Her eyes flickered in the small beam of light that shone directly on her, seeping through the terrifying darkness of the room. She had not yet opened her eyes but she could already sense the chilling atmosphere which she was about to encounter. Her vision was blurry and her eyes stung, unsurprisingly from the power of Quince's spellbinding gaze. As she finally peeked out into her consciousness she could make out the shape of someone who was leaning by her.
"Jareth?" she asked feebly.
Suddenly a burst of laughter erupted from several ugly goblins, including the leaning figure that Sarah now realised was also a goblin, not Jareth!
Their laughter startled Sarah, making her sit up abruptly and gaze around at the whole of the dungeon, where she could see Quince resting against a large rock, sneering to himself. He signalled for the goblins to leave and Sarah watched as they dissapeared into the darkness.
"Jareth's not here Sarah" he said walking closer to her. "But don't worry…you won't be here for long either" he said, his smirk becoming even wider.
The room was a huge dark pit. Looking up she could see just a small speck of light from a gap in the ceiling but it was too far to even think about escaping that way. She looked around the whole of the room. It was so dark that she couldn't tell how big the room was and whether there was anywhere to try and escape to. There were no walls, doors or corners in sight.
She noticed that the 'evil Quince' had some similar traits to Jareth. The way he fiddled about with his gloves and the way he patronised her with his wicked grin. But Sarah had learned to like Jareth and trust him to a certain degree. Quince made her more scared than Jareth ever had.
Sarah tried to stand up and search for an escape. That was when she realised that her foot had been locked up in a large chain. She tried to struggle free but there was no way that she herself could ever break out of the chain's strength.
Quince laughed.
"Not even Jareth himself could use his magic to break you out of that chain."
"Where is he?" she asked.
Quince thought about it for a while.
"Tell you what, why don't I show you where your precious lover is."
Quince held his hand out so it pointed to the top left corner of the room. All of a sudden there was a loud clanging sound. Sarah watched as a small metal cage dropped down from out of nowhere. Inside the cage was a snowy white owl which looked shabby and wounded. Some of it's feathers looked like they had been ripped off and it had blood around it's face and claws. Sarah looked into the owls eyes. To anyone else they would just look like ordinary owl eyes, but Sarah could see the person inside the owl.
"Jareth" she whispered.
"Yes that's right" said Quince who walked up to the caged and leered at the owl. "I like him better as a bird. Much better to look at, much less argumentative."
"Please Quince, you're problem's with me not Jareth. Can't you just change him back" she pleaded.
"I'm afraid I can't. What kind of idiot would I be if I set free the only person who could stop it happening.
"Stop what happening?" she asked, afraid of what the answer might be.
Quince glared into her eyes.
"Your death!" he sneered.
Quince walked back a few steps and clicked his fingers - a sound that seemed to echo around the whole room. Sarah didn't know what the click was for but whatever it was, it wasn't going to be pleasant.
She could faintly hear the sounds of marching from far away. It was like a whole army was coming for her. She sat there pathetically, left to face whatever evil was approaching. The footsteps were getting closer. From the shadows in the distance she could barely make out the silhouettes of human-shaped figures marching towards her.
STOMP STOMP STOMP
She quivered as she held her breath, terror flooded her eyes as if this was to be her end. The stomping got closer and louder. Sarah gasped in awe as she gaped upon the tens of skeletons that were drawing near to her. She could barely move, the chain wrapped around her foot so tightly that even a slight movement of her leg would injure her. She looked at their faces. Their expressions were a fixated open-mouthed cold stare. They carried axes with them and moved so that their marching synchronised with each other. Their icy stares pierced into Sarah's fearful eyes.
She was confident that she was going to die any second. The skeletons came closer and closer until they were only metres from her. But surprisingly, they stopped, just as they were getting close.
Sarah looked confused.
"What's the matter, why don't they just kill me now?" she asked.
Quince laughed.
"They're not going to kill you - I am. They're just going to guard you for a while while I go and get the others.
"What others?"
"You don't think I'm going to just kill you without letting all my people enjoy the show do you? Sarah I have better style than that. We all want to make sure that you die, so that you can never return to the Underground ever again!"
The dark room suddenly went a little bit lighter. That was when Sarah became aware that she was located in an old abandoned theatre, with hundreds of seats which she now realised that soon would be filled with creatures from the Underground who would watch her die live on stage!
"Please Quince" she cried.
"Sarah I have no heart…I'm damn good at acting sentimental as you now know, but I would never feel any sympathy for you so you might as well save your tears" he said as he began to make his way off the stage and out of the theatre, leaving Sarah on the stage with the caged owl and the skeleton guards.
She knew that now she only had one hope - Lysander.
"Oh I almost forgot" said Quince. "Don't think that I'm unaware of that fancy-pants buddy of yours.
Suddenly, another cage dropped down from the right hand corner of the room. This cage was much bigger. As it reached the ground Sarah noticed that Lysander was lying unconscious inside the metal box.
Sarah began to cry.
"Poor Sarah" Quince said mockingly. "Oh well, it'll all be over soon" he said before he left the theatre.
For the first few minutes she did not know what to do. Her head kept turning from Jareth to Lysander but they were both hopeless in their current positions. She couldn't shout for Lysander to wake up because she was afraid the guards would do something to her.
She couldn't help but look at them. Their fixated stare chilled her to the bone. They didn't move. They didn't speak. They just terrified her with their unavoidable presence.
At least that was until something from the far end of the theatre had distracted them. There was a loud banging noise just outside the door, making them all turn their heads together to face the back of the theatre.
Suddenly the back door came flying open and to Sarah's amazement, in came her old, courageous friends - Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, Ambrosius and the Fireys!
"I'm comin' Sarah" shouted Hoggle.
"Fear not my Lady" said Sir Didymus.
Quickly, the skeleton-guards stood up and marched over to the creatures. Typically, Sir Didymus charged up to them without a fear in the world, while Ambrosius tried as much as he could to resist his masters commands. Ludo's bellowing howls echoed around the theatre, causing lots of rocks to come rolling through the doors. Hoggle was trying to find a way of getting to the stage and rescue Sarah, and the Firey's were jumping around all over the place. It wasn't clear whether they were actually helping or not.
It was just a shame that none of the little animals were doing any good. Sarah should have known that Quince would have not sent in guards that would easily be defeated by a few little creatures. The skeletons were not affected by anything Sarah's friends had tried to do to them. They flung Sir Didymus across the room and blocked Hoggle's path to the stage. The rocks that Ludo called didn't even touch them and unsurprisingly the skeleton-guards recognised that the Firey's had removeable heads which they easily took off and threw about. The skeletons no longer marched but were swiflty chasing Sarah's friends and bruising them up badly. Sarah wanted to shout for her friends to run but she knew that her voice would just put all of the guard's attention on her again. She simply sat and prayed that they weren't badly hurt. Eventually the skeletons chased them off outside of the doors leaving Sarah alone in the theatre - apart from the owl and the unconscious boy.
One thing her friends had managed to do though was to distract the guards from her. Sarah knew that she had not got much little time to try and wake up Lysander and to find a way out of this whole mess before the guards, Quince and the whole entire Underground appeared to watch her death!
Ooooooooooooooooooh! What will she do!I wasn't going to update another chapter until I got back but o thought - "Hey, what the heck" - you're all so loyal to the story. Are you pleased? I'm not adding anymore until I return though - I need time to breathe people!! The next chapter will arrive in just over a week. I think there will be one or two final chapters, as well as an epilogue and a final note from me. Until then xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
P.S. musicalexpert I'm sooo jealous. I've always wanted to go to New York!