Sarah couldn't hear anything but the rapid breaths tearing in and out of her throat. Her every thought was devoted to trying to escape, but she didn't know what she was trying to get away from. The thick fog was making any kind of path impossible to determine, only adding to the disorienting fear raging inside her. She whipped her head around, trying to decipher any kind of shape through the mist, but she couldn't see anything. She didn't know where she was or what she was trying to do, she only had a vague certainty that she had to get out. Sarah heard a shuffling noise to her left and screamed, bolting away from it, her footsteps echoing like thunder in the suffocating silence. The shuffling followed her, and she pushed her legs faster, holding one arm in front of her in case she ran into anything. She ran until she couldn't anymore, and bent over with her hands on her knees, watching the mist swirling around her legs and trying to catch her breath. The shuffling was gone, so she figured she must have lost whatever was chasing her. Once her heart rate slowed enough for her to be able to think of anything else, she tried to focus on calming down. She wouldn't be able to escape if she didn't have a plan. She took a few deep breaths in through her nose and let them out slowly. What was she running from again? Sarah thought and thought, but she couldn't remember what it was that was chasing her. She was deathly afraid, but of what? Even through the fog of fear, her mind dragged up a memory.
"It's doin' what it can to make you wanna turn back. The trick is realizin' that feelin' ain't comin' from inside you."
Hoggle. The Labyrinth! That's right, she was in the Labyrinth to save her friends. She and Hoggle were walking through the maze… then they met Jareth… the robot was chasing them and they ran into the mist… but what happened after that? Where did Hoggle go? Sarah pushed back some strands of hair that were sticking to her sweat-covered face. She straightened her back and as soon as she tried to peer through the fog again, waves of fear washed over her. She shut her eyes and took a few more deep breaths, chanting to herself, It won't hurt me. It won't hurt me. It's okay, it's just another part of the Labyrinth. Eventually, she opened her eyes and peeked around her. The fear was still there, but she was able to push it to a corner of her mind, just like before. Sarah allowed herself a small smile before setting out after her friend.
"Hoggle?" she called into the mist. "Hoggle, where are you?" Nothing answered, so Sarah figured she would try to find Hoggle whilst trying to find a way out of the mist. While calling his name, Sarah tried to find a wall, waving her arms around, desperate to feel the rough stone of the Labyrinth walls. Finally, her right hand smacked into the stone and she leaned her weight against the wall for a moment, relieved at finding some kind of landmark in this sea of white. She was about to call Hoggle's name again when a quiet voice behind her almost made her heart stop.
"Sarry! Sarry, ouch!" Sarah made herself turn around and her breath caught in her throat. Through the thinning mist, Sarah could see a small body topped with a head of golden curls.
"Toby!" Sarah screamed. How the hell did he get down here?! She took off running toward him, but just as she reached out to lift the boy, her hands smashed against an invisible wall. She watched in horror as Toby's face twisted in pain and his smooth skin turned to green scales. "No, Toby!" Sarah pounded on the invisible wall with her fists, and the tears were flowing fast before she even felt them. Toby's eyes went from soft green to a bright, sickly, blood red. His clothes morphed from a pair of jeans and a blue sweater to raggedy leather and dirty brown rags. As Sarah sobbed and smashed her hands against the glass, Toby shrunk in front of her eyes and when she blinked against the tears, she opened them to find a small, ugly goblin, shaking and curling pathetically in on itself. Sarah leaned her forehead against the glass, closed her eyes and moaned, feeling more helpless than she ever had. Suddenly, she fell forward, the glass having disappeared without warning. She opened her eyes to see that the goblin-Toby had disappeared as well. She looked around frantically for him, but the fog had returned to its original obscuring thickness.
Just as she stumbled forward to search for him, a whimper from behind her drew her attention. The dread grew thicker as she turned to see Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus crammed into individual, tiny cages and screaming. Though she knew what she would encounter, she still ran forward and slammed her fists against the invisible wall. On her first trip through the Labyrinth, she rescued Ludo from torment by some nasty little goblins that were torturing him with biting sticks. These same goblins were shoving the sticks through the bars of the cages and the tops were biting Ludo, Hoggle, and Didymus as they cowered in their cages, trying to twist their faces away. The space was too limited for them to raise their arms to protect their faces from harm. Sarah's breaths fogged against the magical glass and her tears were blurring the scene almost completely, something she couldn't help but be grateful for as she glimpsed a pool of blood forming below Hoggle's feet. As she watched, she felt the glass disappear from under her hands and the whole scene in front of her seemed to pop out of existence, leaving nothing behind but the thick mist. Sarah's strength left her and she slumped to the ground, letting her head fall into her hands. Rooted in her dread and sadness was confusion. What is this? Are these things happening? Or are they possibilities? Just another distraction? If so, it was working. Sarah couldn't think of anything but the images of her brother morphing into a goblin and her friends caged and tortured.
Soft footsteps sounded in front of her. Sarah felt so exhaustingly shaken and thought God, what else? With a feeling of inevitability, Sarah raised her head and let her hands drop to her lap. Jareth was walking toward her through the now thin mist. He was in the outfit he wore in the ballroom, the first time she ever really noticed him as a man. The memory of him holding her so closely, his hand resting gently on her waist and his voice soft as he sang to her, made her so angry and resentful that her face twisted into a snarl. She knew after that dance that he was capable of being decent, even romantic as opposed to blatantly seductive, so when he was cruel, it just seemed all the more cold-blooded. She pushed herself to her feet and shouted, "You bastard! If you've even touched Toby, I swear—" Sarah's words were cut off as she bumped into the now familiar feeling of the magical glass. Confusion took over her thoughts as she watched Jareth continue to walk toward her, but he wasn't even looking at her. His eyes were fixed at a spot over her shoulder and his face split into a smile. Not a smirk, but an actual smile. One that crinkled his eyes and showed his white teeth. Sarah's breaths stopped at the sight… he was beautiful.
Through her shock, Sarah's confusion grew. What was this place? Obviously, it was part of the Labyrinth, but what was the goal? To waste her time? It was already doing that, so why give her a vision of Jareth? While she was trying to figure it out, Jareth's smile grew and he opened his arms. Sarah shrunk back from his embrace, but instead of reaching for her, another figure entered the scene and his eyes were for her only. A slender woman with dark hair launched herself into Jareth's waiting arms and Sarah both heard and saw him laugh, burying his head into the woman's hair and lifting her off the ground, spinning her in a circle. It was when Jareth's back was to her that she could finally see the woman's smiling face over his shoulder. Sarah recoiled from the scene as she looked into those shockingly familiar green eyes. Sarah was looking at herself, a vision of a happy Sarah lovingly embracing the Goblin King. Her jaw dropped open as she watched Jareth lower the dream-Sarah slowly to the ground and she stroked his face before standing on her tip-toes to press her lips to his. Jareth's gloved fingers combed the hair back form her face and returned the kiss gently, lovingly. She'd always dreamed of a man kissing her like that. Kyle would sometimes kiss her in a similar way, but he was a boy. His kisses were hesitant and sweet, but the kiss in front of her now betrayed the passion churning within the both of them.
Sarah shut her eyes against the sheer wanting, not just for Jareth himself, but also for the feeling of belonging to someone. To know that she was loved, that someone treasured her. She hadn't felt that way in so long, not since Toby was born. The way Jareth was looking at the dream-Sarah… he looked at her like she was the only woman in the world. As soon as Sarah acknowledged how much she wanted it, her mind rebelled forcefully against the idea of being with Jareth. He was a monster. Her heart may wonder at the possibilities, but her mind knew the certainties. She knew what he almost did to Toby, and she knew what he would do to her friends, what he already has done to them and to so many. Maybe he would look at her like she was perfect… until he got bored. Then, she would be no more than a plaything. Still, as she turned away from the perfect scene in front of her, Sarah sobbed once more. Instead of waiting for the dream-Sarah and Jareth to disappear, she turned and ran, keeping one hand on the Labyrinth wall until the mist was thick around her again.
"Hoggle!" she wailed, terrified again, but not in the same way as before. Mostly, she didn't want to be left alone in this godforsaken mist with nothing but her own thoughts and the memories of her visions around her. She let herself be overcome and slumped against the wall and sobbed, mourning for Toby, her friends, and what could have been if the world wasn't so cruel.
"Sarah?" Hoggle rough, anxious voice called from within the mist.
""""
Jareth collapsed into his throne, the crystal held limp in his hand. He stared ahead without seeing, his mind in a tumult with what he'd just seen. The Aermetus was a particularly hindering part of the Labyrinth, one that Sarah hadn't encountered last time. It uses fear to keep the runner disoriented and distracted while his or her time runs out. If the runner defeats the first wave of terror that the fog induces, it will use the fear in other ways. When Jareth saw the vision of Sarah's little brother, Toby, turning into a goblin, he knew it was using her worst fears against her. The next vision was also to be expected since she was running the Labyrinth to save her friends from the same fate, being confined to cages. What he had not expected was the third scene. He'd known that she wanted him, and he was angry that she always refused him, sure that the reason she rejected him was to show that she still had power over him. Idiot that he was, he thought it was a power struggle. As much as he hates the fae, his mentality is unwaveringly rooted in fae behavior. Each move is an act of defiance, or a counter-move, or a manipulative strike, all to gain more power… That wasn't what he saw in her vision. The entire time he'd hated her for beating him at his own game, he hadn't really understood anything about her. She was a human, a young girl, not a centuries old fae looking for the next kill. As he raised the crystal again, he saw that the dwarf had found Sarah and was now trying to drag her to her feet, but Sarah was still slumped against the wall, tears flowing fast. More than ever before, those tears cut him to the bone. Without a thought more than to go to her, Jareth disappeared from the throne room.
Sorry that this chapter didn't have a lot of dialogue and I know this is a horrible place to end it, but the chapter was getting obscenely long! That said, I have most of the next one written, so expect a quick update.
Also, this is my second time posting this chapter. I noticed a mistake when I read through it again and it was driving me crazy, so I had to change it. Sorry for the extra notification!