Hahaha, would you believe it? The big blackout that plagued the northeast coast affected me too. And I didn't even lose any power! My mom's friend was staying with us from Australia, and she was supposed to leave in time for my trip, but since the airlines were down, her flight was cancelled. Thus, my trip was cancelled. Which means of course that I can write another chapter for you!

An update on the sleep thing… I have managed to sleep for 3 straight hours, but for some reason after that my body refuses to go back into REM again. The few dreams I do have are short and confusing, thus leaving me, (also known to many as Yazzy-the-dreamer) without much to base my stories feelings upon. Maybe you other writers will disagree with me on this, but when I write a story, I usually try and recapture a certain feeling I have the night before, while asleep, within my writing. Without dreams to help determine my writings, I find myself moving as though through molasses with this story. (Oh, and the hallucinations are also very distracting… very distracting….)

Anyways, I don't own the characters. I never have, I never will. I may dream, hope and sometimes hallucinate that I do, but I don't… so please don't sue me?

* * * *

"Okay… so, I'm here because…"

"Because I wished it."

"Okay. And Hoggle is here because…"

"Because I wished it."

"uh-huh… I see. And the other goblins are here because…"

"Because it'd damned impossible to get rid of them. You know that as well as I."

"Oh. Right. Gotcha…" Sarah rolled her eyes in frustration. She had been in the castle for about 6 hours now, but any answers she tried to wheedle out of the Goblin King were calmly and bluntly deflected. He had mentioned a game to her, but then told her that all would be explained later, and he would not tell her any more that afternoon.

* * * *

She had awoken that morning, just like any other morning. She had rolled over, moaned at the light shining in her eyes, thrown the covers back atop her head, and tried to drift back to sleep. The pounding on the door, from a tired and disgruntled Karen (who had never once been a morning person) telling her to get out of bed quickly lest she cross her stepmother before she'd had some coffee, drove her from the warmth of the cozy blankets.

It was only when in the midst of a hot shower that the events of the night before had washed over her. At first she had believed the icy feeling driving the breath from her lungs had been from the shock of the remembrance, but then she realized it was simply Karen flushing the downstairs toilet.

Ok, pull yourself together. You had a strange dream last night. You woke up and found out the goblin King had been in your room. You're as pissed as hell, but none of that matters anymore, cause you're going to college, and he can't touch you there.

Sarah drowned herself once more in the torrential of steamy water before shutting off the tap, and wrapping a towel around herself.

Sarah herself was not a morning person, but she knew that crossing Karen in the morning was like placing your heart on the tip of a sword held by a person with a violent twitch. So she always made sure that she left plenty of hot water in the shower for her Stepmother, and that the floor was never sopping wet when she left the bathroom.

Coffee… need coffee…

Sarah refused to think anymore until her brain had received enough caffeine to trigger its 'On' switch. Staggering downstairs in a long black bathrobe, she grabbed her mug, which proudly proclaimed "Don't F#$% with me, I haven't had my coffee yet", and poured herself a cup. Usually she drank it with lots of cream and sugar, but today she just downed it black, like an alcoholic at a bar.

Ok, engines slowly turning…Brain cells slowly awakening…Urge to scream now held complete in check…It is now safe to fully think about what happened last night…

And think she did. She thought about it a lot. She thought about it as she finished loading her bags into the cab taking her to the airport. She thought about it as she kissed her family good bye. She thought about it as she sat in the backseat of the cab, twirling the white feather between to fingers. And she really thought about it when the feather changed right in her hands into a note that said

"come play my game, Sarah. I shall teach you things no one else will ever know… ~Signed,

His Majesty, The Goblin King,

JARETH"

And when the note burst into flame, and she had dropped it to the floor, only to look up and see that her cab driver was missing, she really thought about it.

Then she only had time to think one final fleeting thought before everything went white.

Oh… Crap…