I'm back!!!!! Thank you all for my wonderful reviews! I am happy that you all liked my story.
Sorry about updating late but I had to crawl out of the abyss that is school!! So, here is the long awaited chapter 2!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, places, and songs from the movie Labyrinth. Jim Henson, George Lucas, Trevor Jones, and (sigh) David Bowie are all responsible for those things. I only own my own original characters.
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Roxie awoke to the sounds of someone knocking at the door to her room.
"Roxie…we need our bedtime story!" screamed the voices of Roxie's little sisters from outside her door.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Roxie said, getting out of bed and putting on her black slippers with white skulls and crossbones on them, "Let me first get a book to read to you all!"
Roxie searched around the room for a book to read.
Searching through Roxie's bookshelf, she started to eliminate books that Roxie had either read to them before or were too scary for her to read to her 3 little sisters.
While searching, the sounds of pounding fists and whiny voices grew louder and louder from the hallway.
"WE WANT A STORY NOW!" screamed the little sisters.
"Alright FINE!" Roxie screamed, grabbing a book from the shelf without looking and dashing to the door. When Roxie opened the door, she was greeted by 3 angry, little sisters.
Roxie was, as her mom Sarah liked to put it, blessed with 3 adorable little sisters. Lucy, Sally, and Emily were triplets that were as different as morning, noon, and night…and to think that they were, at least, 8 minutes apart each. Bright and sunny Lucy was the oldest of the triplets, then came mellow and calm Sally in the middle, and then quiet and sincere Emily as the youngest of the 3. Lucy was wearing a pink nightgown, Sally a green one, and Emily was sporting a blue nightgown.
Along with a nightgown, each of the sisters was also wearing a pout on her face that had shown that they were not in the mood for being patient any longer.
"Could you all be any louder?" Roxie asked them, shutting the door to her room behind her.
"Well we wouldn't have to have been loud and annoying if you had moved quicker!" Lucy said, normally the nice one but I guess that agitation gets to the best of us sometimes.
"Well I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't reading you a story that you had already heard."
"Well, we wouldn't had cared." Sally said, moving out of the way of their teenage sister who was coming out of her room.
Roxie wasn't in the mood to get lip from her sisters right now. All she wanted to do was get them to bed so that she could listen to music and draw until her mom and dad had gotten home.
Roxie herded her sisters into their room and into their beds.
Lucy's, Sally's, and Emily's bedroom was one of those basic bedrooms that all little 7 year old girls get when they are into fairy tales and pretty stuff. The walls were a light pink and the dresser, vanity, and bed frames were all white with certain color trimmings to match each girl's individual bed sheet set. The colors of the sheets and blankets matched the color of the nightgown that each girl was wearing.
Once the girls were in their beds, Roxie actually looked at the book that she had picked so carelessly off the shelf in her room.
It was a little red book with gold trimmings on it. The book was pocket sized and very tattered and worn, almost as if it had been shoved into bags and pockets too many times. On the front of the worn book were the words "The Labyrinth" in gold.
The Labyrinth……I recognize the name.
Roxie had indeed seen the book before. Sarah used to read sections to Roxie before bed when Roxie was a little girl.
The ribbon page marker that was attached to the spine of the book was inserted between two pages far in the book. When Roxie opened up to the page, there was a particular passage that had been outlined lightly with a pencil. It was a scene that her mother used to read very fast whenever she would read the book to Roxie.
"Give me the child." Roxie said to herself, staring at the words that seemed to flow across the page, "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way to the castle beyond the Goblin City…to take back the child that you have stolen."
Just as Roxie was reciting the passage, she felt strange…as though she was being watched.
"Are you okay Roxie?" Emily asked sounding very worried for her older sister.
"Yeah, I'm fine Emily." Roxie said, closing the small red book and pocketing it, "I have decided to read a different book to you all tonight because I picked a book that I have already read to you once before. So, why don't you go and pick out another book for me to read to you, okay?"
"Okay."
As Emily ran off, Lucy and Sally were snuggling into bed with their favorite stuffed animals. Roxie leaned against the white shelf and started to read the book that she had plucked off of the shelf.
Roxie seemed to sink into the pages themselves and be part of the story...almost as if she was there. Roxie seemed to sink into the pages themselves until a tug at her pants leg woke her up out of her daydream.
She looked down to find Emily looking up at her with a sparkly blue book.
"What book did you pick for a story tonight, Emily?" Roxie asked, quickly pocketing the little red book away in her back pocket.
"It's called The Beautiful Ball by Ariel Ellison." Emily said, holding the book close to her chest, "It's my favorite."
"I bet."
When Roxie took the book away from the young girl, she scampered away to her bed and snuggled in like her sisters.
"Well then," Roxie said, pulling up a chair from the small table that sat in the corner of her sisters' room, "Let's begin shall we? Ahem…The Beautiful Ball by Ariel Ellison."
As Roxie opened the book, a picture of a young girl with long blonde hair appeared on the page. She was sitting by the window looking out at other girls her age walk down the street by her house. In the background were three little girls who were giggling and playing with dolls.
"Once upon a time there was a young girl named Belle. She was a beautiful girl, but she would never go out. You see, Belle had three little sisters who she had to stay home with every day because they needed to be watched after."
As Roxie read on, she could see over the top of the book each of her sisters' eyes closing two by two. Soon, Lucy, Sally, and Emily were fast asleep.
Roxie quietly shut the book and snuck out of the girls' room, shutting off the lights and cracking the doorway.
Once outside, Roxie dropped the book on the hallway floor and soon her cheerful face that she had put on for her sisters had faded away. Roxie's face soon had the face of an angry teenager on it.
Roxie went to her room, shut the door, and flopped on her bed.
"Ow!"
Something in her back pocket was stabbing Roxie in the butt. When Roxie went to go grab it, she remembered.
"The Labyrinth." Roxie said to herself.
She brought out the book and opened it to the page that she had left off on.
It was the part in the book when the young girl was wishing away her baby brother to the Goblins. As Roxie read on, she began to think if she could wish her little sisters away to the Goblins and be able to go out every weekend.
"That would be nice." Roxie said, "I wouldn't mind not having my sisters around for a while. I would be able to go out a majority of the time instead of staying home with my little sisters."
Roxie looked out the locked window of her room.
It had started to rain hard with some thundering and some lightening along with it, too. Roxie got up and closed the curtains of her windows just as a huge bolt of lightening flashed in the sky. The flash was followed by a clap of thunder that was short yet powerful.
"Whoa, since when did the weather forecast consist of a storm later tonight?" Roxie said, jumping as she walked back to her bed to finish her book.
But when she went to go and pick up the book, she noticed the page that Roxie had left off on hadn't been the page that was showing. When Roxie examined it more closely, she realized that the page that the book was open on was the page where the Goblin King had come to the aid of the young girl.
As Roxie read the passage that seemed to have little heart doodles around it, possibly, from her mother when she was reading it. Roxie seemed to get more and more absorbed by the book that time seemed to go by faster than it seemed.
When Roxie looked up at the clock on her stereo, the time read 9:00pm.
"Time for a break to check on the girls."
Roxie opened her door to something that sent chills up and down her spine.
The door to her sisters' room was open more than Roxie had left it before.
Oh…my…lord! I am so dead when the parental units get back home!
Roxie ran into her sister's room to find the covers up by the pillows seemingly to cover up her sisters' faces. Roxie went to turn on the lights in the room on, but the lights wouldn't come on.
"Girls?" Roxie called out into the darkened room, "Girls are you okay?"
Just then, there came banging from the window. Roxie just turned towards the noisy window and started towards it. Roxie's heart was beating so loud that that sound was ringing in her ears. Roxie reached out to the latch on the window…but then suddenly pulled back.
Roxie could feel her mother's voice ringing in her head as she pulled back her arm from the window.
As long as you call me before hand, you may do whatever you please while we are out, but under any circumstances are you to open any of the windows while we are out!
But as Roxie held off opening the window, the banging of the window got worse and worse and Roxie could hear the sound of people walking around and laughing around her.
Roxie turned to find no one in the room but herself. She grew more and more scared as the covers on each of her sisters' beds started to tousle and turn as if someone or something was underneath them.
The banging of the window got more and more severe as Roxie turned around and went around to each of her sisters' beds and turned down to the covers.
"OH MAN NO!!" Roxie yelled, backing up from the three empty beds that lay before her, "How could this happen?! Who could do such a thing?!"
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew open the window into the room.
Rain and wind pelted Roxie as she attempted to get the window shut. When she did finally get it closed, Roxie closed her eyes and started to cry.
She didn't know what was going on. Her sisters were missing, she didn't know who had taken her sisters, and, worst of all, she had just broken one of the biggest rules ever that her mother had laid down for her while her father and she were out. Roxie just clenched her hands into fists and looked down at her feet.
As Roxie sobbed on, she heard a voice come from behind her.
"Hello Roxanne."
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OOO what is going to happen?! The anticipation is getting to me already and I write this story.
So, yes the message is still the same…the faster that you post your reviews, the faster that I will post the next chapter.
Thank you to all of the people who sent in reviews for the first chapter and I hope that you will send in more as the time goes on!
Hoping that you are all eating your peaches,
A Rose By Another Name