Welp. Look who's back.
I have no idea how long I'll be back to writing, but this little plot bunny would not leave me a lone at all. So I decided to write it.
FAIR warning ahead: There's some pretty sensitive material mentioned in this one shot, which is the reason for it's rather high rating.
All standard disclaimers apply: I do not own Labyrinth or any of the characters therein.
It was painful to watch. For Robert especially, he had a hard time watching his daughter slip into madness. Irene silently watched, unsure of how to best address something she couldn't very well control, while Toby couldn't understand his sister's fears and random pains. It was a year after Sarah's sudden change. At first, she had been a dutiful older sister, much more mature and willing to talk things through than fly into a huff. But six months after her radical personality change, Sarah began to slip.
At first it was just mumblings. Then it was full blown panic attacks whenever she saw birds or feathers. After that, it was a slow decline. She could barely leave the house. She lost at least twenty-five pounds and often complained of pains in her arms and back. There were perpetual dark circles under her eyes, and she rarely ate. Sarah Williams was unwell, and the sickness was in her mind.
They tried sending her to see a therapist. They prayed that talking to someone might help her work through whatever was haunting her. That hope was quickly dashed when she clawed the man's face. He'd been hospitalized for weeks, and they had struggled with the courts over him trying to press charges. Ultimately, however, the charges were dropped due to Sarah's unbalanced state. He had three long stitches in his face when they finally resolved it all.
In the wake of their disappointment, they sent her to see a Psychiatrist, and she was put on a cocktail of medications. She was sluggish, quiet, and much more subdued on the meds. As time passed, she languished more and more, becoming so thin that she had to be hospitalized. It was a few weeks before she was let back home, in a slightly healthier state.
She seemed to stabilize finally on the medications, and life seemed to balance out for everyone. Sarah graduated from high school and started community college, her grades not high enough to get into a university right away.
Sarah shivered and looked over her shoulder at the lamp posts behind her. She scanned the trees as well, feeling eyes on her back. She shook the feeling, and kept on walking. It was a chilly autumn day, leaves and wind blowing everywhere. Sarah's long dark hair whirled into her vision, and she pushed it back behind her ears. With a sniff from the cold, she stepped into her Literature class room.
Her teacher, Mr. Salvig glanced over at her from his podium, then returned his eyes to his lecture notes. There were a few other students already in their seats, so she went ahead and took her seat in the second row.
She picked at her nails for a moment, then reached into her bag and pulled out a thick book, a collection of poetry by Anne Sexton. She thumbed to the next poem that she had not read, and silently read to herself while she waited for the class to begin.
Mr. Salvig gave a polite cough to signal the start of class, and Sarah put her book away, looking expectantly at the 56 year old man.
"We are going to be starting an analysis on the epic poem "Beowulf. I hope you have all already started reading."
Class dragged on for Sarah, and when it was time to leave, she trudged out of the class room slowly, not making eye contact with anyone else in the room. That had been her last class of the day, and now she was going to start walking home. Luckily, her house was only a few blocks from the college, and Sarah both dreaded and enjoyed the time walking.
It was when she passed Ms. Erie's Antique Shop that Sarah had her first blown panic attack in years. There was a barn owl sitting on the sign. It stared at her with an accusatory gaze, and Sarah couldn't handle the sight. She tried to calm her breathing but the owl kept staring and she tried to gulp in breaths and calm down before she started crying but the owl just blinked and cocked it's head. "It was just a dream, Sarah." she sobbed quietly to herself, staring at the bird. Finally, unable to take it anymore, she searched for a rock nearby, and threw a rock at the bird. With a loud fluttering of wings, it was gone. She allowed herself to sink to the pavement against the Antique Shop's brick wall, sobbing quietly. No one stopped to ask if she was okay, and Ms. Erie (an elderly woman in her 70's) watched Sarah for a moment before turning her back.
It would be another twenty minutes before Sarah could get herself back to her feet, stumbling with the effort. She gulped breaths in, wiping furiously at the tear tracts on her face. She had lost this battle. Sarah made the rest of the trek home, berating herself for her weakness.
When she came inside, no one said anything to her. Robert and Irene weren't stupid. It took her fourty-five minutes usually to get home. It had taken her nearly an hour and a half today. They knew she'd had a panic attack. They watched her shed her jacket and scarf and take her bag upstairs to her room. Toby made a gurgling noise as he played with Lancelot, and it was the only sound in the house save the ticking of the hall clock.
Sarah closed her room door with a heaved sigh, slinking onto her bed. She rubbed her eyes and then stood back up, changing into pajamas. She curled back into blankets, pulling out her journal from under her bed. She turned the pages quickly, ignoring sketches of feathers and mismatched eyes and creatures that could only be called Goblins. She got to the first blank page, and simply wrote in,
It happened again.
She closed it again and put the journal away, turning to stare at her ceiling. It was moments before she drifted into a fitful sleep. She didn't notice the set of eyes glowing from under her desk, or from her closet. She was too tired to notice.
Sarah twisted and turned through the narrow paths, high walls on either side of her. She stared at the eyeballed moss, before hurrying along. She knew she was almost late, and glanced down to make sure that she was presentable. A green dress with lace and a tight bodice. It would do, she supposed. Sarah could hear the fluttering of bird wings. She swallowed tightly as she made another turn, and found herself in a courtyard with a fountain. Standing in front of the fountain was a man with wild blonde hair, dressed in black breeches, boots, and a white shirt, black gloved hands touching the marble.. She looked at the fountain a little closer. A man and woman, entangled in an embrace, cloth strategically covering the most important parts. The man turned to look at her, and Sarah jerked to a sitting position on her bed.
She trembled and reached for her water and meds, quickly measuring out the correct dosage before she swallowed them down. Sarah coughed slightly, and climbed out of bed and headed downstairs where she could smell dinner cooking.
It was a silent affair as they all sat at the dinner table, Irene helping Toby eat his dinner. Robert cleared his throat. "How was school, Sarah?"
"Fine. We're reading Beowulf."
And that was the end of the conversation. Sarah went back to her room after that, reading a couple pages of Beowulf and working on her assignment for Humanities. It was late before she climbed back into bed, pretending she wasn't hearing a giggling under her bed.
Sarah could barely sleep, trying to convince herself she hadn't just heard a giggle and the sound of small feet moving across carpet. She trembled as she stared at the wall in front of her, begging the sounds to go away silently.
There was the crash of thunder suddenly, and Sarah sat up quickly, her eyes wide with fright. She whirled her head around to look about the room, screaming when she spotted the small brown and big eyed creatures staring up at her from her floor. The smiled and laughed as she scrambled off the bed and out of her room to the bathroom, sobbing hysterically, her breathing erratic. She clutched her head and sunk to the floor, her hands clawing at her own hair.
No one came to her aid. Not Robert, not Irene, no one. The storm raged outside of their house, and Sarah begged for it to all end. She stared up into the mirror, screaming again when she spotted another set of eyes staring at her from inside the mirror.
She whirled towards the door, then stopped, frozen. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. There stood the man. The imposing, blonde and wild haired man, with his sharp canine smile and striking features. He was in black armor, his gleaming pendant resting starkly against the pale skin of his chest.
"Hello Sarah." He grinned darkly, his eyes roving over her prone position on the floor. Sarah sobbed again, shaking her head in the negative over and over. "You tried so hard to get rid of me. I'm afraid it didn't work, Sarah mine. You see, you can never escape the Goblin King."
He advanced on her, like a predator stalking his pray, a crystal conjured into his hands, accompanied by the acrid smell of magic. He showed it to her, twisting his wrist just so as it showed her the Labyrinth nearly in ruins. "Look what you have done to it, Sarah. You have denied it's existence for too long. You have defied me for far too long." He crushed the crystal in his gloved hand, then reached down, pulling her up by her arms. "You will deny me no longer."
He kissed her. It wasn't a gentle, loving kiss. It was molten fire coursing down her throat, his lips burning with their cold. Sarah sobbed into his mouth as the medications she had taken for a long 5 years were wiped away. All the sounds that she had chalked up to auditory hallucinations became real - starkly real - as her safety net was destroyed by the touch of his lips alone.
"You will come with me, Sarah. You have no life here. Would you like to see the future set before your feet?" he asked, his voice taking on a cruel snark. She looked up at him, her and face blotched with red. She nodded silently, unwilling to fight him now.
"Here is what your future holds, Sarah." He pulled another crystal from thin air, and thrust it into her line of vision. Suicide attempt, rape, abusive boyfriends, miscarriage. The lot of it. It all ended with a 47 year old Sarah swallowing all over her sleeping pills that were meant for a six month period. She sobbed as she stared at the harsh images, then looked up at him.
"What would you have me do?" She finally spoke, her voice cracked and thick with emotion and fear.
He grinned again. "You are mine. The Goblin King and the Labyrinth demand your presence." He grasped her tighter, his kiss bruising as the two of them winked out of existence.