Jareth regretted leaving Sarah, but his conversation with Destiny had to be done. Now he was stuck without a solution of what to do next.
He thought about telling Sarah, and perhaps he should. This involved her, after all, but what could he tell her? What would she know of how to fix this? It would just cause her anxiety. Better to gather more information before telling her.
Besides, it was daytime in her area of the world. Whatever was happening in the Dreaming would not worsen until she went to sleep.
Another reason he did not tell her was the worry of alerting Lord Shaper.
He was not a kind creature, and the best interactions Jareth had with him was of respect for one's station and tightly bound to rules. He would most likely do what he needed to do, at the cost of whoever it affected.
He paused all his duties for the day, delegating them to Samuel, his secretary. Samuel said nothing, for he knew that the king did not take days off so suddenly without a good reason.
First thing's first: Jareth had to try to figure out what exactly was happening. He knew the root of why Sarah was causing damage in the Dreaming.
What no one knew, was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and had given her certain powers.
The phrase was more of a prediction. He did not truly love Sarah when they first met. Even if she had been a fully matured adult, they clashed too much.
He found her interesting, intriguing, and grudgingly respected her. But he did not love her. Not yet.
Being tied to Destiny, his Labyrinth had some powers of its own, including predictions of the future and what might happen should one take a certain path.
Which made Destiny's hesitancy in telling him a prediction of the future a bad omen.
The closest he had ever seen the phenomena Sarah was experiencing was when Rose Walker, a Vortex, nearly destroyed not just the Dreaming, but all of reality. Vortexes brought all dreams towards them, destroying the barrier between the waking world and the Dreaming.
Vortexes just happened; there was no creation of them, and no one knew why they occurred. He would wager that even Destiny himself did not know why.
But this was different from Rose. For one, it would not make sense that there would be two vortexes in such a short time. It was unheard of. Then again, if Jareth was being honest with himself, everything about this situation was unheard of. Secondly, Sarah exhibited different "symptoms" than Rose or any other vortex did.
He wrote down theories and events. Together, he tried to piece them into one cohesive story.
As he jotted the ideas down, he almost figured it out. As if the separate pieces just needed to be connected with a simple line…
Despite this being her third cup of coffee today, Sarah felt as tired as she did when she woke up. She could hardly focus on the papers she was reading or the other simple tasks that she was supposed to do.
After grocery shopping, she decided to take a nap. Perhaps she would feel better when she woke up…
The world that Dreamers found themselves in was hardly one that made sense. It is ever-changing and can feel random. Perhaps they find themselves in a place where they longed to be. Perhaps, in their dreams, they can be true to who they are and envision the world they want to live in. Dreams are what drives one to live instead of simply surviving.
On the other hand, dreams can also be nightmares. They reveal the fears in us, the possibilities of our wishes gone wrong. They show us the alternatives and ground us or to create stories to teach us.
The world we live in shapes our dreams.
So what happens when Dreamers have dreams that should have belonged to others?
An elderly Samoan woman, who has lived beside the ocean all her life, dreams of desert kingdoms with gods that existed thousands of years before her time.
A young Irish boy dreams of the Jiangshi, the undead of Chinese lore that he has never heard of that appears to him while he witnesses the Salem Witch Trials.
A college student in Bhutan dreams of what it would be like to be a writer of fantasy novels, about mermaids, and Grootslang snake-monsters, despite never being interested in fantasy in his entire life.
A giant squid that lives deep in the depths of the ocean dreams of flying like the great eagle, its brain exploding at the sheer speed and location it was now in.
It did not end there. The fragments of dreams continue to swarm and crash into the minds of those who it did not belong to.
The pieces are torn away, cultures collide into a muddle of ambitions. Would this change the wishes of these Dreamers? Would they come out of the world confused and rabid?
The fragments strike so many different sensations into the dreams that the Dreaming began to spiral out of control. Some were paralyzed in shock, unable to comprehend the emotions and desires that should have belonged to others that did not fit in with their world view.
The dreams shifted, no longer following the same story or stayed in the same scenery. Or the same planet.
Soon, creatures that lived on different galaxies were having fragments of dreams for stars and whole universes, their skulls fracturing under the pressure of such an experience.
In the opposite direction, gods could not push their mind to fit the smallness that was ants and other tiny creatures, destroying them from the inside out.
"Enough!"
Standing above Sarah Williams' agitated sleeping body, Lord Morpheus placed a hand on her head.
"You have interfered with my realm enough, little mortal. For that, you will pay for the consequences of your actions."
I know this chapter was kind of short, apologies for that. Next chapter is longer though. Thank you reader, for the support!
