Title: Sweet Thing
Author: Aviry Nolane, slvrluna47@aol.com
Rating: Rather PG
Summary: Recipe For One Sweet Thing: One part feisty main character, riddled with emotional holes, add one part authoress tired of emotional crapwittage fluff, mix well, adding chunks of bad humor and hollywood glam. Mix. Destroy.
Keywords: One Evil Sarah
Notes: Ok, I know. she doesn't seem so evil in this chapter. IM GETTING THERE, OK?! lol. just wait, she's tired in this chapter and a little shaken.
Again, many cookies to redaura who has been helping me with the plot.
Enjoy!
Chapter 4 - Splish Splash
Sarah sat up in bed, alert.
Pulling the thick mat of her hair forward from her sweat soaked back, she rolled her head in a half circle and closed her eyes.
The dream.
"Damn it," she whispered to herself. "Never a break."
She had known it was coming. It had come every night for the last nine years without fail.
Over the last few years in particular it had gotten progressively worse, as if it was building up to some immaculate conception. The dream had never remained the same, instead preferring to slowly build, the scene growing increasingly more detailed, each time the horror extending further into the depths of the night.
She shuddered involuntarily at the newest turn her night terror had taken. She had never seen the peculiar glint in the eyes of the ravenous goblins.
What's more, she had never seen what was shrouded in the shadows before. She had never dared to think, dared to dream that…
The king was dead.
She rose, unable to absorb this new bit of information sitting down.
Shaking her head, she made her way into the adjoining bathroom.
"It was just a dream, Sarah." She quipped angrily at herself. "Just a stupid, stupid dream."
She glared at herself in the mirror, detesting the anguished look deep in her eyes, the disheveled mess of her hair, the sunken pallor of her cheeks.
"It's over." She snapped, "over. You are a twenty-four year old grown adult with a successful career and a life that most people can only dream of." Her voice was haughty, purposeful.
Her reflection did not look convinced.
She tried again. "Stop with the games. You're a big girl now, Sarah. Stop living in fear of a fantasy." She paused, the tone in her voice taking on a self-mocking quality.
"Sarah," she chided, "There is no such thing as the Goblin King."
She nodded back at herself. This seemed to have done the trick.
Leaning over, she turned on the tap and splashed her face with overflowing handfuls of ice cold water, trying to drown away any lasting images of the skeletal form of the king of the goblins.
She had accomplished her goal of drowning away thoughts of the Underground in a record-breaking time of only a few moments.
Usually she was mildly incapacitated and overly irritable for over a week before she finally convinced herself that the reoccurring trauma was just the result of some psychological regression problems, prone to take form near the time of her supposed "abduction".
At least that's what Sarah's therapist had said. Her first therapist.
But Sarah was done with therapy now. She had tried psychoanalysis, she had tried behavior modification, and she had tried yoga, karmic balance theorems, and acupuncture.
Finally, she just became resolute in the fact that she was crazy, and needed to move on.
Which she accomplished remarkably well.
Not that it at all mattered.
Reaching out with a searching hand, she grasped at the wall blindly, seeking out the towel that hung there.
That usually hung there.
Sarah grunted angrily and spun around, blindly in search of the laundry basket.
And walked straight into her towel.
Her heart stopped and her eyes flew open, hands reaching out to grasp the towel before her. The towel which she sincerely hoped had just been strung from the ceiling above the tile floor by a loose thread, and was in no way, shape, or form attached to a being, magical or otherwise inside her home.
Even she realized how unrealistic that sounded.
She winced as the soap stung her eyes and jumped away from the dark silhouette that she could make out blocking her exit.
"Go away!" she shouted, wiping at her eyes with her left hand to no avail, and frantically searching for an implement of torture with her right.
Her only reply was a throaty chuckle.
Things weren't looking good.
Finally, her hand made contact with something that felt dangerous.
She held it out before her with both hands, hoping her squinting eyes made her look more dangerous than vulnerable.
Moreover, that her fiercely pounding heart, which she was sure her assailant could hear, more threatening than afraid.
Which she was, terribly.
"Get out of my house!" she shouted again, voice giving away no sign of weakness.
A moment passed. She shifted.
"Really, Sarah," spoke a deep voice that was rapidly closing in on her, "This is the second time you've invited me, and the second time I have been shocked by your foul manners."
A hand brushed the side of her face and Sarah lashed out with her impromtu weaponry... which she now realized to be her toothbrush.
He was too fast. With a swift brushing of the air around her Sarah was disarmed and twisted into her assailants grip by her wrists.
Through her bloodshot and squinting eyes she could make out only one detail.
The eyes.
And the eyes, she remembered.
"Aren't you even going to ask me to sit down?"
Her mouth fell open in a mixture of outrage and shock.
"You're not real!"
A towel flew into her face at this statement, and her arms were released.
"Oh, Sarah," dripped the milky voice, "I'm ever so tired of that line. I'm sure that next you'll be telling me something along the lines of how dreadfully unfair everything is."
She cleared her eyes as quickly as possible and was greeted by the darkly dressed form of the undead Goblin King perched on her bathroom counter.
He raised an eyebrow, "let's try something new, shall we?"
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( avi )