Haley's Labyrinth

Author's note: Hello readers! This is my second fan fiction, though I am not finished with my other one yet. This fan fiction just kind of made itself. It's an idea I've had since I first watched the movie, and now I know about this site, I wanted to actually write it down and see what you peoples think! Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or Jareth… sadly.

Chapter 1: The Wish

I sighed as I set down the book that I had just finished reading for the umpteenth time. I looked around my room and sighed again. I was so bored. There was nothing to do in my room except to read books I had already read a hundred times. I was so sick of my life. I was a 15 year old girl named Haley, and I had an abusive father and an oblivious mother. My life at school was no better. At all the schools I had gone to, I was never accepted, always the odd one out, the weirdo. I didn't think like my peers, didn't act like them, and hated nearly every one of them for their self-centered attitudes. I was always teased and called queer, crazy, weird, and much more. I hated my life.

That's why I read books; it was my way of escaping reality. I know it is better to face your problems head-on than hiding from them, but I just didn't know how to deal with my problems. I sighed again, and returned the book, Warriors: Omen of the Stars: Fading Echoes, onto my bookshelf, and plucked a random book from the shelf and brought it to my bed. As I sat down on my bed again, I looked at the book I had picked out, and saw it was the third book of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, Soul Eater, and I opened it and started reading until, five minutes later, I frowned impatiently, and threw the book back at the shelf, where it fell to the ground.

I looked over at my clock. It was only 6:30, and I didn't want to go to sleep so early, I would wake up earlier. Then I reflected further. I would wake up early regardless, and I may as well take the chance for more sleep while I could, and so I dressed into my pajamas and tried to fall asleep. As always, sleep did not come easily, but eventually I drifted off.

I woke up the next morning quite suddenly, having been thrown against the wall by my dad. I looked up at my dad's enraged face. His eyes were tinged with red and a little bit of brown encircling his blue irises, evidence that he had had another sleepless night filled with the booze he was so fond of. I scrambled to my feet before he could hit me again, and he shouted,

"No sleeping when there is work to be done! Not on my watch!" I nodded, keeping my face down, hiding the tears that welled up in my eyes. They weren't tears of shock or anger, I was used to the way my dad treated me, they were tears of pain. This was one of the most painful ways of waking up. It didn't happen often, usually he just shouted at me until I woke up, but when he drank too much, my dad was worse than ever. He stormed out of my room so I could change into work clothes, a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. The minute I came out of my room and plodded down the stairs, he threw my ragged shoes at my face, and drug me out the back door the second I had shoved them on. He threw me to the ground and shoved gloves and a plastic bag in my arms.

"Pull the weeds and don't come in the house for anything until they are all gone!" he raged, and the minute I nodded, he went into the house and locked the door after him, while I looked around me in hopelessness. The weeds hadn't been pulled in forever, and they were everywhere. It would take me hours, I wouldn't get breakfast, and if I wasn't done before lunch, I would miss that as well. So I sighed and set to work.

The sun was high in the sky before anyone checked on me. I was startled to hear the door opening, and whipped around, but it was only my mom. She smiled at me, and said happily,

"It's great that your such a hard and determined worker. Your dad told me you got up early and started to weed. Boy am I glad I didn't have to do that. I'm a little tired today."

I muttered to myself, "it's not like I had much choice in the matter," but smiled back at my mom and replied to her, "I'm always glad to help out. Besides," I added, eyeing her slightly rounded belly, the only sign she was pregnant, "I'll have to do a lot more work once the little girl is born." My mom flushed with pleasure, and said proudly,

"I'm glad I can count on you Haley." She held out a bottle of water. "I thought that you might want this. Dad said that you were up since dawn, so I bet your thirsty." I accepted the water gratefully, and downed it in one breath. My mom smiled again, and said,

"I thought so. Thanks again Haley." I nodded at her. I didn't blame her for being so oblivious. In fact, the more oblivious she was to the abuse, the safer she was. My dad always acted better around her, and I knew that they loved each other. I was just the mistake my mother never meant to make, and I knew I was unwanted by my step father.

Now there was a child that would draw them closer than ever, and I won't pretend that I wasn't already jealous of the little girl that was yet to be born. She would always have a better life than me, I knew my step father enough to know that he just hated me, and the feeling was mutual. I knew that he would treat his own child a lot better than he ever did me.

I was silently plotting to get out of his trap. I wanted to escape. Really escape, not just imagine myself away. I just didn't know what to do. Or where to go. I finally finished pulling the weeds, but I missed lunch, so I went into my room and took a shower, grumbling to myself about how unfair my life was. But nothing was grumbling more than my stomach, which seemed to think that my throat had been cut out. I tried to ignore the complaints of my stomach as I lay on my bed, tears silently flowing down my face.

I woke up with a jolt a while later, and I looked over at my clock to see that it was only 3 o'clock, and I felt a rush of relief. I hadn't missed dinner. But my stomach was hurting worse than ever, and I was so sick of my dad's ridiculous rules. I looked over to my bedside table, thinking of continuing the blanket that I had started crocheting, and jumped in surprise. There on my bedside table was a peach. I looked around, wondering if this was a joke of my dad's. Or an excuse to ground me more. When I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary, I went over to the window, and saw that my dad's car was gone. Relief flooded through me. If my dad was gone, I could eat this peach and have my hunger sated for a while. I was confused as to how the peach had appeared on my table, but I was too hungry to care.

I ate it quickly, hiding the pit in a Kleenex from the box on my headboard, and threw it in the trash. I felt a little better after eating the peach, and I grabbed one of the newer books on my bookshelf, and sat down on my bed again. I looked over at my clock casually to see what time it was, and to my utter surprise, it was still at 3 o'clock! I stared at it, then decided that it had broken, and resolved to tell my mom at dinner so that my parents would get me a new one, and lost myself in Voices of Dragons.

Later that evening, my mom called me down for dinner. I helped set the table, but tripped and spilled milk everywhere. My dad stared at me for a minute with narrowed eyes. Then he shouted,

"Well don't just stand there! Clean it up! For that, you will go without dinner!" My eyes widened in disbelief.

"Please, no! I haven't had anything to eat all day!" I cried. My mom looked at me curiously.

"Didn't you have breakfast?" she asked me. I swallowed at the murderous look my dad flashed at me.

"No I didn't, I don't like breakfast." I replied, my mouth dry.

"Well then you can't complain that you had nothing to eat then. If you turn down good food, then you'll go without!" My dad had turned the situation to his advantage again. "Now do as I say or your grounded for longer!" he shouted. I hurried and cleaned up the mess. I ran up to my room where I cried until I had no tears left. Then I heard the front door slam, and I heard my mom and dad talking outside, then a key scraped in the lock, and my parents left in my dad's car. I rejoiced, and I was about to sneak downstairs when I noticed that the alarm was turned to away, and I cursed my dad very loudly.

"UGH! Why must you do this to me?" I raged, storming to my room where I continued my rant. "You're the worst dad ever! God why did you do this to me? What did I do to deserve him?" I screamed to the world, "PLEASE, someone take me away from this awful place!" Thunder rumbled suddenly from outside, and I saw a flash of lightning before a blinding light filled my room.

When the light cleared, there was a man standing in my room. He wore tight black pants, a sparkly navy blue shirt that clung to his chest, and a black cape with a large collar that surrounded his neck. He wore makeup that made his eyebrows seem turned up, and his hair was wild, tussled in every direction, and he had brilliant blue eyes, a depth and power to them I couldn't quite place.

I gasped, I couldn't help myself. "Wh-who a-are y-you?" I stuttered. The man laughed, a low chuckle.

"I am Jareth, the Goblin King, Ruler of the Labyrinth." He replied. I was confused.

"…But why are you here?" I asked.

"You asked for me to come." He said amusedly, his eyes still sparkling with that strange power.

"I- I didn't ask you to come" I responded, still confused. Jareth, the Goblin King, whatever he wanted to call himself, laughed again.

"Yes you did. You asked for someone to take you away from here. Is that what you truly want? It seemed like it, or I never would have appeared." He said, suddenly serious. I froze. He wanted to take me away from here?

"But where-" I started to ask, but he cut me off.

"To the Underground, to my Labyrinth, to the Goblin City…" he trailed off, watching me.

Several emotions were warring within me. Relief was the strongest of all. Finally, if I just said the words, I would no longer have to suffer at my dad's hands anymore. There was sadness, sadness for my mom, who I loved and I knew she loved me. There was also confusion. Why would someone as powerful as him listen to some random teenage girl's rants? To prolong the answer I knew I would have to give, I asked him, "But why? Why would you listen to me? I'm just a girl…"

Jareth's eyes flashed with that strange power yet again. "You are not just a girl." He snapped at me, and I stared at him, taken aback by his fierce defense of me against myself. His expression softened as he looked at my confused, frightened face. He sighed.

"This is much harder than I thought it would be…" I heard him mutter to himself. Then he turned to me again. "I will explain when we are away from here. There is not much time left. I tire from holding time still too long, and your parents are due back at any time. If they were to come here while I was here, I would be forced back to the Labyrinth, never to come here again. You must make your choice." I stared at the ground, my eyes filled with unshed tears.

"I- I want to come, but…" I choked out.

"But what, Haley? What is there here for you?" Jareth asked softly.

"Well, what about my family? The one's who do care for me? They'll miss me, and probably be panicked, not knowing where I am! I can't do that to them, no matter what I'm going through at my dad's hands." I replied. Incredibly, Jareth smiled.

"If that is all, there's nothing you need to worry about! Do you really think I am so cruel as to let your family suffer from your absence? No, when I take someone, I erase all memories of them from the people up here, Aboveground." He reassured me. My eyes widened.

"My parents, all my family… they would have no memories of me?" I asked. Jareth nodded. I felt immensely relieved. Now I could leave this place and never look back, never have to worry about my family missing me, never have to think about what-ifs!

"But what would I do in your… Labyrinth?" I asked but Jareth shook his head.

"I promise I will explain it all later, but you have to make your choice. Say the words out loud so that we can leave." He said urgently. I took a deep breath and stated calmly,

"I would be honored to come with you and leave this place." Jareth smiled, and I heard, somewhere in the distance, a bell tolling.

"That's our cue to leave," said Jareth, and he offered me his hand. I took it, and, in a rush of color and sound, we were standing at a balcony overlooking a huge, sprawling maze. I knew that this maze had to be the 'Labyrinth' that Jareth had been talking about. Jareth removed his hand from mine, and turned to me saying, "I'll bet you have a ton of questions. But you must be hungry. We can talk over dinner." He led me over to a door, and we walked through.