Sarah was not afraid of the dark. She didn't leave on a night-light or have a problem with the electricity going out – besides the lack of distraction. This was a new kind of darkness, without any light or shadows. It seemed there was no end to the blackness, and Sarah knew her eyes were wide open.
Warmth seeped up her arm as it went through the mirror, and Sarah panicked. Her other hand slapped on the table, trying to pull away from the dark, unnamed force that pulled her forward. Sarah had only a second to gasp in a deep breath before the pull accelerated. It yanked her unceremoniously over the tabletop, crumpled her elbow, and bruised her hip as it jolted against the table edge. It was the same spot she had fallen on earlier and Sarah bit back a yelp.
Soothing warmth continued to flow over her as she thumped through the mirror edge and over the table. She felt her bones stretch to accommodate the mirror's face, slicing pain through her shoulders, ribs, and hips as they slimmed. Sarah screamed. The pain was too intense to stay silent and she had no way to prepare herself for this.
She came through with an audible sucking noise and a liquid pop, and her body resettled to its normal. Her sight snapped back and Sarah saw the cracked Labyrinth speed at her in first-person view. She rolled her head down to her chest to look back. Madame Zini's horrified face hung in a rectangle of sky before the image melted away in a fierce orange of a Labyrinth sunrise.
Gold and silver flecks danced in front of Sarah's eyes as she pushed her head back to stare at the fast-approaching ground. Heat built around her body as she fell through the sky. Sarah squint her eyes, trying to see through the slick flames of brilliant yellow. It did some good. Sarah was able to see the hazy outlines of the solid walls that were going to kill her.
Adrenaline hissed through her veins. Her sight narrowed, focusing. The maze had changed more than the occasional crack. The outside walls were just as high as the top castle roof. She could because of the changed angle of her view. The inside, barely seen over the walls, wasn't just cracked. It had crumbled. As if the mortar of heavy stone had given way and hadn't been fixed in ages.
Sarah began to shake in her heat-surrounded cocoon as she soared over the middle of the goblin kingdom. Her body was forcibly shifted, skirted around the castle turret by some invisible hand. Instead of falling, she was flying straight and true like a bullet. Her yellow flames shifted to white.
She flew for far longer than she would have thought, spanning from one wall of the maze to the other. The Goblin King's Labyrinth was immense – far larger than Sarah had thought possible. She had begun to lose the happy adrenaline buzz when she saw the shadow from opposite wall of the Labyrinth. Fear hiked up heartbeat until Sarah heard it smashing against her eardrums.
Her invisible hand worked again, tilting her body toward the sky in the space of two solid thumps. It was almost too late. Sarah felt stone scrape against her stomach as she rocketed over the wall.
The hand apparently got tired of holding her up. Sarah dropped like a stone just after she cleared the Labyrinth wall. Instinctively, Sarah curled up in a small ball. Something wet and warm slid around her, sliding away from her stomach, chest, and thighs and toward her exposed areas.
Sarah hit earth with a crash that would have made the snow-storm thunder sound like a high-five. She could feel the dirt tremble, hear the crash of stone making way, and yet did not lose her hearing. After she stopped shaking and uncoiled her frozen fingers, Sarah had a feeling she knew why.
She was covered in fluid an inch thick all around. It glimmered with gold flecks and silver swirls of metal. It threw soft rainbows of light around, dancing over her skin.
Sarah blinked, shaking. She was covered in the fortune telling fluid. Before she made a conscious thought, her hand slapped against her forearm and slid down forcefully. The fluid thinned, rolling away from her hand as it slid off her arm. In seconds, it slid back into place, covering her forearm and palm again.
That was when she made the mistake of looking around her.
Sarah was in a crater. Her flight had gathered enough heat to melt the dirt and stone, seeping steam and hyper-heated minerals in an irregular disk. A thin layer of fortune teller fluid covered the dangerous areas, grouping to cool hotspots and direct steam away from her. Sarah made a mental note to ask Madame Zini where she got her supply before a barrage of questions burst through her shock.
Was this what madness looked like? Could she simply wake up? Did she have to go one some quest to pull herself out of her delusion, or was this the end of the line? Would her parents put her in a padded cell? Why was she yanked back here when she so clearly had avoided this place for so long? How does someone create a delusion this real without even wanting to?
A whimper escaped her fluid-bubble as Sarah started to walk/crawl her way out of the crater. She could reason this out. It was just a puzzle of her mind. Maybe it meant something, maybe not. All she really had to do was figure out the trick and wake up. Sarah reached the lip of the crater and got her first glimpse of the place she had landed.
The fluid coating her eyes made prisms out of the noon sun. Steam rose to paint the scene in a hazy unreality. Grass and leaves shone in glimmering emerald hues. Trees of white, brown, dark purples, and deep blue bowed overhead. Heavy fruits dangled and beautiful flowers erupted all over, splashing the scene with a childlike abandon of color.
Sarah blinked. If she was in a delusion and her mind had officially snapped, this was an excellent place to start. She had no desire to face an evil Goblin King, didn't have a time limit, and honestly felt no real urge to wake up right at this particular moment. Waking up to face a psychologist or psych ward wasn't worth it if Sarah didn't even have a good story to tell. Sarah slid back into her crater and flopped on her back. She stacked her hands beneath her head and watched rainbow-tinted steam gush into the sunrise.
A dark shadow fell over the lovely prism mist. Sarah frowned and tilted her head back. It was too soon for this part to be over, but she couldn't ignore the shadow. It was interrupting. Her eyes widened a little.
Her shadow was a toppling boulder that had appeared out of nowhere. It looked very much like one of the sixty standing stones from Orkney. The creases and budges were black, even in her prism-glinting eyes. Curiosity made her flip over and stand up, crossing over toward the stone.
Her standing stone was a man with skin as craggy as sea-tossed cliffs. His 'skin' was tinted like limestone, layers of soft, gritty-looking grey. Like a solid stone, he stood in such a way that Sarah honestly couldn't tell where his arms or legs started or ended, even as close up as she was. His head was stooped below his huge shoulders as he craned his neck to look down at her. Obsidian eyes glinted from deep-set sockets, staring at Sarah as she stared at him.
His clothing consisted of two leather harnesses, disappearing in a crease that Sarah could only assume was where his shoulder was. He shifted, pulling his arm from a cavity in his side to stretch it toward Sarah. His hand easily wrapped Sarah's torso in a firm grip, lifting her. Sarah felt the fluid bulge, rushing to the pressure areas.
Boulder Man. That was Sarah's official name for him. He opened his mouth and the smell of a cave hit Sarah's nose, making it wrinkle a little. His lips ground together in odd patterns. It took Sarah a long moment to realize that this Boulder Man was speaking, and Sarah couldn't hear a word of it.
She waited patiently while the Boulder Man rattled on, looking over his shoulder at the sunrise. He apparently got impatient and jolted her sharply. Sarah's neck snapped and her temper flared.
"I can't HEAR!" she shouted. Her throat and mouth vibrated with the force of her outburst, but Sarah couldn't hear her own voice.
The Boulder Man set her down and Sarah tugged at her ears. She clapped her hands and heard the sound of the fluid pop against one another, closely followed by feeling her hands touch. She pulled them apart and heard the liquid-goo separate.
She looked up at the Boulder Man. "Why can't I hear you?" she asked him stupidly, as if he had the answer. Even if he did, Sarah couldn't hear it. She focused on his huge lips, trying to read them.
His mouth opened and closed like a fish. His stone lips moved rapidly, too fast for Sarah to tell what he said even if he knew English. His eyes shone with what Sarah could swear were desperation and hope. When Sarah shook her head with confusion, he lifted both of his massive arms to the sky.
"Do you speak English?" she asked him. "If you do and you can slow down, I might be able to read your lips."
The words rattled on her vocal chords as she watched the giant man release his hand. They fell to his side with the grace of an earthquake, sending ripples of displaced stone skittering to the ground. Obligingly, his lips slowed down as he stared at her intently. Sarah sighed. She didn't think he was speaking English. His lips still looked like a fish.
"I can't read your lips, either. Sorry." Sarah felt sorry for the Boulder Man. Maybe he was as confused and deluded as she was. "If you can understand me, can you nod your head?"
He gave a slow nod. Sarah smiled. He reached out as if to pat her head and Sarah backed up quickly, sliding a little down the lip of the crater.
"You might squash me," Sarah nervously told him.
His head rocked back a little and Sarah heard his mountain-slide laugh, tumbling in great rolls of sound. She shook her head and hit her ear, wondering if she had too much fluid in her ears.
The space next to the Boulder Man plumed in the shape of a mini-bomb cloud. Purple dust exploded and settled, settling on the spiked hair of what Sarah immediately identified as a large pixie, only a few inches shorter than Sarah. This fierce pixie had pale, green-blue skin and was clothed, which was highly untraditional of the small pixie's Sarah had run into on the outskirts of the Labyrinth.
She had on a poorly sewn skirt and top made of animal pelts. Streaks of dirt splotched her skin even as Sarah noticed the white-purity of her tiny fangs and pointed sword that slanted across her back. Her long fingers jabbed the air as she screamed at Sarah, advancing as her temper rose.
The Boulder Man moved. His huge hand started to descend on the pixie. The lithe pixie darted out of the way, spinning in a complicated pattern that sidestepped the Boulder Man's maneuver. She scowled up at the huge man and waved her hand. Visibly forcing herself to hold back, she turned back toward Sarah. She crouched down slowly and scratched in the jewel-toned grass, her eyes never leaving Sarah's face. She gestured Sarah over and took a few steps back.
CAN YOU READ?
Sarah carefully leaned over the lip of the crater and wrote back. YES.
GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON YOU SHOULD LIVE. The pixie woman scratched next.
Sarah wanted to laugh. What could she say? TELL ME WHY YOU LIVE, Sarah wrote.
The pixie woman stared at her blackly. Her pointy chin tilted up, assessing the Boulder Man for a moment before she scratched a reply. I LIVE TO SERVE.
Sarah thought quickly, but not fast enough. The pixie didn't wait for an answer. She was scratching in the dirt.
YOU, CREATURE, HAVE REARRANGED THE LANDS. FOR THIS YOU WILL DIE.
Before anyone could move, the pixe rose on dainty feet and bolted to Sarah. Her white sword gleamed briefly before it sank, slicing Sarah from hip to shoulder. The sword sank through the fluid, through skin and muscle. It flicked an arc of red across the sky as the pixie pulled free.
Boulder Man's arm scooped in out of the sky, blocking the sun as he scooped up the pixie woman. She struggled, legs kicking frantically as he plucked the toothpick-sized sword from her hand. Sarah fell to her knees and started to slide down the crater. Pulses of red mixed with the fortune-teller's fluid, spreading in fast-attempt of equilibrium around her body. The rainbow red fluid bulged, puckering around the slash to close around it, slowing the blood loss.
Purple smoke exploded, taking the assassin pixie with it. The Boulder Man stood with empty arms, looking down at the small creature that Sarah was.
Sarah was concerned with other matters. Sarah felt pain. She felt dizzy and weak. She had felt pain when she came in through the mirror, although she hadn't taken that into account until now.
If she felt pain, she was not in some innocent delusion anymore. According to that logic, Sarah had to think this place was real. The world of the Labyrinth was as real to her now as her own world was, full of consequences and the possibility of coming to harm and facing death. If that reasoning was sound, then it was completely possible that it was true back in her childhood.
She had fallen into the pages of her favorite book when she was younger. She had met random people and discovered truths while battling to free her baby brother. It was real, even if everyone else denied it. She knew. Even when she avoided thinking about the Labyrinth, she knew. That is why she couldn't shake it from her thoughts and dreams.
It was a comforting thought for facing death at least twice in a matter of minutes.