That night, for the first time in many years, Sarah dreamed.

It was cold. This struck her as odd, because from her recollections it had never been cold the first time. The temperature once hung at that nauseating equilibrium between sweltering and freezing, but now the air was chilled. Perhaps most ominous was the encompassing silence, aside from the crunch of grass under her feet.

Sarah found herself at the entrance to the Labyrinth, although she barely recognized it now. The once strong wooden doors had come off their hinges, and crumpled over into splintered heaps. A light layer of frost covered everything in sight, including the crumbling walls of the entrance and the browning leaves of the maze itself. All was still and eerily silent. Tension blanketed the air as Sarah looked around the twilight landscape, unable to see past the wall of thick fog that encircled her. Something felt wrong, unnaturally wrong in fact, but in a way she could not put into words.

In the distance came a groan, as if the earth itself was bemoaning the cold. Sarah shivered at the heart-wrenching, guttural holler that echoed in her bones. The crumpled leafed hedges in front of her trembled and the bricks shook off a layer of fine dust. Cautiously, she began to walk, passing the broken doors without a second glance as she headed into the Labyrinth. Mist curled around her feet, parting only as she moved mechanically through the twists and turns. Her way forward was burned into the back of her mind, each step allowing it to roar back to life and guide her onward. She moved without thinking, without consideration other than the half-realized knowledge that she was dreaming. She soon found herself in front of a familiar pond, a familiar cottage, and a familiar figure.

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

Hoggle had always appeared old to her, but the figure slumped beside the crumbling walls looked far older than she remembered. His eyes were milky; his hair was patchy and ragged, and his face was the color of ash. As Sarah stared in horror, he turned his head to face her, although his eyes did not meet hers. "There isn't...much time left," he croaked, his voice sounding like stones scattering down a mountainside. "Sarah...where are you?"

"Hoggle! Hoggle I'm right here!" Quickly, she knelt beside him, but as she attempted to draw him into her arms, her hands went through him as if he were mist. The sensation wrenched a gasp from her lips, for it burned as if she had scalded herself. Hoggle's eyes widened as if he could feel her touch, and he noticeably shuddered. "Oh Hoggle," Sarah murmured, "I didn't know it was this bad. I'm coming, I promise."

If he heard her, he gave no indication besides a soft groan of pain. Off in the distance, the moan she heard before echoed through the Labyrinth, shaking the stone walls and causing dust to flutter downward. This time, Sarah felt the very ground around her shudder, and she found that she was falling, ripped away from her friend and cast into endless darkness. There were no helping hands to stop her fall this time, nothing to keep her from hurtling downward forever and ever...

Sarah jolted awake with a gasp and wrestled with her covers in a panic before realizing she was no longer dreaming. The morning sunlight streamed into her bedroom, too bright for her sensitive eyes to handle. Her head pounded along with her heartbeat as she lay in bed. Great, she thought to herself, it's the first day of summer and I'm already hungover. Already her teeth felt fuzzy, coated in the moss of slumber that also addled her mind- a rarity for her, since she was meticulous about her evening routine before bed. Had she truly had so much to drink that she had passed out in bed before brushing her teeth?

Then Sarah remembered why she had a hangover in the first place.

Cursing, she leaped from her bed, hastily throwing on some casual clothes and bursting into the living room, only to stop in surprise at finding it completely empty. Everything looked normal; her dirty dishes for the week were still stacked in the sink, and her books and students' report cards were still in neat piles. She had expected goblins scurrying underfoot, or perhaps Jareth lounging on her couch, but her apartment was quiet. Even that old, faded red book still sat upon her coffee table, as if to taunt her with memories of the previous night. She ran a hand over the cover, unable to help but smile at the reminder of youthful days in the park. It felt like those teenage years had been part of another lifetime, one in which she was naïve and stubborn and living in her fantastic imagination.

The phone rang, and any warmth she may have harbored over her past self was shoved to the back of her mind. Picking up the phone from the wall, she wound the cord around her finger listlessly and winced at the sound of her hoarse voice. "Hello?"

There was crackling on the end of the line, and then a soft, familiar voice. "Hi Sarah!"

"Toby!" Forgetting her hangover for an instant, Sarah did her best to hide her weariness with a chipper voice. "Hi, buddy! What's up?"

"Sarah, it's Saturday. Did you...forget?"

Sarah's Saturdays had fallen into a routine over the past few years. First, she would go to her weekly therapy session, and then she would swing by her childhood home and take Toby out for ice cream in the park. Never before had she missed a Saturday, but with the shock of the night, her careful routine was shattered before her and she had indeed forgotten. Moreover, glancing at the clock, she inwardly groaned at realizing she had overslept and missed her session as well. "I'm so sorry Toby, I completely forgot. I had a busy night last night."

"It's okay. Mommy says everyone forgets something sometimes." He paused, and she heard him whisper into the phone, "Can we still get ice cream?"

Before she could answer, there came a soft tapping at her window. Turning, she sucked in a breath at the sight of a white barn owl perched outside, its beak pressed against the glass. If owls could glare, this one was definitely giving her a dirty look. Ah, Sarah thought, looks like I didn't dream him up after all. She mouthed the words "Go away" at the window and waved her hand in a shooing motion to make her point before responding to her brother. "I...don't think today is going to be a good day for ice cream, buddy. There's...something I need to take care of this weekend."

"Oh. Can we get ice cream next week?"

"We can get double scoops next weekend, for sure."

Her brother gasped in delight, and Sarah shot a glance at the owl to see him tapping his talons impatiently on her windowsill. Either her window was now home to one very moody owl, or Jareth was not amused to be kept waiting. "Toby, I have to go now. There's...someone I need to talk to, or else he'll get grumpy. I can't wait to get ice cream soon, though."

"Sarah?"

"Mmm?"

"I love you!"

"Aw, I love you too! You keep being good, okay? Don't forget that you're the best brother in the whole world!" Sarah smiled at Toby's giggle on the other end of the line, but with that smile came a lump in her throat. Her explanation to her brother was true- she did have someone to deal with- but it still felt like a lie. Lying to a seven-year-old who thought she could do no wrong was not a feeling she reveled in, and as she hung up the phone, the smile slipped from her face. The Goblin King had been cruel last night in reminding her of her prior wish, but he had been honest. Wishing Toby away was the biggest mistake she ever made, and she could only hope that over the years she made it up to him, even if he never realized it.

A grumpy hoot alerted her once more to the visitor outside. Sarah sighed, and opened the window to stare down at the owl before her. "You know," she muttered, "there's a perfectly good door you could knock on. Hell, why don't you just poof into my apartment and scare the shit out of me like you did last night?"

The owl flew past her into the room, and with a fluttering of glitter the Goblin King stood before her, adorned in black leather and a smirk. "I could," he admitted as he adjusted his laced sleeves, "but it occurred to me that you may attack me with another shoe." A sardonic smile spread across Jareth's face, as he added in a low voice, "Besides, perhaps I enjoy having you wait on me."

Despite his human form, his eyes still held that owlish, predatory gaze, trapping Sarah with their power. A few years ago, Jareth standing in her living room would have terrified her, or sent her tripping over the edge into a full mental breakdown. Now, something was...different. He scared her, yes, but the night before he had seemed almost as world-weary as she was. In the light of day, he seemed less of a boogeyman and more like a worn out, washed-up rock star, leather boots and all. Maybe she had been right, and he no longer had power over her.

Maybe. Either way, here he was, a glamorous thing amidst her very unglamorous life. "Well," she finally sighed, "you've left me waiting on you to show up. Did you have a good flight to...well, wherever it is you went?"

"I have a kingdom to run, despite it falling to pieces before my very eyes." His cracks were beginning to show as the regal air he held slipped a fraction. She could have sworn she saw Jareth grimace and ball a glove-covered hand into a fist with a wince. He had mentioned the loss of power to her before, but it vanished from her mind during the torrent of emotion and information. Apparently, he was not keen on discussing his newfound, mysterious weakness, as he straightened and continued before she had a chance to question him. "Now, I believe you've wasted enough time Above."

Ignoring his biting attitude for the time being, Sarah replied, "I wasn't wasting time. Toby called- I usually spend Saturdays getting ice cream with him. It's our thing."

"How absolutely charming. Your relationship with your brother has vastly improved since you carelessly wished him to me."

"It has, and I'm still trying to make it up to him." Suddenly feeling as if she had never slept, Sarah moved into her kitchen for a glass of water, ignoring the headache beginning to form from both the previous night's drinks and the antics of the Goblin King. If his goal was to irritate her, she decided not to rise and take the bait as she added, "It's part of my routine. I go to therapy, then Toby and I get ice cream together and sit in the park. Helps makes me feel a little more...well, normal."

She heard him scoff, and turned to see him almost directly behind her, making her jump at their proximity. While before he had been proud and pompous, the longer he held her gaze, the more that energy seemed to fade. Instead, he looked absolutely befuddled. "Oh, precious," he murmured after a moment, "why would you ever consider yourself normal?"

"I'm not your precious," she grumbled as she sidestepped around him to draw water from the sink. The last thing she needed was the man who haunted her subconscious directly in her personal space. "I'm not some silly teenager with her head buried in fantasy, either." Taking a gulp, she studied his warped image through her glass, smirking at how it distorted his form. "I gave that all up and became an adult. I learned my lesson to grow up and care about the real people in my life. Everything else I just...outgrew."

"Yet you kept the book," Jareth noted, looking now towards the small red volume on the table. "If you truly wished to cut yourself off from the friends you made in the Underground- don't scowl, my dear, that's what you've done all these years- then why keep it?"

Was he serious? She would have laughed at his audacity if she had been in a better mood. "Because," she nearly growled, "it won't leave." Snatching up the worn red book, Sarah stomped toward the open window and threw the once-cherished novel as hard as she could. She felt a bolt of triumph at watching Jareth's brief shock and alarm as the book tumbled end over end out the window and away from view.

She, however, spared no time in explaining. Instead, she moved like clockwork to her bookshelf, where a worn red spine stood out amid the other, thicker novels. Pulling it from the shelf, she held it up for Jareth to see the silvery words The Labyrinth upon the cover. "Before you ask, yes I've tried everything. If I burn it, it shows up on my shelf a moment later. If I give it away, I'll find it in my bag or beside my bed when I get home. I threw it into the ocean a few years back, and it was in my car as soon as I went to drive away. For seven whole years this book hasn't left me alone." Putting the book back on the table, Sarah could only shake her head at it and sigh. "If it was your idea of a memento, it's a really shitty one. A little too on the nose for symbolism too- you just had to enchant the one reminder of everything I wanted to forg-"

"I had nothing to do with this," Jareth interrupted softly, the edge gone from his words. Sarah noted that he had gone pale as he gazed at the red cover. "That magic is not mine."

"What...what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what I say: I did not put magic on your book." Jareth stepped forward, leaning past her to touch the spine with his long, spindly fingers. "I never noticed it last night," he continued in a near whisper, "but there's powerful magic in this book. Perhaps whoever enchanted it is connected to the troubles of the Underground."

"That doesn't make any sense; it's been at my side since I brought Toby back. Who else could have enchanted it? You're the only one with the magic gazing balls, unless some goblin in your kingdom took up lessons."

He never replied, still fixated on the red book and lost in thought. Sarah and tried another tactic. "Okay, weird book voodoo aside, weren't we supposed to be heading out? Or do I have time to brush my teeth, shower, do some basic human things?"

This seemed to break Jareth out of his trance, causing him to clear his throat and straighten back up once more. "I've been generous with allowing you to remain here overnight, but my domain and my patience are running out of time."

"You had seven years to take care of this shit," she grumbled, "and you're only just now worried about urgency? Do I need to pack or something before I go running off with His Royal Asshole to save his world?"

Sarah enjoyed the flash of anger that briefly broke Jareth's otherwise impeccable mask of indifference. Perhaps the comment was petty, but given that the subject of years of therapy had upended her life in less than half a day, she deserved a moment of pettiness. His anger faded back to that stone-cold glare she knew all too well, and he surveyed the room intently, ripping his gaze from hers once more. "Do you still have that bedroom mirror from seven years ago?"

"Are you seriously trying to check your reflection right now?"

"Do you have it?"

Apparently, he was done answering her questions. "What mirror are you talking about?"

"Don't play coy with me. If you kept it all these years instead of throwing it away, it may make traveling a bit easier."

Ah. That mirror. Originally, Sarah wanted to be rid of it due to the memories it held- the vanity that housed the mirror served as a shrine to her mother once, brimming with newspaper clippings of a smiling, successful actress. After the Labyrinth, however, it became something else: a link to the beings she had befriended back in the fantastical realm, and whom she conversed with on occasion. The more she attended therapy, however, the less she felt the need to call upon her companions, and the more the mirror became just an ordinary mirror in her mind...a mirror that now resided in her bedroom.

"I have it," she sighed, "it's in my bedroom. Why can't we just...I don't know, poof into the Labyrinth, like before? Use your magic juggling balls to warp us somewhere?"

"I could," came the curt reply, as he turned in the direction of her room, "but under the circumstances, this will be less...taxing." He strode into her room, with Sarah on his heels as she silently hoped he would not touch anything.

It was almost comedic to see the Goblin King standing in her bedroom, brilliant against the surrounding mundane nature of her life. Thankfully, he ignored the piles of clothing strewn about her space, and did not sneer at the dog-eared, paperback romance novel sitting on her nightstand. Instead, he stood silently beside the rickety vanity, which needed a new coating of paint and perhaps a good sanding. His attention never wavered from the mirror, as he asked, "Is this it?"

"Yes? I really don't understand why you need it. You came here on your own without it- how else did you get into my apartment?"

"Does it really matter? This is the easiest way to return to the Underground, and if you truly want to help your friends, you can simply call on them. Or have you decided to continue to forget about them?"

She wanted to slap that smug superiority right off his face. "I didn't forget about them," she argued, although she could hear her own uncertainty. "I just..."

"Put them out of mind? Removed them from your normal life?"

This time, his honesty cut her deeper than she expected. She had done what was best for herself at the time, but he was right- she had left those crucial friends behind in the process. "Look," she sighed, willing herself to overcome both hangover and exhaustion, "I did try to leave all this behind, but I don't want people to get hurt because of that. Tell me what to do so I can make things right this time."

Jareth swept an arm towards the mirror, his eyes never leaving hers. "Call upon your friends. Simply...say your right words, precious."

Even though he stood back to make room for her, Sarah still felt as if Jareth was unnaturally close. His reflection stood nearly out of view, his face appearing much more gaunt and haggard than she recalled from last night. She had taken his explanation of lacking magic as a poor excuse to get into her room, but perhaps there was some truth to the statement. She of course hardly looked any better, with dark rings under her eyes and a returning headache that had plagued her for days.

For a moment, staring at herself in the mirror, she thought of when she had sat beside this mirror seven years before, lost in dreams of future grandeur, or in a celebratory mood as she spoke with her Underground friends. That Sarah felt like a stranger, with her naivety and her dreamy smile. Perhaps she was never real after all; perhaps all this was her crumbling sanity delving back to those halcyon days of youth.

"Oh Hoggle," she heard herself whisper, as the words slipped out before she could rein them back, "I wish I knew how to help you."

Something flickered in the corner of her vision, something that disappeared when she attempted to focus upon it. A crackling sound, reminiscent of breaking ice, erupted in her ears, and she swore that the glass rippled before her. Sarah rubbed her eyes, but her reflection within the mirror began to blur like watercolors gone runny. If she squinted hard enough, she swore that she could make out abstracts of greens and browns and whites, perhaps a small form crouched before her eyes.

Behind her, she heard the sound of Jareth's nails dig into the veneer of her dresser, as though whatever was going on was taking some form of exertion from him. She did not turn around to see, but could feel him shadowing her. His reflection and her own were gone now, swept up in the darkened colors that, as she watched, began to solidify into something more recognizable: tall hedges, a cottage, the backdrop of an orange sky. Her breath caught in her throat. Tentatively, she leaned forward, peering into the tumultuous landscape.

Before she could utter another word or even think, Sarah found herself in freefall. She braced to bump her head on the glass, but instead she kept going, tumbling end over end as if falling down a hole. Her bedroom fell away, the comforting familiarity traded in for a whirlwind of colors and ringing in her ears. It's like Alice in Wonderland, she thought, except I don't think this is a story, and I'm not going to meet any talking rabbits...hopefully. She wanted, needed to scream, to release the absolute terror that coalesced in her lungs and suffocated her from the inside out. Yet, the scream never came, and just as suddenly as she had fallen, she found herself kneeling on brittle, frosted grass.

For a moment, she sat stunned. It was as if she were still dreaming.

Before her stood tall hedges, looming upwards towards the orange sky streaked through with red clouds. The once evergreen leaves were a multitude of browns and grays now, which rustled as a sticky breeze swept through. The cold temperature of her dreamt-up Labyrinth carried over to the waking world, raising the hairs on her arms as she involuntarily shivered like the dry leaves. Even the grass under her feet looked to be on the brink of death with a sickly yellow hue. Off in the distance, Sarah could see a castle that loomed menacingly, and upon sighting it her heart nearly stopped.

The Castle Beyond the Goblin Kingdom was still formidable, even at a distance. From this far back, at the beginning of the Labyrinth, she could still see that the exterior crumbled in places, and that one of the towers looked to have collapsed.

She couldn't breathe. It felt as if there was something caught in her throat, as if her own body was choking her from within with fear. That had been the final battleground, where through dangers untold she had accomplished the impossible and swore to never go back.

A dull thud sounded beside her, and Sarah turned to find a small red book sitting primly next to her. If there were any lingering doubts as to where Sarah was, The Labyrinth's miraculous appearance quickly banished them. She felt faint as her stomach lurched traitorously, and she clapped a shaking hand over her mouth to keep from screaming or throwing up, both of which seemed suddenly possible.

"Well?" The Goblin King spoke, barely audible over her beating heart. "Did I not warn you that things had changed?"

Apologies for the delay in updating- I wanted to hold off on publishing updates in order to focus on my thesis proposal, but since I'm waiting to hear back on that now, I can devote a little extra time to writing. This update ended up being a monstrous 10k words until I split it in half, so this chapter serves more for setting up some pieces and getting people where they need to be. The next chapter should provide a little more action, as well as introduce a few characters that should be quite familiar!

A quick thank you to the reviewers thus far, and a special thanks to the guest reviewer who mentioned the Rancho. I actually still keep in daily contact with a majority of the folks on there, and this chapter would not be possible without two of them, who (despite knowing very little about Labyrinth) took the time to read and pass on some advice. LadyPaprika and StarshipArtisan, thanks for putting up with my ramblings.

Until next time.