I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
Hello, all. It's been a phat minute. I got caught up in a lot of personal life stuff. Then... The big C.O.V.I.D stuff. Along with more personal life stuff. This life is not a merciful one. But, here I am. Sort of back in the saddle.
*Eyes my unfinished stories*
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyway, I wrote a new story. Please read it. For you. Please like it. For me. Thank you.
*Disclaimer: I don't own anything except some of the words coming out of my mouth. Some of them.*
Enjoy!
"You have no power over me."
"No!" Jareth screamed.
"No!" the Goblins exclaimed, astounded.
A clock began to strike.
She heard his voice, for a last time, moaning, "Sarah… Sarah…" His empty cloak was settling onto the ground. A beam of light picked out a little cloud of dust motes rising from it.
The clock continued to strike.
With a last, slow flutter, the cloak lay still. From beneath it, as the clock struck for the twelfth time, a white owl flew out and circled over Sarah.
Tears were trickling down her cheeks.
Then…
She was standing on the staircase of her home, and it was dark outside.
"Toby," she shouted.
And so the girl, perhaps an ordinary girl no longer, had said the words and succeeded. Her brother won back and the journey over. She had paid for her actions with equal and just consequences, and now there was a new chapter in her life, and the consequences were over.
There was one adventure per hero, Sarah thought, and her adventure was over. Unless… Unless there was a sequel, but she hadn't left any room for a sequel had she? The Goblin King was gone. Done. Defeated. Perhaps even dead.
She shivered at the thought.
Her story was done and she had been granted her typical - if a little mundane - happy ending.
Finished.
7 years later
Morning broke her dreams.
Her mind came alive once again. Sarah was reluctant to let it. Already she could feel the swirl of her thoughts. The overwhelming whispers of defeat, regret and longing.
She groaned and turned over in her bed.
A knock at her bedroom door raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Sarah?" The voice of her step-mother was muffled.
"Come in," Sarah sighed and raised herself so that she was sitting.
Karen entered the room. Clothes pressed and hair neatly tucked back. Sarah wondered how the woman was so detailed and organized, even in the early hours of morning. There was no slacking on her side.
Karen took one look at Sarah's disheveled hair and wrinkled pajamas and cracked a smile. "How did you sleep?"
"Horrible, but I actually fell asleep this time," Sarah said and pushed herself off the bed. Her covers slipped and revealed a flannel shirt and matching pants.
"Breakfast is ready - ah, ah - make your bed first!" Karen warned as Sarah headed towards the door.
Sarah huffed and turned back to her bed, half-heartedly throwing the comforter and tucking it in the right spots. It reminded her of her brother Toby when he was forced to do chores.
"You didn't take your medication last night?" Karen frowned, eyeing the untouched bottle on Sarah's vanity.
"It doesn't help. Just knocks me out. There's no point to it anymore."
"Should we take you back? Find something else?"
"No." Sarah turned to her step-mother. "I don't want medication anymore. I just want peace…"
Karen nodded, acquiescing. "Well, I made a new pot of coffee. All for you," Karen said.
Sarah smiled. "Thanks, I'll be down in a minute."
Her step-mother left without another word.
Sarah caught her pale face in the mirror of her vanity. Dark circles under her eyes. She was still beautiful, although hauntingly beautiful now. White skin and a weary face. Already she could feel the intrusive thoughts pulling at her mind again. Images flashing through her brain of people that she had never met. Things so beautiful and horrible to her, the thoughts keeping her from her own mundane tasks. Often from even sleeping. At night she would stare at the ceiling wondering how her mind and heart could be so ugly as to think up these things.
The specialists had called it OCD. Intrusive thoughts.
She supposed they must be right, though her only symptoms came in the form of extreme thoughts. It often felt like it wasn't even her mind, but people telling her these things. Whispering into her ear. Sarah was too afraid to tell the doctors the extent of it all. She was sure they'd think she was crazy.
So she stayed up at night.
Her hand touched the cool glass of the mirror before she had even realized she'd traveled across the room.
The thoughts became louder, interrupting her calm musings.
I wish-
The voices traveled. Female, male, some indistinguishable.
I wish I was her.
I wish she loved me.
I wish he was dead.
I wish, I wish, I wish…
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut enough to hurt. They passed and the thoughts quieted.
"Hoggle," she called after a moment. After her thoughts were hers again.
She took her fingers off the glass as a wrinkled, rough face appeared in the mirror where her reflection had been a second before.
"Are they bad today?" His gruff voice asked. Thick gray brows pulled together in concern.
Sarah shook her head and plopped down in the chair before him. She picked up a comb, fiddling with it, and then began brushing her hair. "It's too soon to tell," she said once she finished the quick comb-through.
"Humph," his vision seemed to suddenly lower, too, as if he had thrown himself down on a chair that she couldn't see, almost mimicking her.
Her fantastical reflection. Sarah sometimes wondered if she really were crazy.
He spoke again, "You answered any more of them?"
Her eyes flashed. "Never."
"Good," he said, and that was that.
They were quiet again. Her palms began to sweat, her heart in her throat. She swallowed it down. When she spoke Hoggle could still hear it in her voice. "Has - Is he any different?"
The dwarf shook his head. His grey eyes looking down instead of meeting Sarah's. "Just the same. There's a dark cloud over him."
"Is it worse, then?"
"I suppose it could be…" He shrugged.
She let out a shaky breath. "Hoggle… Do you think he knows?"
He looked up at her again. Looked at her pure green eyes, still innocent even after every evil wish she had witnessed second-hand. He didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to hurt her, either. He settled for in-between. "I think you've got time before he figures it out."
Sarah pulled back, her face pensive, fingers drawn up to her turned down lips. She spoke behind them. "I think he suspects. Time isn't enough and I don't know what I'll do when he finds out."
"Well, he's the sort to inspect every crevice. Every detail. He'll need real proof to confirm it first. Jus' don't answer anymore of them wishes."
"I don't," Sarah corrected quickly, as if she was stung by the accusation. "Nothing good ever comes from them. Even if it buys a few hours of peace."
She remembered when the wishes first started, three years before. She'd awoken in the middle of the night in her dorm room to sounds of voices. It took her minutes to realize that they were only in her head. So subtle that it was almost as if it was her mind talking to itself. Sarah hadn't slept that night, her brain too overactive to shut off, and when she finally dozed off in the morning she'd been too tired to dwell on it.
The wishes hadn't bothered her again till a few weeks later, when she was taking her final exams. The auditorium had been quiet. Too quiet, and Sarah found that she could hear her thoughts very well. Insistent ideas and phrases began to tug at her, until she had let her pencil slide from her hand and her mind had been lost to its spell.
That was the first time she could make out the wishes.
I wish, I wish…
I wish that I'd pass this test, a voice said that eerily sounded like the girl that had been occupying the seat next to Sarah throughout the semester.
Other thoughts filtered in.
I wish I could drop out. Sarah had snorted, earning her glares from the students around her. She'd brushed these off, thinking it was just stray thoughts from her own brain.
Then it worsened.
And became a nightmare.
Buy the end of the day her heart had been thoroughly abused from anxiety. Hands shaking and mind bent from the idea that she was losing it.
Visions had overcome her, fast and in flashes of color. Thoughts of other people, but not mind reading, perse. They were dreams, they were wishes.
The man next to her would wish that the gas prices would lower. Another time, Sarah had stood next to a couple holding hands and had been overcome by the vision of an engagement ring and the man kneeling before her. She had been startled and tripped in front of the pair. The woman that had likely envisioned the wish had given Sarah a concerned look.
Sarah hadn't cared. She'd raced back to her dorm room, trying her best to avoid other people. It has been like that ever since.
Some people's dreams were vivid enough to inspire sequences of visions - some people didn't have enough imagination, or were too practical, and their wishes were simply a whisper or phrase in Sarah's mind.
Sarah stood up from her vanity, Hoggle's curious eyes watching her as she dropped her comb on the surface of it. "I'll try my best not to draw his attention. Not anymore than I already have… with our history and everything. I'm surprised he hasn't approached me about this yet." Sarah wrung her hands together.
Hoggle frowned. "I ain't. The rat's a planner. If you've got something coming fer ya, you've got a while still."
Sarah's shoulders dropped. She sighed. "Thanks, Hoggle. That's very helpful," she said sarcastically.
He looked at her the way her father would sometimes. The look her father used to give Sarah whenever Linda, her deadbeat mother, would come up in conversations. "I'll be there for you should you need me, Sarah. We all will… Just try not to answer any of those darn wishes."
Sarah smiled and shook her head. "You know I won't. Not after the trouble it's caused me before."
One day she had snapped.
The wishes became overwhelming. Some angry, some in anguish and some were obsessive.
I wish you would just shut up! Why won't you shut up?
I wish you were here. I miss you.
I wish you loved me. Please, love me.
I wish…
Sarah had torn at her hair, at her skin, her clothes - anything - until she was half dressed on the floor in her room and she was crying.
Then, another wish pushed instantly at her mind. An urge to just end them overcame her.
It was a simple wish, really. She could have granted one that was terrible. Monstrous. God knows she's heard enough of those ones. But luck would have it that her first wish granted was an innocent want - a child's voice - and one with no immediate disasters.
I wish the weather was like this all the time.
"Fine!" Sarah had screamed, her arms dropping down and hitting the ground with a loud thud. And then… nothing.
Her mind was suddenly quiet. It was as if the world had stopped existing. The only sounds were her speeding heart, uneven breathing and the patter of rain on her window.
The rain never stopped.
The news traveled to the city in wonderment. People at her school reluctantly gave in to buying rain gear. Sarah waited.
It had not ceased for three months until she found her solution. Another wish.
And that was the problem with wishes. Is that they kept piling up. One was never enough, never perfect enough, or it turns out it wasn't what the wisher wanted all along. And then it was a string of more dangerous wishes that followed.
Luckily, in that instance it only took one wish to rectify the situation. Sarah had begged one of her roommates to make a wish. To wish that the weather would return to normal, and it had worked. She had granted it - although her roommate found her a little odd afterwards. But Sarah had not been so lucky in the few other wishes that she had accidentally - or one time generously - granted.
A boy had wished for an A in a required class for his major. Sarah - finding no harm in it - had granted it. Only to find Hoggle in the bathroom mirror that evening with terror on his face. He'd begged her to stop. Pleading, his voice rough and raspy. Sarah had been scared of his fear.
He'd told her that the Goblin King was angry. That he knew there was magic afoot in the Aboveground, and that, so far, he didn't know that it was Sarah, but he was ready to destroy the source of it at all costs. That had brought up a wealth of questions that Hoggle couldn't answer. He was able to tell her that so far the only reason that Sarah was safe was because the Goblin King did not know her whereabouts. Had no idea she had moved off from her parent's house into a college town. For all he knew, Sarah had moved on from magic.
Sarah answered no more wishes after that.
Sarah returned to the present. "I won't answer any of them ever again. I promise."
Hoggle gave her a curt nod. She gave him a crooked smile. Sarah continued, "And I really am thankful for how helpful you have been. Keep me updated, please?"
"Will do, Sarah. And if you need us…?"
"I'll call."
And Hoggle faded from her mirror.
Sarah's posture sagged. The uneasy sleep of the previous night came back to haunt her. Coffee, she remembered. Karen had made her coffee. And with that, Sarah dragged herself downstairs to get ready for the day.
I've really missed this community. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. Please drop a review if you'd like to. Thanks for reading! Second chapter should be up soon!
-And with that, Godzilla out!
