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

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Life went on. It had to. No matter if she felt angry or depressed, life went on. And Sarah found that it was too hard being angry or depressed all the time. And long ago, she had given up talking to anyone or anything that might hear her. In the back of her mind, she knew there was always something that she could say that would get attention, but she didn't want that. Not anymore.

So life went on.

Sarah entered her senior year of high school, and was far from the little girl that she had been. Even though not popular, she was soon caught up in all of the things that catch people up in high school. Even without close friends (and still never having a boyfriend), she was happy. She looked at college brochures, was in the drama club, the art club, and she listened while people gossiped. She even went to the prom, picking out a dress eerily similar to one she had worn once in a dream. The boy she went with was only an acquaintance, but that was fine, and nothing more than she wanted. Sarah thought about what to major in at college--something in the arts, but she wasn't sure what.

Life went on.

Until one day at lunch.

She was sitting with three of her school friends (so-called because she never saw them outside of school), and they had finished the remainders of what had been procured from the vending machines. One of the girls' boyfriends had just broken up with her that morning, and needless to say, she wasn't having a good day. In an effort to cheer her up, the others had started badmouthing guys in general. This had eventually turned into a conversation on the qualities of the perfect man.

"So, Sarah," one of them said, "you've never even dated. What kind of guy are you holding out for?"

"I really have no idea," she said distantly, truthfully.

"He would have to be smart," another girl said, "and funny. Really nice."

"Or someone who's really good at sports."

"How about someone who calls you every night and brings you flowers on your birthday?"

The girl who had gotten dumped looked up. "But John did all of those things. He was all of that, and still...nothing." She sighed. "The perfect man? The perfect man would dote on no one but me, he would do anything I wanted just because I asked it, he would give me everything just to make me his. He'd be able to offer me the stars themselves."

"Well, that would be nice," the first girl said. "Not gonna happen though."

"Yeah, I know," the girl sighed.

Then the bell rang, and they divided to go to class. Sarah's mind was still half on their conversation. Suddenly, something mental struck her.

Everything that you wanted I have done..... I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside-down. And I have done it all for you!

Oh my god, the thought swept through her. Had it been that simply put?

Another sudden thought occurred to her: was he why she had never dated? No, not specifically, but now that Sarah considered it, no one else had ever left such a lasting impression on her. Others would forever only be pale shadows to his intensity. And no one else could ever measure up to those things offered.

Those things offered.... How had she not heard those words as they sounded now?

Because she had been just a child caught up in playing her fantasy. Playing her fantasy when there might have been so much more around her if she had just looked, just listened.

The Laybrinth. She had to read the book as soon as she got home.

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Several hours later, Sarah flung the finished book across her room, feeling more confused than ever. She knew there was something that had kept her from burning it, some nagging thing in the back of her mind. And this was it: besides there being a Labyrinth, a baby, and a Goblin King, the story had nothing in common with her own adventure.

What had happened to her was not the book.

The book was in script format, and she had taken so much trouble to learn the heroine's lines, that she had really forgotten what the rest of the story contained. It was a play, the story of a young mother who was so overwrought that she accidentally wished her baby away in a fit of despair one night. The goblins had come, and the desperate woman had pleaded (to no avail, of course). She had been given the same chance, and had taken it.

Except that the Labyrinth in this case had been the palace itself, a dark and twisting thing where she wandered alone for most of the allotted hours. Many times she encountered the Goblin King in his castle, encounters that were suggestive and suspenseful, but that ultimately led to nothing. But she eventually defeated him and won back her child, being instantly transported away.

Looking at it now, Sarah could identify it as Gothic--stories that were usually set in a haunted or mysterious castle, with a young woman often in distress. Yes, Gothic, but what did that matter?

It was so little like the Labyrinth that she had experienced. The words to call the Goblin King weren't even the same--instead of being simple and straightforward, they were dramatic and theatrical sounding. And none of the offers that had been made to her were made in the play. She hadn't even realized it at the time, so intent had she been on solving it and playing her part.

This was a completely different story. The same basic elements, but a completely different story.

Though there was something else that Sarah noticed, during this revisited reading. While there was most definitely a Goblin King, his lines were only listed by "Goblin King," and he was only called "Goblin King." The name Jareth didn't appear once.

And for some reason, this disturbed Sarah most of all.