princess-like dresses and just spend hours playing and having fun. We would constantly lose track of time, sometimes when Sarah and I walked back to her house my Grandmother would be there, holding a cup of coffee and talking to Karen, Sarah's stepmother.

Karen was always nice to me and I think she tried to understand my predicament. The closest thing I had to parents was my Grandparents, and despite their love and affection it just wasn't the same. Karen would treat me like a daughter so I would be praised and punished just the same as Sarah. Sarah would complain about her and her stereotypical evil stepmother attributes and I could also relate to her on that. Karen tried her hardest to act as a mother to Sarah, sometimes she tried too hard. This annoyed Sarah so much at times that she would come over to my place to seek refuge "from that evil, wicked stepmother that tries to act like my mom". It was more of a way for her to vent and calm down than seeking refuge from Karen.

When we turned fifteen (our birthdays were about a month apart from each other) we started High School. It was so much fun at first, the crazy hairstyles, odd clothing and the air filled with everyone trying to find their place in the jungle known as the social classes. I wasn't really bothered by it because Sarah and I were good friends and nothing was going to stop that any time soon. Sarah turned more towards her love for writing stories and I worked my magic as best as I could on the stage. I was an actress and my love of the stage had been a great part of me for as long as I can remember.

Now, my grandparents we totally okay with any random hair colors I came home wearing just so long as it looked normal by the time we had an event or something called for a more neutral look than my brown hair with blood red or pink, or purple streaks. Just so long as it wasn't permanent or too outrageous they were fine (so like, no piercings, decent clothes etc). In my opinion I preferred my jeans and random printed tees to what the other girls were wearing at school like stilettos, miniskirts and tank tops cut too low to be deemed decent in any part of the world.

When I think back to when I was sixteen, my mind can't help but wander back to that one night which seemed to change a lot of things. Sarah didn't want to babysit her younger brother, Toby while Karen and her father went out on a date. When her parents had left she had called me up to see whether I would join her as I didn't get to go out to the park with her earlier. I could go, I had a science paper to write, lines to memorize and so much math and history homework that would cause one's head to explode. It was basically just homework that had been keeping me away, and that night unlike any other I couldn't talk my way out of doing it because my grandparents knew I had heaps to do. I was a good girl at school (well, besides my choice in hair colors which gave me a whole rocker look), I did my homework, studied and I was in as many plays as my schedule could allow.

I didn't hear anything again from her for the rest of the night after I told her that I couldn't come over to help her with Toby. I didn't think anything of it at the time and got back to my homework that seemed to be piling up even higher after I finished one assignment after the next. It wasn't until I saw her the next day when we met up down at the park like we usually did on a Saturday that I noticed a change. Sarah seemed to be disconnected from the games we played and she didn't seem to be as imaginative as she had been the day before at school. It was like the one true friend I had for the longest time, changed overnight from a teen with a wild imagination to something more of an adult.

Over time we stopped going down to the park to play fairy tales but to talk about movies stories and people from school. We still read over the books and plays we had recited while playing around in our princess costumes but not as often as we had only month before.

It was at my seventeenth birthday I had realized how much she had changed. When we were fourteen and playing in the park one day I spotted a little red leather bound book with The Labyrinth written in gold text across the front. Sarah and I had read it over like another one of our fairytales and when it came time to decide who would keep it, I let her have it because it seemed as if she had enjoyed reading the book a great deal and I could always borrow it from her if I wanted. When the time came to open up presents I opted for Sarah's first. I unwrapped the light brown paper and the bubble wrap to find that little, red leather bound book. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what had happened. She loved that book to pieces and even had most of it memorized to heart. There was wear marks on her favorite pages, something wasn't right for her to give this to me.

I spent days observing her behavior to understand what had caused such a change in her. The only difference I had noticed was the more mature way she looked at things around her and the less time she spent with her head in fantasy books. One day she asked me to read over one of her works for something she was hoping to publish, she knows when it comes to this sort of stuff I give an honest opinion (well, as honest as I can be sometimes but she is an awesome writer) that's when I began to understand. It was about a character that is identical to her who wishes away her brother and has to run the labyrinth in thirteen hours to prevent him from being turned into a goblin and so they can all go home. The experiences this character had to deal with can explain Sarah's personality change and the story seems so real.

After reading over the work and editing and critiquing it as much as I felt necessary I gave it back to her the next day when we were at the park. By the time we had to be going back to our own places I couldn't just sit there and watch my friend act so differently and I confronted her, no idea what to say at all.

"Sarah, are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course I am. What did u think of the story?" She replied.

"It's good. Very good actually, and it seems so real. Where did you get the idea to write such a story? It's not like others that you have written."

I couldn't help it, I had to bring up the fact the main character in the story was based off her and it could have something to do with how she has been acting of late, especially since my birthday. From her facial expression though, I was right. If there was one thing I knew about Sarah, it was when I said something she knew was true and also when she wanted to be left alone. Right now, it was both.

"Just a silly dream I had. Do you mind if we talk about this later? I have some work to do for Mr. Pev's class." Sarah said walking away in the direction of her house. I wasn't going to try and get any more information out of her today.

We made our way back to her house and my Grandmother was waiting there with her cup of coffee, as usual to take me home.

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