Hi everyone, thanks for clicking! I hope you enjoy this, if you do I will turn it into a story and not a oneshot.

Also, given the upsetting nature of this story I would like to advise viewer discretion. If you are quite sensitive to the issues of child death, mental health issues or alcoholism, I would strongly suggest giving it a miss, and my heart goes out to you.

If you would like to continue with the sory, then let's get it started

It had been a long, hard day for Sarah. The most difficult day she had ever faced, and had hoped she would never have had to. Sarah was not naïve. She knew that life wasn't always easy. Hell, she had been through some nasty experiences in her short 25 years, and slowly learnt to accept that there will always be something waiting in the wings to happen. But she never in her wildest dreams dreamt that life would be so unbelievably cruel as to take her little brother away from this earth. Away from her.

Toby was Sarah's entire world. After she had wished him away and nearly lost him to the clutches of Jareth, she had never underappreciated his existence again. He was a lovely, lively little sprite of a boy. Never had a smile off his face, never had a care in the world. Sarah often, in her mind, rewound the clock back to when Toby was two years old. It was a happy time for her. Toby's little personality had just started to develop and he was always running after her, giving kisses. Their father had just got a well-earned promotion at work, Sarah had got her first job as a waitress, and the relationship between Sarah and Karen had improved vastly. There was a lovely, happy atmosphere in the house.

But, alas, nothing lasts forever. When Toby was 4 years old, and Sarah was nineteen, fate took a very unkind turn. Karen and Robert had died in a very unfortunate car accident that wasn't their fault. Toby was quite young and couldn't fully grasp it at first, but Sarah was absolutely devastated, as one might imagine she would be. Her life was plunged into a topsy-turvy spiral of funeral arrangements, meetings with social workers, and the sudden responsibility of being the sole carer of a child. They had no other family, literally just had each other, and Sarah fought damn hard to make sure Toby was not taken away from her.

To say she found it tough was an understatement. Sarah had to deal with her emotions while instantly becoming a mature adult who could hold down a full-time job while adequately providing a safe and loving home for a child. An extremely difficult feat for an experienced adult, let alone someone who has just become a young adult. Oh yes, it was indeed a cruel challenge, but she had got through it, six years on

Feeling numb and utterly heartbroken at the same time, Sarah sank into the sofa in her apartment living room. She sat there for a few minutes, thoughts whirring through her head, trying to take in the sad events of today. Toby was gone. Today was the final confirmation that her beautiful, innocent, precious little brother would never smile at her again. All she had left of him were memories. A tear slipped down her face as she thought about how sick he had been before passing. He had bravely battled childhood cancer for 15 months before slipping away peacefully in her arms. Doctors were hopeful at first. It had been caught early, they told her. The survival rate was very high. But the disease was just too aggressive for his small body and he succumbed.

Sarah didn't bother wiping the tears away. What was the point? Fresh ones would just replace them. What was the point with anything anymore? She was alone in this world. She had a few friends, granted, but they weren't very close. She had no family, no lover.

Though she had often thought of Jareth over the years. Try as she might to stop these thoughts in their tracks, they always managed to charm their way back into her head. Oh, he had left her little tokens around the house; a white feather on her writing desk, a silver owl necklace, exotic flowers on her kitchen table that Sarah had never seen before. They were absolutely beautiful and smelled a bit like peaches, and so Sarah assumed were from the Underground. They must have been, for they have been in her possession for over two years, but still as luscious and vibrant as the day she received them. She even found a crystal by her bedside table. Sarah wasn't alarmed by these gestures, in fact, she found them comforting. She just wished Jareth would visit her. Sometimes she got angry the he hadn't, especially as she was going through her darkest hour.

The more she contemplated it, the more enraged she became. How could he send her gifts, but never pay her a visit when her whole world was caving in around her? How could someone mess with her head like that?

More tears started to steak down her face as sobs escaped her throat. Sarah reluctantly peeled herself off the sofa and wandered absent-mindedly into her kitchen. She needed a strong drink. Unfortunately, it had become an all-too-often habit, first budding when she found out that Toby had been ill. The sicker he became, the more she drank, the alcohol sadly and slowly developing into her coping mechanism.

Taking a bottle of wine over to her kitchen table, Sarah slunk into a chair, unscrewing the lid and taking a swig from the bottle. She didn't even concern herself with a glass. She started to hum a soft song she used to sing to Toby as a youngster. When she was finished, she took several mouthfuls more of wine and began to sing the words to the song.

'A little child is a blessing,

A little child brings cheer,

The world would be a very sad place,

If little children were not here.

'For little children make the sun shine,

They see the beauty in everything,

You can learn a lot from a little child

If you listen to the song they sing'

All Sarah could do for the next 45 minutes was cry, sing and drink. It was an endless loop. One bottle turned into two. She was aware that she was becoming drunk but she didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. Her parents were dead, Toby was dead, there was nothing left to live for. Jareth clearly didn't care for her as he couldn't see fit to come to her. It seemed he enjoyed playing mind games with her. In her drunken rage she lifted an empty bottle of wine and hurled it to the ground, causing pieces of glass to shatter everywhere. She let out a scream of sadness and frustration, to hell with the world, and to hell with the Goblin King she thought.

Trying, but failing, to stand up and get another drink, Sarah dizzily fell to the ground, cutting her arm on the fragmented glass. She couldn't feel any pain, except the suffocating misery in her heart. The kitchen became a swirly kaleidoscope of images, and she began to feel faint. She felt something warm soaking the sleeve of her top and realised it was blood. Quite a lot of it actually, and it started to seep out of her sleeve onto the floor. More tears started to flow from her eyes as Sarah fought to find the strength to even care that she had accidentally cut herself badly. She was going to die and nobody cared. She couldn't muster up any concern either. Life was nothing but a cruel game, and it was better this way. Perhaps she would be with her parents and beautiful brother again. Lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling, Sarah began to sing again, feeling her life ebb away.

'A little child is a blessing,

A little child brings cheer,'

Darkness started to take over and she knew this was it. She started to close her eyes and the last thing she remembered seeing was the Goblin King towering over her.

Then nothing.

A/N. Thanks for reading, please let me know if you'd like me to continue