There was absolutely no wind. The air was thick and heavy like a dry desert. The day was old, it would be evening soon. Sarah looked around, her eyes widening every second.
Where was it, this labyrinth that she had long ago solved? She was surrounded by ruins, tiny walls that had once been Jarreth's mighty labyrinth. Bricks were laid in rubble, red grass peeping out from the bricks and out from the orange sand. There was no sound apart from the lonely cry of crows hanging off the leafless trees. Little crimson striped beetles wriggled silently through dead burnt tree roots and one spider hung from a single dusty web.
She crouched down. The spider had two large black eyes, not possible in this world but there two was only needed.
"Hello." Said Sarah, most things in this world could talk and a spider's advice in the underground could be as good as a pope in the above ground.
She waited, the spider didn't move.
"I'm Sarah" Sarah said. She heard a quietly loud squeal and the spider ran into a hole in the rubble.
Confused, she stood up. How can this have happened? How could her dreadfully wonderful labyrinth have turned into this red underworld in just the three years she had been gone? She walked around a bit, yes, she knew this place. Those were the ruins of the old wooden door that she had first entered the labyrinth through. The ongoing road didn't look so threatening now that all the openings could be seen, it didn't go on forever. After about three hundred metres was just a stop, a gold magical cloud had fallen down to the ground, dead. The magic that had made it go on forever had just, stopped. She walked slowly, carefully to the end, the gold cloud made a high pitched noise, like a TV on stand by. She reached out to touch; it was cold, ice cold. A single tear dripped down her face and she turned. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. Where would she go? There was no challenge to complete, no goblin king to defeat. How do I get home? She thought despairingly. What about dad? Toby? They must be so worried. She buried her face in her hands. No point crying, that won't solve anything. She sniffed back her tears and began searching for anything, anything at all that might help her get home, or even help her find a voice. She would even be grateful to hear her stepmother's voice.
"Sarah" said a deep sorrowful voice. She looked around, there was no-one to be seen. "Sarah" the voice said again. Sarah frantically looked around to see where the voice was coming from. "Sarah" it came again.
"I can't see you" she wailed, not sure how loud to talk.
"Look up" the voice echoed mournfully off the rocks and ruins. Sarah looked up, there was a constellation of stars whizzing and whirling so brightly it lit up the ground. "Look closer" the voice said. Sarah squinted into the light; her eyes bringing her closer, zooming into the constellation and making her feel drunkenly dizzy. She left the ground, not looking back to see her body still standing there, she gasped. This was no constellation; it was a face, the angled face of Jareth. She looked down, everywhere was black and she was wearing her beautiful ball gown. There he stood, right in front of her; she smiled slightly, loving the shimmery feeling of the dress on her bear arms. Her jewellery gave off a silently sweet static squeak as she touched it with her silver ringed hands. She looked into the pair of eyes, they were colourless, and all of Jareth seemed to be made out of bright white dots, like he had some very fine unearthly silver powder consuming his whole body. Sarah reached out and touched his cheek, it gave off that same silent squeak that her jewellery did. His eyes were a light blue and light green, just very slightly colourful like a splash on top of the vast silver being in front of her.
They were both silent for a minute. Then Jareth spoke.
"Sarah" he said, gasping slightly. He looked sincere, and then he crumpled, a few glittering tears fell down his face. "Look at my labyrinth". Sarah felt a deep whelm of pity for him, forgetting what he had done to her, she reached out and hugged him. She hugged him so close, what a funny picture, she thought. The starman and lady stardust, the beauty and the beast. His eyes were covered up by his hands and he sighed, looked up. His face had no blemishes.
"I'm sorry" he said. "I'm so sorry".
"It's ok" she replied. After he didn't say anything, she thought she would start. How unusual it was for her to see Jareth crying, but she felt no disorientation at all, like she was home. This was funny as she was actually having an out of body experience, looking at a silver version of the goblin king in the middle of the underground sky.
"So… erm… Jareth" Sarah asked cautiously. She wasn't sure how to react when men cried; especially the man she thought had never shed a tear in his whole life. "What has happened here? I mean, how could it have got like this over three years?"
"It was you, when you left."
Sarah wasn't quite sure how to react to that. I mean, what was she supposed to do? Re-arrange time? That was his job. She thought sourly.
"You defeated me." He said, and Sarah understood. The goblin king was defeated; the labyrinth had gone to ruins. It was simple, the same laws applied from the brink of existence. He lost, he looses. But it was more than that, he was no being anymore, he served no purpose there and the above world would definitely not take such a character, they had their own to deal with.
"I defeated you" said Sarah slowly, a mix of feelings in her gut, guilt, happiness (after all, she did defeat the goblin king) fear, pity and that same weird sense of belonging.
Suddenly he looked as if he had remembered something, something good. Jareth let out a grin, pointy toothed with a glint in his eyes. "You are now the goblin queen, you have to re-build your labyrinth".