DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS.

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Sarah's family noticed a distinct change in her over the course of several months. They remarked that she was finally growing up, that she was finally putting all childish things behind her. They attributed this to the fact that her sixteenth birthday was fast approaching. This was why she had stopped playing fantasy games.

However, they failed to realize that it was an encounter with the true fantasy that had sent her spiraling in the opposite direction....

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The day after, Sarah had woken up in her own bed. She groggily rolled over, turned off the alarm (it was a weekend after all), and lay back, wondering at the amazing dream that she had had.

Then she bolted upright, remembering. It hadn't been a dream.

Her first instinct was to throw on her robe and check on Toby. But she curbed it, instead hurriedly getting into her robe and walking downstairs to breakfast as if nothing was wrong. She entered the kitchen.

Nothing was wrong. Her father was reading the newspaper, and her stepmother was feeding Toby, who sat in his highchair. The sun was shining, and the whole thing looked the picture of perfect life.

"Good morning, Sarah," her stepmother said.

Suddenly, something in Sarah clicked. It just didn't matter anymore. "Good morning." She paused. "I have something to say. I--I've been horrible to everyone lately. I don't know why. But I hope you can forgive me. I don't hate you, I don't hate Toby, I...I just feel that you don't understand me."

"Sarah, I think that's perfectly natural at your age," her father said, having set down his newspaper.

Her stepmother nodded. "I don't try to be mean to you, I really don't, but--"

"But I always see it that way," Sarah finished. "I'm sorry."

"Did something happen last night, Sarah?" her father asked.

"No. No, just that Toby and I...bonded or something." She forced herself to smile. "He finally got to me, I guess."

"Sit down, dear, and I'll fix you some waffles."

Her favorite. Sarah sat down. This wasn't her mother, she never would be. But it suddenly struck Sarah that she wasn't there to make her life a living hell, either. She could deal with it.

-----

Breakfast went pleasantly, more pleasantly than any that she could remember. Afterwards, Sarah took a nice hot bath, and then even gave Toby a bath. She quickly changed, put her wet hair up, and was actually about to go offer to help with any chores when something occurred to her.

There was something that she was avoiding. What was it?

She suddenly stopped in the hallway and looked at her closed door. She stared for what seemed like hours before she moved, once again intent on doing something--anything.

-----

It was a full week before she forced her mind to answer the question. Did it happen? It had to, it must have; even she couldn't have dreamt that up. She remembered everything, every detail.

Sarah forced herself to go into her room. Not that she hadn't been in there to sleep and such--but in, out, and never spend any length of time within seemed to be her current rule. She used to lock herself in her room for hours on end, but now it almost made her sick to look around. It was dizzy, clouded, so many things made her think of so many things. Everything reminded her of something. She found herself sitting at her desk, looking into the depths of her room through the mirror.

"Hoggle," she heard her voice saying, small, detached.

Nothing happened. She waited.

"Ludo? Sir Didymus?"

No response.

Sarah remembered it, she remembered the end, what they had said, and when they had been here...or at least she thought she did. She hit the mirror with her hand, hard. "Work, damn you!" she shouted at it.

Nothing. Her dresser shook and ornaments fell, but that was all.

In a daze, Sarah found herself out in the garage, asking her father for some boxes. In a daze, she found herself packing things up, as if her body were running on automatic. Her posters, her books, her pictures, her figures, her toys, her dolls--not only things which reminded her, but anything childish. It all went to the attic.

Her room wasn't bare--far from it--but it suddenly seemed very impersonal, like the room that one keeps for a guest. That was fine with her.

When asked about it by her family, she had only answered that she was tired of all of it. She had expected more questioning than that, but they accepted it. It was only natural for them to assume that she would finally tire of such things.

And it was only a dream, she decided, a fanciful diversion she had made up and carried out in her games and in her sleep. It was time to move on. And if it wasn't, there still wasn't much that she could do about it, was there? But it was only a dream, a game, a dream that seemed more and more distant as the weeks went by. And Toby was fine. If it had happened, he would have been unfine for days, surely. Though, despite that fact that it became more and more muddled, there were parts that stood out with perfect clarity. But then again, she could say the same of any vivid dream.

It never happened. Even if a small, tiny, minuscule part of her wanted for it to have happened, it never happened.

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The problem is, as is with anything to do with the mind, that the mind is a peculiar entity. It can convince one that something did happen; it can convince one that something did not happen. It can play tricks unto itself, and sometimes--sometimes--even it doesn't know what it may do, or when it may break.