Labyrinth: Forever my love
Chapter one: In which Anne makes a wish
1986, a young girl was miserable of her life of 'slavery' due to her wicked stepmother and spoilt baby brother, even her father seemed ignorant of her well being.
So one stormy night, after hearing the cruel words of her stepmother and her baby brother driving her insane, she called upon the Goblins to take him away forever, little did she know that the king of the Goblins had fallen in love with her and had given her certain powers thus her wish being granted.
Regretting her selfish wish, she pleaded to the King to give back her brother, as his heart was soft with desire for her he agreed on the condition that she would solve his Labyrinth within thirteen hours.
So through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, she had fought her way beyond the Goblin city to take back the child he had stolen. He would have never guessed that her will was as strong as his and her kingdom was just as great, he had offered the girl her heart's desire just as long as she would submit to him. But she spoke the words that would free her brother from the grasp of this man.
"You have no power over me."
Her baby brother was returned to her safe and sound and she never saw or heard from the Goblin king again.
Twenty one years later, he waits for a new challenger, new prey to test his Labyrinth of untold mysteries.
Little did anyone know that it would be the most unlikely person to travel through dangers and hardships. Lessons will be learnt, tears will shed and feelings would be realised, this is where our story begins, and ends……….
2007, It was unusually bright weather for England, for weeks it had been damp, dank and dreary. The grass and trees still held its dew but added to the beauty of the day, like fragile jewels of a surreal world, at least that's what Anne Duchess thought of it as.
Anne Duchess, eighteen years old yet the baby of her class, she didn't mind though as she always said "Anyone older then me is considered an old geezer."
She emerged from her Art class in the early afternoon with her friends.
"Thank god that lesson's over. He never knows when to shut up." Groaned Nikki, referring to their tutor.
"Yeah, he just repeats himself over and over when we could be getting on with our work." Her boyfriend James agreed. Anne giggled. Everyone always bad mouthed their tutor, so did she. He was a boring guy after all and from what she heard from online blogs, a bit of a pervert.
"You lot wanna go down to Bowlplex? I'll pay for the first game." Her best friend Kayleigh offered.
"Alright then. You coming as well Anne?" Nikki asked.
"Nah I'm gonna head home."
"Aw come on you hardly ever come with us."
"Maybe next time, got stuff I gotta do."
"Fine, don't socialise with us then." James said jokingly.
She smirked.
"Bye Anne." They all waved to her and headed off down town. Anne sighed as she watched them leave, she felt kind of bad for rejecting their offer but that was her just being typical. She hurried off to find her car, backpack hitting her behind as she walked.
Its not that she didn't like hanging out with her friends, she just preferred the company of herself which was funny enough, most of the time.
Even her father said that she should socialise more since she was getting older and on her way to university, to prove that she wasn't boring and weird, it sounded like a chore the way he said it to her.
Thinking about it made her more depressed, she got into her car and turned on the CD player. She shuffled till she heard a deep husky voice: David Bowie.
She turned on the engine and drove out of the college, she felt her cheeks grow hot as she listened to 'China girl', his voice always seemed to sooth her when she felt down.
Anne was quite shy and self conscious. A big reason why she wasn't too fond of hanging out with her friends, when it came to having a conversation she would try to avoid one at all costs in case she got her words mixed up or say something that was utter nonsense.
She was indeed a strange girl, one moment she would be happy and joking around and the next she would be quite and withdrawn, she was often ridiculed during her childhood because of it, to most people she was a weirdo, even her friends thought so. It didn't bother her much but she often wondered if it was the reason to some of her problems, like not having a boyfriend when most of the girls in her class did.
Imagine, eighteen years old and never once did she have a relationship, knowing this made her more insecure and withdrawn, making her believe she wasn't smart enough or pretty enough.
She hummed as she arrived at the front door of her house, she fiddled with the knob to find it locked. She sighed and rummaged through her backpack to find her keys, well more like 'a key and a bundle of key rings', still just a child at heart.
She set down her backpack and looked around the hallway, she remembered that her dad was going to visit his girlfriend after work and wouldn't be back till tomorrow evening, she had the whole house to her self.
"Whoopty frickin' doo." She mumbled and slumped upstairs to her bedroom and switched on her computer, she loved going onto online chat rooms, a place where she wasn't ridiculed and felt she could be herself. She checked her messages, a few RPG messages and Hellos but nothing spectacular, she seemed to find her inspiration for drawing through Role playing. Already she had thought of hundreds of characters from three eyed cats to Perverted Spanish Fire lords. She smiled and picked up her folder of drawings. She didn't dare to show theses to anyone; theses were personal to her, part of who she was. Gorgeous Water princesses, psychotic pirates with feminine issues, grumpy rabbit demons, purple cats, jealous Bishonens, talking animals with scarves, rag dolls with hearts. She was indeed a strange girl with a stranger imagination.
She put down her folder and switched off her computer, wondering what else she could do, her eyes skimmed down on her stack of anime and manga, another weird attribute according to some people but appreciated because of how well she drew, she remembered last Christmas when she was merely doodling and a friend snuck a peek and begged for a picture, next thing she knew all of her friends were asking for their own which she was more then happy to do, after all it saved her money on presents.
Her eyes fell upon 'Labyrinth', one of her most favourite movies. She picked it up and walked down stairs, while she set it up on the DVD player she poured herself a glass of water, she was constantly obsessing over her weight so she avoided sugar when she could, she walked back into the living room, sat down and pressed play.
She had watched Labyrinth countless times but never got tired of it, she felt she could relate to the surreal underground world. Things that were never what they seemed, she was never what she seemed or so she liked to think. But of course there was another reason why she loved Labyrinth so much: Jareth.
Even when she first saw the film as a child she instantly felt attraction towards the man, his strange attire and his mismatched eyes, everything about him appealed to her.
Of course he was just a fictional character played by David Bowie, whom she admired enough to cover every inch of her bedroom walls with poster of him and listen to his magnificent songs, even if most of them didn't make sense to her, like scared cows to spun Valentine evenings. She loved them all.
She made it clear to herself that Jareth and his actor were both very different people, with Bowie somewhere in the world surrounded by foreign admirers while 'Jareth' was a surreal man in an even more surreal world, sometimes she felt envious that there could be such a magical place while she was stuck in a place that was some what a drag to her, and of Sarah for being lucky enough to have a man who was willing to turn his world upside down for her.
She was indeed envious for Anne felt that she loved Jareth despite being fictional, but to say that she was 'in love' in him would be ludicrous. After all, she was just another fan girl.
The movie ended so she got up to turn off the television. She looked at the clock, 6:15. It was still pretty early in the evening, she wasn't hungry so she went upstairs to her room.
She sighed and looked around then she went over to her vanity chest and lifted the lid, revealing its treasures of silver and plastic jewellery. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Dark brown eyes, long black eye lashes, short auburn hair featured on a roundish face, she turned her head from side to side and sighed. She closed her vanity and looked at her figure in the larger mirror.
She was an average built girl with smallish breasts, she wasn't fat nor was she skinny, just enough 'Cushion for pushin' as she would like to say to herself to feel better.
She wore a white short sleeved shirt, a brown waist coat, blue jeans and comfy brown boots.
No matter how she looked at herself, she just didn't find herself attractive, she believed no one did and that she was a lonely weirdo. She sat down on her bed and picked up her favourite toy monkey.
It just didn't seem fair to her, she felt plain and boring and felt like crying. Sometimes she wished she would disappear but she knew that would never happen, or so she thought.
"I just..." She said to herself. She did this plenty of times and expected nothing different. She buried her face in her toy monkey.
"I wish the Goblins would take me away, right now."
What she didn't know that from the shadows she was being watched, shadows that formed into blonde spiky hair, tall slim built and mismatched eyes….
"Hello Anne."
Startled, she immediately looked up. There stood that man, the man she dreamed endlessly of, king of the Underground. Jareth.
She screamed.