A/N: The Oubliette at last!
It was dark.
So dark…and cold.
There wasn't even the tiniest sliver of light from the trapdoor above.
"Jareth?!" Sarah called anxiously. Her voice bounced off the walls.
Jareth?!
Jareth?!
Jareth?!
Scraping her teeth against her dry lips, she swept her hands across the dirt to gauge her surroundings as best she could. Somewhere off in the distance to her right, she could water dripping. Her breathing sounded fast and heavy. She shivered.
"JARETH, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
WHERE ARE YOU?!
WHERE ARE YOU?!
WHERE ARE YOU?!
She quickly crawled across the ground, scared of her own echo, only to jerk back with a painful groan as her face smacked into something hard and rough. She felt a tiny dribble of blood slide from her nostril. Swiping the liquid away, she forced herself to calm down and think rationally.
Ok, just…just relax. You're fine. It's just an Oubliette. You've been in one before and it's nothing but a dusty old room. Just concentrate on finding Jareth and then getting the heck out of here.
Reaching out, Sarah touched the cool, rocky mass she'd bumped into.
It seemed to be a wall.
Leaning against its surface, she stood to her feet.
Let's see how big this Oubliette is.
"HELLO-O!" She shouted.
"HELLO-O!"
"HELLO-O!"
"HELLO-O!"
She certainly wasn't an expert on sound waves, but judging from the number of clear repetitions and the different levels of volume, she guessed that this particular Oubliette must be pretty sizable.
The chute she'd fallen through had veered to the left a little ways, but not too much. Jareth had to be around here somewhere.
Assuming, his hadn't led too far right.
Still, if he is close by, why hasn't he answered me? Why won't he make any noise?
She gazed wide-eyed into the silent blackness.
Maybe he can't. He's bound to have changed again by now. What if he's some kind of bug that I can't hear? Like a butterfly or an ant? What if I accidentally step on him?!
Shaking the dreadful supposition from her head, Sarah grit her teeth.
Stop freaking yourself out! You're running out of time! Get moving!
Inching along the wall, she began to make her way through the murky Oubliette.
Sometime later, Sarah could safely say that this Oubliette was huge and awkwardly shaped. She was growing more and more concerned as the minutes passed.
As she continued to use her hands as a guide, she couldn't help but wonder about Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus.
She desperately hoped that Sir Didymus had managed to escape his pursuers, it terrified her to think otherwise. Lord knows what had really happened to Ludo, but the memory of Mya's haughty smirk made her stomach clench.
And Hoggle…poor, Hoggle.
Sarah blinked back the wave of tears that threatened to overflow. She was never going to see her best friend ever again. She'd never get to argue with him anymore, nor kiss his cheek. He had sacrificed himself for the good of their mission and there was nothing anyone could…
She stopped suddenly.
Could…could Jareth bring Hoggle back?
It was a stretch, but if Jareth could overthrow Mya and seal her, her fairies and her awful thorns back inside the Inner Lake, break the spell on the brainwashed goblins and remove the stench of the Bog from Ludo's fur, surely it wasn't that unreasonable to think that he could resurrect the dead here?
According to what Sir Didymus said, he basically was like a god in this world so, why not?
Regardless, the notion of their being even the slightest chance of saving Hoggle cheered her immensely and, as if fate were agreeing with her, in the very next second, her hand slid onto a round, metallic object.
A doorknob!
Uttering a plea that it wasn't a broom closet, she turned the knob and pulled the door open. Thankfully, no pots or pans clattered to the floor, though she was a little disappointed that there was still nothing but darkness.
She carefully edged past the opening and into the new space.
After only a few steps, she stumbled over something. Crouching down, her fingers ghosted over, what felt like, a pile of rags.
Then she heard it.
A faint scratching…that was coming closer.
"Who's there?" She whispered nervously as the sound came right up to her. "Jareth, is that you?"
She leapt back with a startled yelp as a small, furry lump tried to jump in her lap.
Her heart hammered against her rib cage.
What the hell was that?
The mysterious creature brushed against her legs. A sharp squeak pierced the gloom.
Sarah recoiled again, seriously considering giving it a whack with her shoe.
Wait! Her mind vehemently protested. What if it's Jareth?
Hesitantly, she held her left hand out, low to the ground. Instantly, the quivering animal climbed onto her palm.
It was too large and heavy to be a mouse. Maybe a rat? Her fourth grade teacher had a rat as a classroom pet, so she wasn't bothered by the possibility, though she would've preferred being able to actually see it.
Thinking for a moment, she eventually crossed her arms at the elbows.
"Jareth, if it's really you," she instructed, "go to my right hand, then go back to my left again."
The rat swiftly and obediently skittered up her left wrist and forearm, hopped over her elbows and down to her right hand, then repeated the trail perfectly, in reverse.
Overjoyed, Sarah tucked Jareth between her cheek and shoulder.
"Oh Jareth, I'm so glad you're okay!" She gushed, stroking his back all the way down to his long, course tail. "Do you find a way out?"
The Goblin King squirmed in her loose grip and the girl lowered her hand again, but Jareth stepped off and firmly swished his tail across her palm.
After a beat, she finally caught on and gently closed her fingers around his tail, letting him lead her through the rest of the Oubliette.
Sarah was amazed at their luck.
Jareth had led her only about a hundred feet before they reached another door and were momentarily blinded by the luminescence. Once her eyes had adjusted, she saw that her hunch had been correct. Jareth was indeed a rat, with pearl white fur and a blonde tail.
As they went on into the False Alarm section, Sarah was sad to discover that their mouths had all been gagged by Mya's thorns.
Cautiously as she could manage, though she still sliced open her thumb on a spine, she had pried the one of the branches away enough for the False Alarm to promise her agonizing death if they ventured any further. She had smirked to herself as she poured the last of Hoggle's antidote onto her stinging thumb, remembering what the dwarf had told her about the stone faces:
Ya get a lot 'a them in the Labyrinth, especially if yer on the right track.
Currently, she was standing with Jareth in her hands at the mouth of the Tunnels, deciding which direction to take.
Right or left?
Both were equal in terms of creepiness and the amount of shadows. Oddly enough, that gave her an interesting idea.
"I have a random thought." Sarah said, glancing at the rat. "You know how Hoggle was talking about the Labyrinth not being dead and rejecting Mya as its queen? Logically, that implies that the Labyrinth is…alive, right? Like a living being? Sir Didymus also said that it's as old as you are so…maybe the Labyrinth itself will lead us to the treasure because...it wants us to succeed, as long as we do it fairly. Think about it, when we were in danger or lost, we usually ran into something that helped us: the cave, the Lookout, the Worm, the car, the Oubliette, that loose pillar in the Stone Quarter, the clearing where the Wiseman's pages were! I…think the Labyrinth has been helping us. I mean, if we win, we wouldn't just be saving you and the goblins, but the whole Labyrinth too. So, maybe it doesn't matter what path I take, because the Labyrinth will take me where I need to go. Does that make sense?"
Jareth licked her pinky.
Grinning and steeling her resolve, Sarah confidently turned to her left and almost strutted down the tunnel.
They'd only gone a mile through the brick-lined passage when Sarah abruptly froze.
"Do you hear that?" She asked the rat in a quiet voice.
A whirring and hissing sound was getting louder and no sooner had she mouthed the words, than the Cleaners came barreling towards the pair.
Sarah fled back up the tunnel, squeezing Jareth to her chest as the horrible machine surged after her. She hoped to God she wouldn't run into another locked gate. With her free hand, she slapped the walls to see if any of them would collapse.
The grinding roar of the spinning blades stung her ears.
Suddenly, her toe caught on a gap in the flagstone and she fell flat on her stomach.
Jareth immediately squirmed out of her grasp and started running in the opposite direction!
"JARETH!" Sarah screamed in a panic as she scrambled to her knees and made an unsuccessful grab for him. "JARETH, COME BACK!"
It was too late.
All she could do was watch in horror as the white rat darted straight to the Cleaners and vanished underneath its rotating body.
A/N: Almost done, guys! Review if you love me and guess the last animal for a sneak peek!