All right I'm just going to try this dribble out and see where it takes me.
Disclaimer: Labyrinth belongs to Jim Henson; I'm just an appreciative soul that loved the story and wanted it to go on.
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Chapter 1: The Deal
His back arched as she rived under him. A line of sweat formed on his brow. Her brown hair seemed to glitter in the moonlight. His breath sharpened. He was so close to feeling her warmth, so close to achieving the very thing he had spent endless nights dreaming of, so close to having Sarah Williams.
"We have to stop."
Brian shuddered, disappointment swelling in him as he rolled off his girlfriend. 'He should have expected this,' he thought darkly, 'but they had been so very close this time.'
"I'm sorry," Sarah's timid voice said bringing Brian out of his dark muttering. She was already fixing her shirt, and Brain look regretfully as one of Sarah's breast disappeared into the folds of the fabric.
"Its fine," Brian said bitterly turning to fasten his belt buckle. "Not as if this hasn't happened before." From behind him he could feel Sarah stop moving, and felt instant remorse for being so cruel to her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"Yes you did." She turned to face him, an expression of guilt in her eyes, causing Brian to silently curse himself for making her feel bad. "And you right, I do keep doing this."
"No, I shouldn't try to push you. That was wrong."
"It's okay." Sarah put an arm around his shoulders and gave a comforting squeeze. Brain returned the squeeze half-heartedly. He could never stay angry at her but Brain didn't feel like he could bear to look over at her just yet.
"There is something else bothering you, isn't there?"
That was another thing about Sarah she always knew when something was bothering him. He was an open book to her, while she remained very much a mystery to him. "It's nothing really," Sarah gave him a look that said plainly she wasn't buying it, "It's just something stupid."
"Tell me anyways."
Brian took a deep breath; he really hadn't wanted to say anything. "There isn't anyone else is there?"
Sarah looked appropriately shocked, "Don't you trust me. I would never be running around with other guys behind your back."
"I know." And Brain did know; Sarah always did everything for other people. She would never do anything to hurt someone intentionally, and Brian couldn't help feeling that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if she could. "I trust you. But there isn't anyone else that you are interested in is there."
"Brian, we've dated for a little over two years now, I'm not just going to up and find someone new." Sarah's hands rubbed up and down his back in a smoothing rhythm, and Brian felt himself giving into her touch.
He really didn't want to screw this up anymore than he already had, but he had to tell Sarah the truth. "I just feel like someone is just playing with me by letting me be with you, as if I'm only temporary, as if you're already someone else's girl." He let a finger comb through a portion of Sarah's hair that had draped over his shoulders.
"This is ridiculous. There is no one else. I love you," Sarah said but she was beginning to sound uneasy.
"I love you too," Brian said looking intensely up into Sarah's eyes. "You better be getting home. Karen will have a fit."
"Good old Karen," Sarah laughed, "Your coming to my play tomorrow right."
"Have I ever missed one of your shows?"
Sarah smiled at him, her green eyes twinkling in the starry night. "You're so good to me," she said then turned and disappeared in the night.
Brian sat around for a moment longer then pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Sarah hated it when he smoked, but even she wouldn't begrudge him the occasional cigarette. He thought back to the last thing Sarah said to him before she had left. 'You're so good to me.' It was the kind of thing Sarah had said to him a lot, in one form or the other. At the beginning of their relationship and well into the first year he had enjoyed these statements. They were the kind of thing that made him feel like a good boyfriend, something to puff his chest out about. Now however, he loathed hearing her say them. They made him feel as if Sarah stayed with him out of gratitude, or sense of loyalty. He wanted far more than Sarah's gratitude.
Brian had not been lying when he said he loved Sarah, and he was fairly sure Sarah had not been lying either. But it was different; Sarah loved him like she would love a friendly dog or hungry cat. No matter how hard Sarah might try to fool herself she didn't care about him like he did her, and that was the reason that Sarah Williams had not given herself to him that night.
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Sarah smiled as she got dressed for the role of Cecily in the play "The Importance of Being Earnest." She had always been a fan of Oscar Wilde's play and was enjoying the ironic humor that she was playing the role of a girl who lived very much in her own imaginings, not unlike the way she use to be. A sharp laugh interrupted her from her musing as Judith Baker followed by her usual posse entered the dressing room.
Judith was already fully dressed and ready for her role as Gwendolen in the play. Sarah assumed that Judith had been most likely dressed in full costume for a couple of hours. It was the kind of thing Judith would do, she liked to make sure everyone knew what part she was playing and how big of a role she got before the play began. Sarah preferred to make her entrance on stage. Judith gave Sarah an apathetic look before settling herself in a chair near the mirror. The five girls surrounding her were left to their own devices of procuring seats, in the end only one was left standing.
A tall girl seated on a stool to Judith's right began to brush Judith's hair. "You look so pretty Judy," she said.
"I know," Judith replied smiling at her own reflection. "I'm going to see if some of the guys want to come out afterward to a club or something. We really should celebrate my success. Who knows maybe we can even get some guy to dance with Abigail."
"I can't go," the girl standing said. The girl was looking down trying desperately to avoid Judith's gaze.
"What's that Abby, don't you want to celebrate my success." Judith had fixed the girl with an irritated stare that gave her china doll face a sinister look.
"Of course Judy, you know I do. But my sister is still teething and my mom is making me come home to watch her."
Judith gawked at her, "But you're seventeen, you can't spend all your time watching a baby." The rest of the girls nodded in agreement.
"I know but I don't have a choice. Honestly my parents are totally unreasonable."
"That's really too bad," Judith said turning back to her reflection, "Oh well I guess the rest of us will just have fun without you." Abigail looked as if she wanted to say something but refrained from doing so.
Sarah rolled her eyes from across the room. She didn't understand how Judith could treat her friends like she did, nor did she understand why her friends let her. Not a single one of them saw that Judith had no real power over them, and thus they were all trapped in her spell.
Luckily enough that besides competing for parts in plays, Judith and Sarah had little to do with each other. Sarah expected that Judith left her alone mainly due to Brian's influences not out of any over sight. Girls Judith didn't like simply did not do well in the social hierarchy.
Sarah turned to leave the room, when a flash of white from outside a window caught her eye. An owl sat motionless on a tree branch peering darkly into the room. The breeze in the room seemed in an instant to pick up. Something was coming. Ignoring the alarm on the other girls faces Sarah made a quick dash to the pay phone down the hall. She hurriedly dialed home and waited for the tediously long rings on the other side. When her stepmother Karen answered relief spread through her. She talked briefly to Karen but found that she paid more attention to the sound of her brother Toby eating dinner in the background; taking comfort in each squeal he gave.
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Abigail slammed the front door, as she walked briskly into the kitchen. Her mother stood near the table dangling a pair of plastic keys in front of her little sister Stephanie. She glanced up sharply as Abigail walked in. "Abby, I've told you a hundred times not to slam the door."
Abigail shrugged in response, and bustled around the kitchen looking for soda. When she had found her brand of choice she sat down at the table and flipped on the TV.
Her mother frowned. "Abby I need you to feed Stephanie, I've got to run to work for a little while," she said.
Abigail gapped at her mother in utter astonishment. "But I just got home," She finally stammered.
"I don't have time to argue Abby; I should have already been to work an hour ago." With a last stern look at her daughter, she headed out the door slamming it behind her. Abigail raced after her yanking the closed door open and screamed at her mother about the unfairness of it all.
Defeated she walked back into the room where Stephanie sat chewing on her plastic keys. "You're ruining my life," Abigail whispered lowing herself down to the babies height. Stephanie responded by hurling the slobbery keys at her.
"Eww!" Abby rushed to the sink scrubbing the germs, she was sure her sister had given her, with great urgency. "You are such a brat," Abby said over her shoulder, then added as an after thought, "there are better things I could be doing right now."
As Abby began to feed her sister she thought back to what Judith had said earlier that night. "You can't spend all your time watching a baby." As if Abigail wanted to watch the baby. To make matters worse she knew that at school tomorrow Judith would make sure to talk all about how much fun they had just to rub it in. She really hated her life, she really hated how unfair everyone was being, she really hated… She glared up as Stephanie gave a little burp. It wasn't fair.
The phone rang; Abigail lifted Stephanie out of her eating chair and went into her room to answer the phone. It was Judith; of course it was Abigail thought bitterly. She let Stephanie slide to the floor.
"Hello Judith," Abby said with a sinking feeling in her chest.
"What was that," Judith said laughing. There were sounds of voices on the other end of the phone.
"I said hello."
"Oh that great," Judith said clearly not paying attention, as if Abigail had called her not the other way around. "So are you coming out?"
"I can't," Abby sank down on her bed. Hadn't she just told Judith this?
"Mark, stop it," Judith said giving another shill shriek of laughter. Abigail froze; she had had a crush on Mark for three months now. "That's too bad. Well bye then," and without another word hung up the phone.
Abby wanted to scream. Judith had called her knowing full well that Abby was stuck at home, that she like Mark, that she wished she was any where else but home. A noise of paper ripping and something gurgling filled the air. Stephanie sat on the ground a piece of paper torn beneath one of her knees, and in her hands…
"Stephanie, get that thing out of your mouth right now." Abigail yanked the lipstick out of her sister's hands. Stephanie began to wail as Abby looked it over. There were teeth marks on the case, and the lipstick itself was broken in two, half sat munched in the case and the other half laid on her white carpeted floor. "I hate you," Abby screamed over her sister's tears.
The red lipstick around Stephanie's lips looked almost like blood; Abigail thought as she stomped over to the trash can and threw the remains of the lipstick into it. Stephanie continued to scream reaching our toward the lipstick case in Abby's hands. "Oh, I wish you would just go away, I wish…, I wish…," then it came to her. The thing her mother use to say to her when she was a child, how if you were bad the goblins would come and take you away. "I wish the goblins would take you away," Stephanie's crying grew louder, "right now."
The lights flickered, Abby looked up in surprise. Stephanie had stopped crying, in fact as Abby looked down, Stephanie had stopped being in the room altogether. "Stephanie where are you." The lights flickered again. "Come on Stephanie, I've got to wash the lipstick off you." Something giggled.
"Stephanie." Abby was panicking now. She didn't know what had agitated her so much, but the combination of the flickering lights and Stephanie's absents frightened her. Something banged against her window, and she jumped. "It's just a tree," she whispered stepping towards the window. Something banged against it again, and the shutters flung open to reveal a dark figure standing in her room. Abigail screamed. She wanted to run for the door, would have too, except Stephanie…
The figure stepped slowly into the light, and words lost there meaning. Pale gold hair hung in layers from his head. Arched eyebrows and high cheekbones shone out from a sharply handsome face. A slow cruel smile spread across his features.
"Who are you," Abby stuttered her hand searching for the door knob.
"Who do you think I am?"
He seemed to circle around her until she found herself in the middle of the room away from the security of the door. "I don't know," she said.
"Not very quick this one is she," he said snidely. The room filled with laughter, and it occurred to her that they were not alone in the room. "Who did you call just a few seconds ago," he was breathing in her ear.
"You're not. You can't be. You're not a goblin."
He laughed again harshly. His black cloak seemed to surround her. "Try their king."
"But that's, that's impossible!"
"Hardly, you called I answered."
"I…," She was speechless, shock enclosed her, and with it the realization of her words came flooding back to her. "Stephanie! Where is Stephanie?"
"Oh remembered her have you," he said scathingly.
"Oh give her back," Abby wailed, "My mom will kill me."
"Is that all your worried about yourself?"
"Please." Abigail fell to her knees crying every bit as hard as Stephanie had when she'd taken the lipstick from her.
"Do you really want her?" Abby nodded through her tears. He waved an arm and a maze of immense proportions appeared. "Solve the Labyrinth, win the baby."
"But I'll never make it through there." Abby said gapping at the world she had just entered.
The Goblin King grinned leaning in close to her so he could whisper in her ear. "No, I don't expect you will." Abby let out a choked sob, and his grin widened. "There are more dangers in there little girl then you could ever dream. It will eat you alive and spit out your fleshless bones." The girl shook.
"I don't believe this. Oh if only I could have stayed to watch Judith's play. She was so determined to show Sarah up this time; if I had only stayed I wouldn't be in this mess."
The Goblin King's eyes narrowed, "what did you say?"
Abigail looked up confused, the figure before her did not appear to be the sort interested in her life. "I just said that if I had stayed at Judith's play none of this would have happened."
Fingers dug mercilessly into her shoulders, "I don't give a damn about Judith," his voice sounded stressed, "what did you say about a Sarah?"
"Sarah," Abby wrinkled her nose in confusion, "Sarah Williams, she was in the play with Judith, we go to the same school." His eyes darkened and lip curled at one corner.
"Perhaps," he said after a subtle paused, "there is another way, to get your sister back, besides running the Labyrinth." He waved his hand and the Labyrinth disappeared leaving both of them standing back in her room. "You help me to get Sarah, and your sister is yours."
"What?" Abigail said, "You want Sarah?"
"In a manner of speaking, do we have a deal?" He looked cold. 'What am I doing,' Abby thought as she extended a shaky hand. He stared at it a few moments looking almost amused before clasping her hand in his gloved one.
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