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Gravity pulled at my core and wind whipped through my hair as I plummeted down through the darkness. I tried to grab at the sides of the tunnel but I only succeeded in bringing down chunks of dirt and roots with me.
Suddenly, I hit solid ground and tumbled onto my face into the dirt, as someone screamed. I lay there for a moment, feeling a blazing fire in my right knee. Painfully I pushed myself to my knees and flipped my hair back, bringing up a small dust cloud around my face.
"Son of a bitch..." I muttered, sitting down on the ground and stretching my legs out. The fire hadn't faded in my knee and it blazed with a fury. I began to massage it as I gazed around.
My heart dropped when I realized where I was. I was in a cave, but much smaller. The ceiling had to be only eight feet tall and the cave room itself was only several yards in length. The only light source came from a small oil lamp that sat upon the dusty floor, casting a yellow glow on the cavern walls and making grotesque shadows from jutting pieces of rock on the walls and ceiling.
"Oh, shit," I murmured, my voice small and weak. I looked around from where I came, and saw a narrow hole in the ceiling. I started to get up - "Shit!" - and fell back down, wincing and groaning in pain. An inferno was erupting in my knee and I couldn't think straight.
Even in the midst of my pain, my mind came up with a joke: Well, maybe you can think gay.
Oh, I can do better than that, I thought, and felt the corners of my mouth tug into a smile. Okay, that's a little funny. Just a little bit, though.
"Hey!" a voice said suddenly. I froze in my crumpled state on the ground, fear chilling my bones to the marrow. The lamp cast a terrifying shadow on the wall of a deformed giant with giant hands and long legs. "Will you quit makin' all that ruckus?"
"Who's there?" I called, and was shocked and ashamed to hear my voice sound so fragile and shaken up. As if talking had taken up the last of my energy, I felt the verge of tears begin to break through my wall of strength. I took a breath, and called, "Please, come out. I'm injured, I need help."
There was unintelligible grumbling and shuffling of footsteps from behind me. I managed to turn myself around to see...
Another goblin; I suppressed a loud groan of irritation. He was certainly smaller and less intimidating than his shadow; his arms and legs were stubby and fat, and his head seemed a bit too large for short, wide body. He was dressed in a filthy, dirt-caked white shirt and wrinkled brown pants and small brown shoes. His small, blue eyes scrutinized me with obvious judgment. His face was ravaged with wrinkles and warts, and his white, furry eyebrows matched his wispy white hair that was partially covered by a red cap.
"Let me guess," he began in a voice that seemed caught halfway through a boy going through puberty and a full grown man. "You got sick of your baby brother or sister, wished the goblins would take him away, and then they did. Now you feel so guilty and you're on your way to the Goblin City right now to get him or her back!"
I stared at the strange creature aghast.
"Why does everyone think that?" I exclaimed, massaging my knee again. It didn't make the pain any worse but I hoped that massaging the tendons would prevent it from swelling.
The goblin blinked at me, all smugness gone.
"Then why are you here?" he asked, perplexed.
I sighed, still feeling emotionally shaken up. This was all one big nightmare and it was never ending... and it had probably only been a few hours.
"Okay, how about I make you a deal," I began, relieved to hear my voice gain an authoritative tone. "You help me fix up this knee, and I'll tell you my story and we'll both get the hell outta here. Deal?"
The goblin let out a 'Ahh!' of petty disgust and flicked a dismissive, chubby hand in my direction.
"There is no way out!" he proclaimed miserably. "This is the oubliette! People are sent here to be forgotten about! It's enchanted to have no exit!"
I stared at the goblin, feeling myself die inside. I put my face in my hands and let it out; the momentary silence was broken by my sobbing.
"I just want to go home," I cried. "I didn't ask for this!... Okay, technically I did, but not this!" Hot tears streaked my cheeks and a small headache began to pound my temples.
A small, pudgy hand touched my shoulder gently.
"Don't cry," the goblin said in a surprisingly gentle tone. "It's not too bad down here. There's no one around to tell you to do this and do that. It's quiet, it's nice. You'll learn to like it."
I gazed up into his ugly face that was trying so hard to be optimistic.
"I'm engaged," I whispered, my vision blurring from the tears. The goblin's face fell and true pity took its place. I put my face back into my faces and let the tears keep falling. I just couldn't hold it in anymore.
Out of the blue, I felt a tug on my shirt and heard the tearing of fabric. I looked at the goblin, who was knelt beside me, holding a large piece of my black shirt. I glanced down and saw a large portion of my stomach showing.
"Sorry about that," he said before I could protest. "My shirt's far too dirty to wrap around that knee. I hope you don't mind too much." He reached into a little knapsack that hug around his waist and pulled out two thick, short sticks. "Hold these," he said, holding against my knee. I took them and held them as he took my shirt fabric wrapped it under the knee and tied it at the top. "There. Now, let that rest for a bit. Keep holding the knee, should keep it from swellin' too much."
I sniffled and nodded.
"Thank you." I stuck out my free hand to him. "Gwen Jackson."
The goblin glanced at my hand confusedly and took it by the fingertips.
"Hoggle," he said, releasing my fingers. "Of course, I'm probably the only one who remembers my name. Been down here for so long."
"What kind of asshole what stick a nice guy like you down here?" I asked, bewildered. And yeah, I was sugar-coating that part a bit, but hey, I wanted to get on his good side.
"Jareth," Hoggle said, plumping down onto the floor across from me. "I helped a girl, a bit younger than you I suppose, get to the Goblin City to retrieve her baby brother. I was actin' against Jareth's orders, of course, since she asked him to take the child away. And, when she escaped, Jareth brought all hell down on me and locked me down here. I suppose it's better than the Bog of Eternal Stench, but it sure does get lonely."
I let out a long whistle.
"Damn," I muttered.
Hoggle considered me for a moment, scrutinizing again but with less negative judgment, I hoped.
"You do seem quite older than Sarah was. You're not fifteen, I take it?"
My jaw dropped and I gawked at Hoggle.
"Sarah was fifteen? Is she that same girl that everyone keeps comparing me to?"
Hoggle nodded.
"The very one. Jareth was head-over-heels for her, but did a good job of scarin' her off. Narcissistic jerk, didn't surprise me. But Sarah was a sweet girl... she was my friend."
I glanced down at my bound knee, feeling like I didn't know Hoggle well enough to be hearing this. I felt like I was eavesdropping on someone giving a private eulogy to a dead loved one.
"I'm sorry," I murmured. "But, can I ask why someone like Jareth - who's gotta be at least like, what, thirty something? - have the hots for a fifteen year old girl? I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's frowned upon. Like seriously, people get locked up for that."
"Oh, Jareth's immortal," Hoggle said a matter-of-factly. "But he likes to think he's young at heart. So, arguing age is like trying to discuss politics with a... well, a goblin, I suppose."
I nodded, pretending like that was supposed to be normal and sensical.
"Immortal. Right, totally not screwed up. So, what kind of advice could you give me if I told you that I... have you ever seen the movie Beetlejuice?"
Hoggle blinked at me.
"Okay, so in Beetlejuice there's this goth girl named Lydia and, long story short, she's nearly forced to marry Beetlejuice - this pervy yet totally awesome dead ex exorcist - because if she does marry him then he's free from the miniature model of the town he lives in - I know you're confused, just bear with me here - and so she and the other ghostly couple have to say Beetlejuice's name three times so he's summoned back to where he came from, which is also the same thing that summoned him there in the first place."
Hoggle just stared at me, mouth hanging open in complete bewilderment.
"Tough crowd," I muttered, then continued, "what I'm getting at is that I am Lydia. I said Beetlejuice's name three times by accident, and now I have to say it three more times to get the hell away from him, or else I'm gonna have to marry him. Right now, I'm trying to say his name three times by getting out of this damn Labyrinth. You get what I mean?"
Hoggle considered for a moment, squinting his eyes in a way that would be adorable if he weren't so ugly.
"I think so," he said slowly in his weird high-low voice. "So, you don't like Jareth, and he got mad and kept you here?"
"No, not like that," I explained. "It's more like, I got to know him a bit through comedy shows that I do - he came to two of them, that I know of - and, I suppose he must've been my number one fan because he was pretty enthusiastic about my work. So, when I said the words, he brought me here and thought I'd just jump into his arms wedding-style and we'd ride a stallion off into the sunset." I sighed and massaged my knee the other direction. "It's all complicated and crap, because I also happen to be engaged, as you know, but Jareth thinks that that wouldn't have lasted if he hadn't kidnapped me."
Hoggle nodded, toying with a loose strand on his dirtied shirt.
"Yes, very confusing indeed," he agreed. "A lot of drama, if you ask me. That's why I like being a goblin. Hardly any drama, just doin' our assigned jobs and going to seasonal feasts at the castle... or, at least, that's what I used to do. But it's nice down here, very quiet, a good place to think."
"About what?" I asked.
Hoggle sighed.
"About life before Sarah showed up," he confessed, looking sheepish. "And just Sarah herself. She was my friend... haven't seen her since I visited her right after she escaped. I guess she was busy."
"How long ago was she down here?" I asked, interested. "Is the time different down here?"
"I've not the slightest," Hoggle admitted, gazing around the oubliette forlornly. "I have no idea about what time it is now, whether it's sunrise or sunset or daylight or twilight or morning..."
"Well, when I crash landed in here, it was about the afternoon," I said.
"What is the date?" Hoggle asked suddenly. "In the Aboveground."
I thought for a second, then said, "June twenty-first, two-thousand fourteen."
Hoggle gawked at me, going a slightly paler shade in the face.
"Two-thousand... fourteen..." he trailed off in crestfallen awe. "...twenty eight years..."
"Twenty eight years? Jeez, Sarah's forty-three now," I said in surprise. "She's probably somewhere in a career by now, probably successful since she conquered this hellhole of a maze. Or she might be married with kids..." it was my turn to trail off, but I was thinking about something else. About a certain man of goblin royalty who'd taken a seat next to me on the bus and boosted my morale with no hope of a reward for doing so. A certain man who'd had his heart broken twenty eight years earlier by a girl who deserved better and had her whole life in front of her.
"Y'know what," Hoggle said, breaking the silence that had fallen upon us. "Let's try that hole in the ceiling. Maybe if I get up on your shoulders, I can make my way up and throw a rope down for you." His eyes searched mine hopefully; the desperation mixed with the sweat beads embedded in his multiple wrinkles.
I smiled and nodded.
"Alright, Hoggle, let's do this." I started to shift myself into position to get up when hot fire cascaded down my leg from my knee. "Hey, can you help me out here?... Hoggle?" I glanced up at him and saw him gawking at me. "What?"
He shook his head, shaking it off.
"Nothing, it's just..." he waddled over and began helping me up. "...nobody ever remembers my name."
I got to my feet steadily with bearable pain and laid a hand on Hoggle's shoulder, which reached my waist.
"I know what it feels like to feel ignored. People should at least get your name right. You have no idea how many people have spelled my name G-U-E-N or G-W-I-N. It's ridiculous. At least your name is easy to spell. Now," I said, as we positioned ourselves beneath the hole in the ceiling, "y'know what one sheep said to the other?"
Hoggle squinted his eyes at me in confusion.
"No, what?"
"Let's get the flock outta here."