Disclaimer: The stuff does not belong to me! Anything you recognize is not mine!
Sarah was getting desperate. They had treated her and treated her and poked at her with sharp things and tested on her and prodded her and examined her on cold, hard, metal operating tables until she was crying so hard that her eyes were red and puffy and snot ran from her nose off her chin, and they had found nothing wrong with her. Her brain seemed to be functioning normally. Her blood pressure and composition was normal. She could discern from reality and fantasy in all matters but this one. And she was getting desperate. For her release from the asylum, for understanding, for at the very least some answers, but she was given none of these things.
Oh, she had started out just fine. Happy, even, upon returning from her day-dream adventure. Her grades had gone up from C to A. She grew out her hair and took good care of herself, make-up always perfect, nails always painted. And she was an excellent reader, always pouring over her books. Always pouring over a certain red book. But besides that small discrepancy, all was good in her life. She was perfect. Better then ever, in fact. She would gossip with Karen over boys and school and clothes, was kinder to her father and would play with Toby. No one really knew what has started this joy in her life, but every one was glad about it.
But then things had taken their turn. Her grades slowly slipped and her hair grew tangled, her nails chipped. She would lock herself away in her room and talk only when she had to. Her relationship with her family went from the best it could be to non-existent. She stopped eating and lost weight so quickly that everyone worried. She went from being a healthy, fit, size eight to a size four with very little fat on her bones. People recall that she seemed to shrink in onto herself, instead of growing up, she grew down. Going from the healthy, assertive 17 year old girl to someone who looked 14, or maybe a meager 15. Her eyes always had dark smudges beneath them from lack of sleep. Her lips were chapped and cracked all the time, staining them blood red.
But always that book, pouring over that book.
It was when she started talking to herself that everyone became truly worried and sought to get Sarah some help. She was always cold and would wander around like a pale ghost in white, hugging herself and murmuring 'It's real, I swear it's real. Don't have my ring anymore, nope. Used to be right here...'. The long sleeves that she would use to warm herself would hide the cuts all over her arms. She had fallen into a state of self-abuse and madness by the time her friends decided enough was enough and called in the doctors, but she was only getting worse in St. Valentines Hospital for the Mentally Unstable.
"It's there!" She shrieked, pointing at the window. "There! There!" And the nurse didn't even look. Sarah couldn't understand why she wouldn't just look. The owl was right there, watching her. It was always watching her.
"Nothing is there, Dear. Now eat your peaches." The nurse told Sarah softly, her tone like one you'd use on wild animals. She was a pretty nurse, but an old one. She was used to delusions.
Sarah shook her head and stared out the window at the barn owl, her mouth set in a stubborn line. She pointed again to the window behind her nurse and murmured "He's right there. He's watching me.."
The nurse sighed and patted Sarah's scarred arm and said gently, "Nothing's there, Dear. It's not real. He's not real."
Tears welled up in Sarah's eyes as she watched the owl over the nurses shoulder and she started to cry. With a long mourning wail, she started to keen his name, over and over. "Jareth? Jareth!? JAAAARREEEETH!!!"
Finally the nurse gave her the shots that made the insane girl go back to sleep. And no one ever saw the owl, or cared enough to even check to see if it had ever been there at all. No one ever saw it when they looked anyway.