I want to apologize for the obscenely short chapter but I had a lot of issues writing this one, there was much more to it buuut I erased it in a fit of exasperation and disgust. Trust me, it was a good decision. Anyway, I felt bad leaving you all hanging...even though I'm doing it again... but at least it's more of the story and a HUGE revelation that you were all probably expecting anyway. Oh and fear not Auctavia, Jareth will be making an appearance in the next chapter. And thank you thank you for the review. I'll keep everything you said in mind for future chapters :)

A scream should have ripped through me but all the air seemed to have left my body with the sudden descent. I flailed my arms about desperately trying to grasp for something, anything that would prevent me from falling to my death. And just after I survived the Minotaur, that evil prick is going to finish me off like this… In the whole of a few seconds a thousand thoughts ran through my mind, there was no way out of this, I was going to die. At least I won't turn into a goblin. I wonder if Jareth will be upset by my death even a little…

But then a hand grasped my wrist, in a near painful grip, and another began to grip me around the waist in an odd but life-saving-heavenly way, I couldn't help the flutter in my chest (mostly because I wasn't going to die) and the smile that stretched broadly and uncontrollably over my face. I was sure I looked positively mad in that moment.

"Jareth! Oh God, I never thought I'd be so damn happy to be in your arms!" I laughed manically.

But then another hand slid around my ankle, another clenched my shoulder, sides, arms, every part of my body was being grabbed and groped and I choked out some unintelligible sound that was laced with a sickening fear. "Ah, let go! Let me go!" I thrashed as best I could, which was practically not at all; words muffled by a hand that grasped the bottom of my jaw.

"Let go?" I was falling again momentarily, screaming bloody murder, before being snatched back into the grip of all those creepy hands. A voice sounded uncomfortably close to my ear, only it wasn't just a voice, it was as if it were multiple voices in one; a strange sensation to hear out of one mouth. Or at least I assumed it was one mouth, it was so dark I could hardly discern my hand let alone the dozen or so that were no doubt leaving indentations with their fingers digging in like that. "But we're helping hands." It said tauntingly.

"Helping hands!? But your- OOF- hurting me!" They shifted me in their grasp, knocking me in the stomach in the process. "Ouch, watch it will ya!?"

"Well, which way? Come on then, we haven't got all day."

"Which way!? UP, definitelyup, there's just something, oh I don't know, utterly terrifying about falling down a deep, dark pit."

"Down? You heard her boys… down she goes!" I was plummeting to my death again.

"Wait…WAIT! I said up damnit! UP!" but it was too late, I could hear their snickering for a split second before crashing to the hard ground; the edges of my consciousness blurring; dream world drawing ever closer.

Dead, I'm dead. Somehow I thought death would be more bright lights and warm, glowy feelings…

Darkness surrounded me like a blanket of snow; it was nearly as cold too. But a glimmer in the distance caught my attention and before I knew it I was drifting towards it, a strange tingle in the back of my mind. The glimmer danced and dazzled as I got closer, a crystal that moved so fluidly that I was surprised it wasn't waving around Jareth's hands. I reached out to touch it, sure I was so close, but my hand met nothing but air. The crystal grew nearer and nearer, it's size increasing all the while. Suddenly I was presented with something all too familiar; a huge crystal orb glowing eerily like a scene from my dreams.

A light chiming of music floated around me as an image formed in the hazy glass. A girl, a girl that seemed so familiar to me, and oh how she danced, completely in rapture of the tempting devil before her. That face I knew too well, Jareth. A pang of jealousy shot through me and I had to scoff at myself. "I'm not the first and I won't be the last." I'd meant for it to be a mere observation but it came out in a much more miserable tone than I'd intended.

"June?" The girl tore away from the scene around her; the bottom of her poofy white dress gathered in one hand as she ran towards me, panic written all over her face. "June, run sweetheart, run!"

That voice, why do I know that voice…

I began to back away, head violently shaking back and forth as if to say what my mouth could not, 'No'. Something was terribly wrong; I couldn't escape that face, that voice. I felt sick, this must be a trick, a dream. A dream!

I coughed and choked, gasping through the pain and squinting at the dark room I now lay, most certainly very injured, in while a dim light shone from above where I must have fallen from. It did very little to light the rest of the room. I knew I should get up, grit through the pain and get my bearings but lying there in that dark room, my mother's face still lingering in my mind, things began to click into place; things long forgotten brushed off the cobwebs and rushed to the forefront of my mind.

Suddenly I could recall the stories my mother told me as a small child. Stories of a great battle with an evil King who would lock her away forever and transform her brother into a hideous creature, stories where she fought her way, through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered…

I remembered her mantra…

"You have no power over me" I breathed out, barely a whisper, and prayed for the world to fall away.