Thank you so much to those who've reviewed my story! Please, keep
reviewing! Also, this is NOT the complete story!! I'll be adding more to
it as I have time. I'm very busy (yet aren't we all?). Thanks again.
Also, I've received a couple reviews that point out that my story is a lot like the original movie script. Bravo, you know your Labyrinth trivia. All I can say is that if you read my entire story (or what exists of it thus far), you will find that I haven't copied the original.
1
Some stories are too fantastically absurd to be believed. Such stories are usually assumed to be the concoctions of an eccentric recluse with too much time to spare. Be forewarned that this is one of those stories.
What is it that you think about in the darkest hours of the day, lying quietly in your bed? Moments like those are devoted to our most precious, secret thoughts; our most imaginative thoughts, those thoughts that could never gain tangibility in the eyes of others. Sarah's mind was filled with these sorts of thoughts, only hers were so elaborate and intense that the small space they occupied in her conscious threatened to burst at any moment. One day the space pulsed especially hard, until it could no longer hold the labyrinth that swelled inside.
Sarah's environment was what finally let the labyrinth loose. No one understood the dark complexities of her character, including her parents who had apparently given up years ago trying to understand their daughters inferior behavior.
Toby, her infant brother, was the perfect child. He didn't have the mental capacity for genuine thought, let alone the thoughts that occupied the enlarging space in his big sisters mind. He was the product of the marriage between Sarah's father and her stepmother, whom he married after Sarah's mother's untimely death. Only five years old at the time of her mother's death, Sarah couldn't understand why her mother had left her, and would never forgive her father for remarrying two years later.
One must understand that nothing about Toby himself was exceptionally bad. Ironically, Sarah hated Toby because nothing about him was exceptional at all. Cute, un-complex, Toby's parents loved him because they had an uncomplicated time understanding him.
Sarah had known she was different ever since she could remember having thoughts. The only sense of stability and fulfillment Sarah experienced was through the arts. Her deepest emotions were displayed through the characters she portrayed in theatre. But the fulfillment she once felt as she bowed time and time again before an applauding audience dwindled over time, and now not even this could save her from the labyrinths engulfing consumption. On this day, Sarah could no longer ignore its incessant beckoning.
"Give me the child! Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin city to take back the child that you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great." Sarah's passionate voice resonated through the cold outdoor air.
She wore a simple, white dress, a flowered tiara gracefully adorning her head. On any other girl, this costume would have looked juvenile, but in it Sarah looked like something from a fairy tale, her thick, dark hair cascading in graceful curls below her shoulders, her dark eyes further deepened by the dress' stark whiteness. The trees surrounding the vast backyard and a shaggy mutt were her only audience, listening patiently as she came upon the line she could never remember. Merlin, a gentle giant of a dog, was purchased by her parents as one of their more good-natured attempts at normalizing their strange little girl. Sarah loved Merlin, yet hated him just the same because of the purpose for which he was purchased.
"For my will is as strong as yours... my kingdom is great... Oh! I can never remember that line." She held the script in front of her nose, carefully studying her lines with a concentrated expression and furrowed brow.
"You have no power over me." She said, lowering her script, determined next time to recite the play the whole way through without cheating. Just as she did so, the nearby old church clock rang the hour and Merlin barked to call her attention.
"Oh Merlin, I can't believe it! It's seven o'clock!" she said as the gentle clanging of the bell brought her back to reality.
What was first just a drizzle of rain quickly became a downpour, beating down on both Sarah and Merlin who followed right behind her. She ran as fast as her feet could take her, knowing in frustration what awaited her once she reached the house. Dripping with rain, her dress clung clumsily to her jeans and the tiara atop her head drooped pathetically to one side. She finally reached the front door and stopped dead in her tracks... her stepmother opened the door.
"Sarah! Where have you been?!" her stepmother inquired in a most aghast tone. Where does it look like I've been? Sarah thought, not daring to say it out loud. Instead, she walked right past her stepmother, her wet dress coming dangerously close to brushing her stepmother's crisply pressed trousers.
"You're late. Don't ignore me, Sarah! Where have you been?" her stepmother boomed as she ascended the stairs. The actress in Sarah could not help but take over. "I cannot talk to you now. I am in rehearsal." She said, continuing her grand ascent.
"You were supposed to be here an hour ago to baby sit Toby."
"Reprimand not an actress at her moment of inspiration!" Sarah continued, leaning over the balcony in her highly affected tone. Her father entered the room, violently buttoning his jacket in a show of dominance.
"Sarah, that is no way to talk to your mother!" he hollered in his pretentious voice, a voice Sarah noticed he had acquired after marrying her stepmother.
"She's not my mother." Sarah mumbled, secretly hoping her stepmother had heard her. At that moment, Sarah's theatrical confidence visibly left her. She quickly retreated to her room; her safe haven. Closing the door behind her, she stood and observed herself in the full length mirror just across the room, letting out a heavy sigh at the sight of her disheveled appearance. She unzipped the back of her dress, pushed it down around her feet and stepped to the side of it, unzipping her jeans and then stepping out of them in the same practiced fashion. She pulled out her dresser drawer and put on the first pair of jeans and long sleeved t-shirt she grabbed. Buttoning her jeans, she listlessly surveyed the shelves of alphabetized books and stuffed animals lining the walls. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed and her thick brows lowered.
"Somebody's been in my room!" she said, stomping across the room to examine an empty space on her dresser.
"Sarah? Can we talk for a minute?" her father said through the door.
"There's nothing to talk about!" Sarah said, shouting louder than necessary for her father to hear her.
Her father opened the door and walked in quietly, like a little mouse who'd been scared.
"Where's Lancelot?" Sarah asked. Her father decided to ignore her question completely. He didn't know who Lancelot was, and Sarah knew he didn't care.
"We'll be back by twelve. Ok, sweetheart?" her father said, gently running his fingers through her hair and kissing the crown of her head.
"I left the Jones' number on the kitchen table." Her stepmother yelled from downstairs, her sharp voice made piercing by the sheer size of the house. "Toby might be coming down with a cold, so if he shows any sign of discomfort, call..."
As her stepmother was blabbing, Sarah left her room and once again leaned over the balcony with an air of sarcasm.
"Yes, Madame!" she retorted.
"That's it, Sarah, I give up!" her stepmother said, her fur coated arms flying up in aggravation. Her father and stepmother opened the front door and began to leave for their dinner party, where Sarah knew they would try to forget about the burden they'd left at home. But even in the company of their exclusive friends at a very exclusive restaurant, they could never really escape their problems, just as Sarah couldn't escape the inevitable quest that lye shortly ahead of her.
Sarah's stepmother had one more thing to say before their departure.
"And don't open the door to any strangers."
What a ridiculous thing to say! Sarah thought as her parents closed the door behind them. She found the request insulting; her stepmother actually thinking she would open the door to a stranger.
Also, I've received a couple reviews that point out that my story is a lot like the original movie script. Bravo, you know your Labyrinth trivia. All I can say is that if you read my entire story (or what exists of it thus far), you will find that I haven't copied the original.
1
Some stories are too fantastically absurd to be believed. Such stories are usually assumed to be the concoctions of an eccentric recluse with too much time to spare. Be forewarned that this is one of those stories.
What is it that you think about in the darkest hours of the day, lying quietly in your bed? Moments like those are devoted to our most precious, secret thoughts; our most imaginative thoughts, those thoughts that could never gain tangibility in the eyes of others. Sarah's mind was filled with these sorts of thoughts, only hers were so elaborate and intense that the small space they occupied in her conscious threatened to burst at any moment. One day the space pulsed especially hard, until it could no longer hold the labyrinth that swelled inside.
Sarah's environment was what finally let the labyrinth loose. No one understood the dark complexities of her character, including her parents who had apparently given up years ago trying to understand their daughters inferior behavior.
Toby, her infant brother, was the perfect child. He didn't have the mental capacity for genuine thought, let alone the thoughts that occupied the enlarging space in his big sisters mind. He was the product of the marriage between Sarah's father and her stepmother, whom he married after Sarah's mother's untimely death. Only five years old at the time of her mother's death, Sarah couldn't understand why her mother had left her, and would never forgive her father for remarrying two years later.
One must understand that nothing about Toby himself was exceptionally bad. Ironically, Sarah hated Toby because nothing about him was exceptional at all. Cute, un-complex, Toby's parents loved him because they had an uncomplicated time understanding him.
Sarah had known she was different ever since she could remember having thoughts. The only sense of stability and fulfillment Sarah experienced was through the arts. Her deepest emotions were displayed through the characters she portrayed in theatre. But the fulfillment she once felt as she bowed time and time again before an applauding audience dwindled over time, and now not even this could save her from the labyrinths engulfing consumption. On this day, Sarah could no longer ignore its incessant beckoning.
"Give me the child! Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin city to take back the child that you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great." Sarah's passionate voice resonated through the cold outdoor air.
She wore a simple, white dress, a flowered tiara gracefully adorning her head. On any other girl, this costume would have looked juvenile, but in it Sarah looked like something from a fairy tale, her thick, dark hair cascading in graceful curls below her shoulders, her dark eyes further deepened by the dress' stark whiteness. The trees surrounding the vast backyard and a shaggy mutt were her only audience, listening patiently as she came upon the line she could never remember. Merlin, a gentle giant of a dog, was purchased by her parents as one of their more good-natured attempts at normalizing their strange little girl. Sarah loved Merlin, yet hated him just the same because of the purpose for which he was purchased.
"For my will is as strong as yours... my kingdom is great... Oh! I can never remember that line." She held the script in front of her nose, carefully studying her lines with a concentrated expression and furrowed brow.
"You have no power over me." She said, lowering her script, determined next time to recite the play the whole way through without cheating. Just as she did so, the nearby old church clock rang the hour and Merlin barked to call her attention.
"Oh Merlin, I can't believe it! It's seven o'clock!" she said as the gentle clanging of the bell brought her back to reality.
What was first just a drizzle of rain quickly became a downpour, beating down on both Sarah and Merlin who followed right behind her. She ran as fast as her feet could take her, knowing in frustration what awaited her once she reached the house. Dripping with rain, her dress clung clumsily to her jeans and the tiara atop her head drooped pathetically to one side. She finally reached the front door and stopped dead in her tracks... her stepmother opened the door.
"Sarah! Where have you been?!" her stepmother inquired in a most aghast tone. Where does it look like I've been? Sarah thought, not daring to say it out loud. Instead, she walked right past her stepmother, her wet dress coming dangerously close to brushing her stepmother's crisply pressed trousers.
"You're late. Don't ignore me, Sarah! Where have you been?" her stepmother boomed as she ascended the stairs. The actress in Sarah could not help but take over. "I cannot talk to you now. I am in rehearsal." She said, continuing her grand ascent.
"You were supposed to be here an hour ago to baby sit Toby."
"Reprimand not an actress at her moment of inspiration!" Sarah continued, leaning over the balcony in her highly affected tone. Her father entered the room, violently buttoning his jacket in a show of dominance.
"Sarah, that is no way to talk to your mother!" he hollered in his pretentious voice, a voice Sarah noticed he had acquired after marrying her stepmother.
"She's not my mother." Sarah mumbled, secretly hoping her stepmother had heard her. At that moment, Sarah's theatrical confidence visibly left her. She quickly retreated to her room; her safe haven. Closing the door behind her, she stood and observed herself in the full length mirror just across the room, letting out a heavy sigh at the sight of her disheveled appearance. She unzipped the back of her dress, pushed it down around her feet and stepped to the side of it, unzipping her jeans and then stepping out of them in the same practiced fashion. She pulled out her dresser drawer and put on the first pair of jeans and long sleeved t-shirt she grabbed. Buttoning her jeans, she listlessly surveyed the shelves of alphabetized books and stuffed animals lining the walls. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed and her thick brows lowered.
"Somebody's been in my room!" she said, stomping across the room to examine an empty space on her dresser.
"Sarah? Can we talk for a minute?" her father said through the door.
"There's nothing to talk about!" Sarah said, shouting louder than necessary for her father to hear her.
Her father opened the door and walked in quietly, like a little mouse who'd been scared.
"Where's Lancelot?" Sarah asked. Her father decided to ignore her question completely. He didn't know who Lancelot was, and Sarah knew he didn't care.
"We'll be back by twelve. Ok, sweetheart?" her father said, gently running his fingers through her hair and kissing the crown of her head.
"I left the Jones' number on the kitchen table." Her stepmother yelled from downstairs, her sharp voice made piercing by the sheer size of the house. "Toby might be coming down with a cold, so if he shows any sign of discomfort, call..."
As her stepmother was blabbing, Sarah left her room and once again leaned over the balcony with an air of sarcasm.
"Yes, Madame!" she retorted.
"That's it, Sarah, I give up!" her stepmother said, her fur coated arms flying up in aggravation. Her father and stepmother opened the front door and began to leave for their dinner party, where Sarah knew they would try to forget about the burden they'd left at home. But even in the company of their exclusive friends at a very exclusive restaurant, they could never really escape their problems, just as Sarah couldn't escape the inevitable quest that lye shortly ahead of her.
Sarah's stepmother had one more thing to say before their departure.
"And don't open the door to any strangers."
What a ridiculous thing to say! Sarah thought as her parents closed the door behind them. She found the request insulting; her stepmother actually thinking she would open the door to a stranger.