When she wakes she cannot breathe. Little needlepoint lights prick at the edge of her vision, but she can feel that her eyes are closed.
When she opens her eyes the world is darkening quickly, and on the edge of the horizon the sun is setting into liquid gold, peeking between the branches of tall trees.
Sarah realizes that she is lying on her back in a forest somewhere, and it's almost funny because she doesn't even remember falling asleep. Except that it's not funny because somewhere close by she can hear animal howls and the screams of a small child.
Her heart races in her chest and she sprints to where she thinks she hears the unearthly shrieks, and she stops short when she sees feral-looking fiery bird things, but she does not stop because they are tugging at the little boy's hair and pulling violently at his skin, she stops because she knows them.
Or at least recognizes their kind. They once stopped her in a forest too.
Licking her lips and trying to quell the anxiety that rises like a tidal wave somewhere below her heart, she picks up a twisted and gnarled stick. It would have been a nice walking stick, but Sarah has something a little more striking in mind.
Sarah flings herself into the small clearing before she can change her mind and lands a solid strike on the one creature's head. It goes flying off into the distance, and she repeats the process with the remaining tormenters.
As they scramble for their heads, Sarah stops them and tugs off their arms, pitching them as far as her adrenaline-enhanced strength will let her.
She does not stop to talk to the child; instead she picks him up and flees, pressing his bleeding forehead to her shoulder.
When she is winded and he has stopped crying she sets him down and looks him over. His left eye is swollen and bleeding a little, but other than that he is mostly just bruised. He stares at her and from under the swollen left eyelid she can see that his pupil looks strange. His hair is blonde and even cut short the way it is, it sticks up at odd angles.
There is, she thinks to herself, definitely something strange about this boy…
"What's your name?"
"Jareth."
Her blood runs cold.
A/N