Labyrinth
Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Sarah. She was a special girl. One year ago, to the day, she had wished her young stepbrother Toby to the Goblin Kingdom. Realizing her mistake, she had raced against time to solve the Labyrinth and defeat the great Jareth, king of the Goblins in order to save Toby. And she did.
Sarah brought herself out of her memories. She had been sitting at her vanity, staring into the mirror, lost in her thoughts. She uttered a sigh, stretching her arms above her head to relax her stiff muscles and checking the time. She had been zoned out for an hour.
Rising from her seat, Sarah cast a glance around her room. It was frilly and feminine, filled with books and figurines out of the faery tales she loved so much.
Things had changed a heap in the past year. She wasn't the same girl that had thought everything was so very unfair. What was it Jareth had said?
"You say that so often. I must wonder what your basis for comparison is."
She had been nothing but a spoiled, petulant child then.
She was still very much a child, of course. At sixteen, she had no illusions that she was an adult and ready to make it on her own. Nor did she want to. But she had learned to take things as they came and not complain about things that couldn't be changed.
"Sarah, are you home? Your father and I are going out tonight and we need you to watch Toby." Came the screeching voice of Karen, Sarah's stepmother. She still couldn't stand the woman. She just kept that fact to herself now.
It really wasn't up to her to like Karen. It was up to her father. It was his wife after all. And for some reason, he was utterly admiring of the woman. Sarah had decided it wasn't fair to make him feel as if he had to choose between his wife and his daughter.
"No problem." She shouted down the stairs. Sarah started walking down the stairs when she finally realized the happenstance. A year ago, Karen had asked her to do this exact same thing. It had turned into the most memorable night of her life. "Karen, what's the date?" Perhaps she was wrong. She might be mistaken. Although she truly knew she wasn't. She would never forget anything about that night. Not the tiniest detail. Every moment was imprinted on her brain, as fresh as if it had been a day and not a year. She could remember every sight, sound and smell she had encountered in the Labyrinth. She wrinkled her nose at the memories of a certain scent in particular. She had thought Hoggle was exaggerating when he had gone to so extreme a degree of fuss about Jareth's threats to put him in the Bog of Eternal Stench, but after smelling it herself, she could completely understand his terror. "It's October 29th, isn't it? Am I right?" She asked, sounding almost panicked. She had a bad feeling about this. She had learned that there were no such thing as coincidences. This was no exception. As Karen nodded and looked at her expectantly, she wondered what Jareth had in store for her this time . . .