Down Once More
Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth nor the song "Down the Open Road" by Meg&Dia in any way, shape, or form.
*IMPORTANT* Author's Note: For those of you who have been following this story for a while and have just received a slew of alerts, you may be very upset to find that I have added only one new chapter, and just revised versions of the old ones. First, I would like to apologize that I haven't touched this story in months (my life got crazy, what can I say?). Second, I want you to know that I am adding some new features to the story that weren't there before since I've done some extra research and finally figured out where I want this story to go. This means that you'll probably have to re-read the revisions of the old chapters in order to keep up with the story in the future. I know that that is a terrible bother and if you don't want to do it, I can't make you, but you may be lost in the future. I promise that they are BIG edits though (for the most part anyway) so you won't feel like you're completely wasting your time.
Also, I would really, really appreciate some feedback on the characters (Are they interesting? Do they have enough depth? Are they OOC at all? Are any of them turning into Mary-Sues? I have nightmares about Mary-Sues...*shudders*). PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Thanks & enjoy :)
Chapter One: Goin' Down, Down, Down
A gentle melody rode atop the back of the wind outside the window. A soft yellow light shone from behind the slightly raised glass and lit up a small patch of grass on the lawn. It was the only light emitted from the large white house. On the other side of the glass was a young girl's bedroom. This room had undergone many new changes in the past few years. Photographs now lined the walls instead of posters of musicals, magazines littered the floor where books had once been, and make-up and clothing had conquered the places of toys. On the carpeted floor of the bedroom sat the young girl and another girl her age. The young girl was a pale brunette with emerald eyes that danced with an inner fire. These eyes were focused intently on her foot, the nails of which she was painting a deep red.
The other girl had dark red hair and a round face, lightly kissed with freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her eyes were a playful light brown and were cast downward on a guitar that rested in her lap. Her left hand slid up and down the neck of the guitar while her right strummed away at the strings with a green pick.
"He said, 'You can't stay here, it's best to keep movin','" she sang, her voice dancing lightly upon the music. "'This town is haunted, this place is jaded. It's goin' down, down, down, down, down.'"
She abruptly let go of the guitar's strings and lifted her head to look at the brunette.
"This is it, Sarah!" she cried happily and set down the instrument on the floor beside her.
"What?" Sarah asked, looking up at her friend in confusion.
"I'm going to sing this song for the open mic night at the Coffee Corner next weekend."
"Really? I thought you liked the other one." Sarah finished painting her smallest toe and then put away the tiny bottle of polish.
"Which other one?"
"You know...one of the millions of other angsty pop songs that you know how to play." Sarah grinned. The response was a pillow to her face. She laughed and pushed away the hair that had fallen into her face.
"I'm sorry, Ellie, but you know I can't stand that stuff."
Ellie stood up and walked over to Sarah's stereo. "Of course you don't," she said while removing a CD from inside the player. "You prefer this soulful, heartfelt rock." She held the CD to her chest dramatically.
Sarah laughed. "Be careful! You'll scratch it."
Ellie returned the CD to the stereo and wandered over to the closet. She opened the door and began looking through the clothing inside.
"We should dress up," she said, pulling out a silky green dress and holding it against her body.
"And do what?" Sarah asked, excited about the idea.
Ellie slowly turned to look at Sarah, a wicked grin on her face. "Invite some boys over."
Sarah's smile fell; she'd secretly been hoping that Ellie would want to re-enact a scene from a play or create their own adventure. That's child's play, Sarah, she reminded herself. You're eighteen years old now.
"Come on, Sarah! It'll be fun!" Ellie interrupted her thoughts.
Sarah stood up, shaking her head. "We can't. We're supposed to be watching Toby."
"He's already in bed! Your parents won't be home until at least two and it's only eight thirty. We can have a small party and clean up well before they come home." Ellie stepped closer to Sarah. "Besides, I saw Max Hughes staring at you in Physics the last few weeks of school. I'm sure he'd love to come over. He's cute and really nice."
"Nice?" Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you would call a guy who consistently pushed the more intelligent members of our class into lockers?"
"Fine. We don't have to invite Max. But seriously, let's have a party!" Ellie did a silly little dance.
Sure. Let me just call up my friends from the Underground through my vanity mirror and we'll get this party started, Sarah thought with a smirk.
"No, Ellie." Sarah walked over to her dresser and pulled out a blue nightgown. "I can't risk it. And besides, I'm really tired."
"It's eight-thirty!" Ellie cried, emphatically pointing to the clock on Sarah's bedside table.
"I know." Sarah faked a yawn. "But we were up pretty late last night." She exited the room.
"You old lady!" Ellie shouted after her with a smile. She loved Sarah—they had been best friends since Ellie had moved here during Sophomore year—but sometimes she felt that Sarah was hiding things from her. She would sometimes hear Sarah conversing with someone in a room, but whenever Ellie walked in, Sarah would just be looking at her own reflection in a mirror. She hadn't done that for a while now, but there were still other things that Ellie noticed, like Sarah's rejection of any advances from the opposite sex. Whenever Ellie would later question her about it, she would defend herself as if she were already going out with someone. And then there was that incident a few weeks ago when they had been walking around the neighborhood at night. A white owl landed on a nearby tree...
"What do you want?" Sarah asked the owl, accusingly.
The owl simply blinked.
"Don't pretend that you don't know me! What? Still upset that I beat you at your own game?"
"Sarah!" Ellie shouted. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Sarah looked over at her friend, seeming to be surprised that the red haired girl was even there.
"Oh! Sorry. It's nothing. Let's just keep walking."
Ellie shook her head and sighed; whatever was going on inside that girl's head was a complete and utter mystery to her. She turned back to the closet. Realizing that she had been through everything that was hanging up, she turned her gaze up to the shelves above. She spotted a purple sweater that she wanted to try on, so she stood on tip-toe and reached up to pull the sweater down. Her fingers clasped the soft violet material and yanked downward. The sweater came down...along with a large box. Ellie jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a collision between the box and her head.
The contents of the box were now scattered on the carpet. Ellie silently thanked God that the Williams' had decided not to put hardwood flooring in the bedrooms. She carefully knelt down and turned over the box. She quickly put in a small, worn book, a sparkly glass paperweight of some kind, a folded up poster, and...
"What do we have here?" Ellie smirked.
…
Sarah gently shut the door to the bathroom. With her back leaning against the door she slid down to the floor.
Why does she keep pushing the boy issue? Sarah frowned. Doesn't she know that I'm...
"What are you, Sarah?" she asked herself aloud. "A mess"was the response. If I could just stop those dreams...
The dreams hadn't been so bad at first; she just relived the events of her time in the Labyrinth. However, as she got older, they became more intense. Suddenly she wasn't just fighting to get Toby back, she was fighting for both their lives. And no longer were her friends there to help her, she was left alone, at the mercy of the Labyrinth. However, mercy was a foreign concept to the winding stone walls; she was nearly drowned, burned alive, decapitated, even eaten. And then there was the Goblin King.
Though he was still frightening in her dreams, his role shifted from villain to love interest. She began imagining his hands roaming across her body, his tongue exploring her mouth, and his...
"Enough!" She splashed herself with cold water.
She quickly changed into her blue nightgown. It was a hot summer night so the dress was short and had spaghetti straps that allowed cool air to wrap itself around her overheated skin.
She turned off the light and made her way back to her bedroom.
…
Ellie jumped at the sound of footsteps, dropping a red leather-bound book on the carpet. She looked over her shoulder to see Sarah standing in the doorway.
"Hey, Sarah?" Ellie asked softly.
"Yeah?" Sarah grabbed a hair tie off her vanity and began to put her hair up.
Ellie slowly rose to her feet, casually holding something behind her back. Sarah didn't notice and continued to focus on putting her hair up.
"Would you mind telling me..." Ellie pulled the object out from behind her back. "...who this sexy beast is?"
She handed the tiny statue to Sarah with a giggle. When Sarah did not join in on the laugh, Ellie stopped. After a brief silence, she spun away dramatically from her friend and danced gracefully over to the bed where she laid down.
"He wouldn't happen to be the Goblin King, would he?" Ellie turned her head to look at Sarah.
"Where did you get this?" Sarah's voice came out quiet and broke on the final word.
"In a box that nearly cracked open my head. You should be careful about where you put things like that."
Sarah did not reply, she simply continued to stare at the figure in her hands. The silence made Ellie uncomfortable so she began to whistle. It was a tune that Sarah was all too familiar with, a tune that he...
"Stop it, Eliana!" Sarah shouted and leaped up from her seat at the vanity, knocking over the chair.
"What's wrong?" Ellie sat up, now concerned; Sarah only used her full name when she was really upset.
"Nothing," Sarah said quickly. "Noth...let's just put this stuff away, okay?"
"Okay." Ellie nodded and moved to help Sarah pick up the rest of the things that had fallen out of the box. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't know..."
"It's okay," Sarah sighed. "I should be the one apologizing. I'm just overreacting. I've been...having these weird dreams about this stuff..."
"Really?" Ellie's eyes widened. "Would any of them involve him?" She held up the Goblin King statue. Sarah snatched it away from her.
"No!" Sarah cried defensively.
"Sure..." Ellie dragged the word out teasingly, then shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I'm pretty sure that mine will tonight. I just flipped through that little book," she pointed to the worn copy of Labyrinth in the box. "It's pretty steamy for a children's novel, don't you think?"
Sarah ignored her and closed the box. She stood up and quickly put it back up on the shelf in the closet.
"Have you ever tried calling him?" Ellie spread out on the floor.
"Of course not." Sarah shook her head. "That would've been silly."
"I know. But who knows? Maybe it works."
"Logic would say otherwise." Sarah's hands began to shake. She walked over to her bed and sat down. "Let's just go to bed, okay? I'm really beat."
"Fine." Ellie changed into her pajamas—a pair of white polka dotted short-shorts with a black background and a black tank top—while Sarah settled under the sheets of her bed. After she had unrolled her sleeping bag beside Sarah's bed, she turned out the lights.
"Goodnight, Sarah," Ellie said, crawling into her sleeping bag. "Remember, I'm right here. If those dreams start bothering you, just yell out for me and I promise to come running...even if I'm resting comfortably in the arms of Johnny Depp."
Sarah couldn't help but laugh at that. "You'd better. Thank you, Ellie. I'm sorry I acted so crazy. I'm just a little stressed. We're going to be heading off to college soon, you know? It's scary."
"It's okay, I totally get it. I have little heart attacks every time I think about leaving this place. It's become more of a home to me than any other place I've lived."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
There was a silence as the girls fell into their own thoughts. A slight breeze blew through the room and ruffled a few loose papers that rested on Sarah's desk.
"Sarah?"
"Yeah, Ellie?"
"You're my best friend. Remember that, okay? Even when you're off meeting all those cool new college people."
"Of course I'll remember you. We'll still stay in contact, right? And see each other during vacations?"
"Of course!"
They shared a yawn and giggled over it.
"Night, Sarah."
"Goodnight, Ellie."
…
Ten o'clock came around and the clock in the hall chimed out a quiet melody. The sound was enough to wake the lightly sleeping Ellie. She'd just barely managed to drift into the beginning haze of a dream when the clock's song had rung through her head. She sat up and peeked up over the edge of the bed. Sarah was definitely asleep, but she kept twitching and murmuring things too soft for Ellie to hear.
Ellie debated whether or not to wake her when she heard a faint cry coming from another region of the house.
"Hold on, Toby," she whispered. She pulled herself to her feet and grabbed her fluffy white slippers before heading out of the room.
Careful not to run into anything in the dark, Ellie crept down the hall in the direction of Toby's room. She gently pushed his door open and stepped inside the moonlit room.
"Toby?" she whispered.
She received a sniff in response. She walked over to the little boy's bed. He was sitting up, the moonlight reflecting off his tears.
"Did you have a bad dream, sweetie?" she asked him.
He nodded, thumb in mouth.
"Do you want some water?"
He shook his head.
"Do you want me to sing to you?"
He shook his head.
Ellie crossed her arms, slightly annoyed. "Well, what do you want, Kid?"
He took his thumb out of his mouth. "Sawah."
"Oh," Ellie smiled and nodded knowingly. "Well Sarah's sleeping right now."
"Sawah," he repeated.
Ellie was thoughtful for a moment. "You know, when I was little and I had a bad dream, my mommy would come sit by my bed and play a wishing game. I would wish for something silly and then she would wish for something silly and we would go back and forth until I wasn't afraid anymore. Do you want to play?"
Toby blinked at her before nodding.
"Alright. You make a wish."
"I wish..." A smile lit up Toby's face. "I wish that I was a duck."
Ellie giggled. "That's so silly! Okay, my turn. I wish I had a gigantic pool filled with ice cream."
Toby laughed. "I wish that I lived on the moon!"
"I wish that my dad was a giant teddy bear!"
"I wish that Sawah was a kitty!"
"I wish that the goblins would come take me away right now!" Ellie laughed, not quite certain where the words had come from. Must have been that stupid book, she thought.
The sound of tiny footsteps behind her made Ellie turn around. There was nothing there but she swore that she heard a faint chuckle. A crash out in the hallway made her jump up.
"Sarah?" Ellie called out. She looked back down at Toby. "Stay here."
He nodded and watched her walk out of the room. Ellie heard a door slam somewhere further down the hallway.
"Sarah is that you?" Ellie's voice cracked as she walked further down the hallway. The sound of more tiny footsteps behind her made her turn back around. This time she was certain that she heard chuckling.
"Who-whoever you are you sh-should know that my dad's a cop!" She took a fighter's stance, the way her father had taught her. Her fists shook in front of her but she tried to keep a fierce expression on her face. She backed up further down the hallway until she ran into something solid and warm. She slowly turned her head and screamed.
…
Sarah shot up in bed at the sound of the scream. Her eyes immediately moved toward Ellie's sleeping bag.
"Ellie!" Sarah cried. She grabbed her pillow to use as a weapon and ran out of her room. There, standing at the far end of the hallway were two figures. The shorter one she knew was Ellie, the other she refused to recognize.
"Well isn't this interesting?" a smooth, seductive male voice echoed down toward her.
"Who the hell are you?" Ellie squeaked out.
"I am surprised that you don't know," the man replied. "After all, you did call upon me. I am the King of the Goblins."
Ellie exhaled loudly in wonder. "Holy shit. Sarah! Sarah! You've gotta come see this."
Sarah slowly walked closer to the two. "Eliana, what have you done?"
Ellie turned around to face her friend. "I didn't mean to! I was just playing a wishing game with Toby and it...sort of...popped out. I didn't know it was going to work. I mean, I also wished for a giant pool of ice cream and I obviously...wait a minute." She turned back around to face the Goblin King. "I'm not the proud owner of an ice cream pool, am I? And my dad's not a teddy bear?"
The Goblin King raised an eyebrow.
"I'm going to take that as a 'no.'" She faced Sarah once more. "Anyway, you have got to come meet this guy. He's the guy that you've got that little doll of and have been having those weird dreams about!"
Note to self: Kill Ellie, Sarah thought as she buried her face in the pillow she was holding.
"Dreams?" the Goblin King asked, intrigued. He vanished from behind Ellie. Ellie looked down at the floor as a sparkly dust fell where the King had just been standing.
"What sort of dreams, Precious Thing?" His breath was warm in Sarah's ear. Sarah jumped in response and dropped her pillow. She turned to glare at him, trying desperately to not let her fear show on her face.
"Glitter?" Ellie interrupted the staring contest between the two. "Really?" She was kneeling by the pile that had just landed on the floor. "I thought you were the Goblin King, not the Fairy King. But hey, I don't judge."
"It's good to see you again, Sarah." The Goblin King ignored Ellie.
"I can't say that the feeling is mutual." Sarah bent down to pick up her pillow, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Wait, wait, wait! Hold up. 'Again'? You mean you've met before?" Ellie looked expectantly at Sarah.
"We have indeed," the King smiled wickedly at Sarah. "Do you mean to tell me that you haven't told your little friend about our previous...encounter?"
"What do you want, Goblin King?" Sarah demanded, clenching her jaw.
"Well it would appear that your friend has wished herself away to me. It is quite an unusual situation, but I cannot argue with a wish."
"So...you're just gonna take me back with you to your kingdom?" Ellie walked up to stand beside Sarah. "Are you planning on killing me? Gonna feed me to your goblins? What's the deal here?"
The supernatural man merely chuckled.
"You can't take her," Sarah said firmly.
"Of course I can. I must. She made the wish and now I must fulfill it. Those are the rules. Gracious, Precious, I thought you were an expert on the Underground."
"You can't take her because I'm not going to let you," she clarified, raising her chin defiantly.
"And how exactly do you intend on stopping me?"
"I defeated you once, I can do it again."
The Goblin King laughed again, but this time it had a darker echo behind it. "Oh I don't believe you can, Sarah. You see, after you destroyed my Labyrinth I was presented with the opportunity to recreate it. It's much different than the one you remember."
"I don't need to go as far as the Labyrinth. I can defeat you right here." She held up her pillow.
"You could try, Precious. However, I don't believe it will do you any good. Haven't you noticed how silent your friend has been?" The Goblin King smiled triumphantly.
Sarah looked around her but there was no trace of Ellie anywhere. She turned back to the King, intent on attacking him. She raised her fist in the air and pushed it forward. It collided with nothing but air.
"Careful, Sarah," his voice came from behind her. "Would it be so wise of you to push me away before you've heard my generous offer?"
"What would that be?"
"I am willing to allow you to run the Labyrinth to save your friend."
"You call that 'generous'?" Sarah stared at him incredulously. "Four years and you still don't seem to know the true definition of the word."
"I am not required to allow you to run the Labyrinth. You see, you did not wish Eliana away; she wished herself away. Therefore she should not be allowed a...runner, if you will. However, I am very interested in seeing how the heroic Sarah, Champion of the original Labyrinth, will react when faced with the perils of my new creation." He walked up so closely to Sarah that she could feel his breath on her face. She silently berated herself for finding his scent intoxicating. "Now will you accept my challenge?"
A faint cry tore Sarah's attention away from the Goblin King's mismatched eyes. She turned in the direction of Toby's room and groaned. "Oh, I wish Toby wasn't here right now."
"It is done." The King waved his hand in the air and produced a sparkling crystal orb. He tossed it in the air and it vanished along with the crying.
"What?" Sarah spun back around to stare at the Goblin King in shock. "You can't take him! I didn't say the right-"
"If you remember correctly, Precious, I am the Granter of Wishes. More specifically, the Granter of Your Wishes. That was indeed a wish and it did indeed come from you."
Sarah opened her mouth to argue but slowly closed it as she realized that he was right. She'd been paranoid about making any sort of wish ever since her trip to the Labyrinth, suspecting that the Goblin King was always listening closely, just waiting for her to slip up and bring him back into her life.
"You have a choice, Sarah. Either remain here and forget about Eliana and your brother or run the Labyrinth and fight for them."
The sting of tears rushed to Sarah's eyes. "That's not fair!"
"No, it isn't. But that's the way it is." He reached out to brush a strand of hair away from Sarah's face. "Have you forgotten everything from your first experience in the Labyrinth?"
Sarah's eyes narrowed and she turned her face away from the Goblin King's gloved fingers. "I accept your challenge. I will run the Labyrinth." A slow smile spread across her face and she looked back up at the him, a sparkle in her eyes. "And I will defeat you once more."
Author's Note: Well, that concludes our first chapter. What did you think? I'd like to continue this to see where it goes, but I find that posting things on the Internet that nobody reads is as pointless as a broken pencil (Ha-ha. Very funny, right?). Please review/sign up for alerts/send me a message/whatever. Just let me know that you enjoyed it and would like to see it continue. Thanks!