Haze and Despair: Chapter 1
Whoo, my first Labyrinth fanfic! I'm really excited about this one cause it's my first movie-based fic. X3 (I based the HP stories off the books, kthx) I hope y'all enjoy it and please leave comments! :3
Title: Haze and Despair
Fandom: Labyrinth
Rating: PG
Characters: Jareth, Sarah, Abby, Toby (for now)
Summary: It's Sarah's senior year in high school and life is going non-stop for her. But despite being too busy to think, she's haunted daily by hazy memories of a world far more familiar to her than the reality she knows. Driven crazy by these flashes of a time long past, she begins to neglect her responsibilities and makes an enemy among her school classmates whom takes it upon herself to force Sarah to remember the past...one way or another.
Haze and Despair
By: Shania Nowhere
Chapter 1
“But Sarah, we have practice, remember? What do you mean you have to go? Come back!”
The voices calling out to Sarah were lost in the pouring rain as she ran out of the auditorium at her school. It was her senior year and she was lead in the school play, but none of that seemed to mean anything to her these days. Her thoughts were elsewhere, fantasies of the past entangling her very senses every second of the day. She couldn’t think clearly, only moments of solitude in a storm seemed to bring her back from the brink of her daydreams. It was almost as if something or someone was watching her all the time, trying to reach out to her from some far away place that she’d forgotten.
Distracted by the blurred images swimming in her subconscious, she blindly ran on through the rain until she found herself standing before the clock tower in the park near her home. She had always visited this place since she was a young girl, using the silence and peace to practice her lines or just be away from everything. Panting and staring up through the downpour, she gazed drearily up at the clock as if it were mocking her anguish, ticking away the hours without skipping a beat.
“Why do you torment me so, time? I struggle to make sense of the life I have and fight to make every minute count but to you an hour is just a second in your life. I bet you never worry about what will happen an minute from now or even a day…it’s only forever, not long at all…” Sarah spoke to it as if it would hear her but she knew it wouldn’t change anything. There was an emptiness in her that seemed to have devoured any recollection of why she felt so incomplete; nothing would help her remember. All she had her blurry memories of a time long past from the childhood she left behind, haze…and despair.
She turned from the clock and ran from it as if it were haunting her every second that she stayed beneath its shadow. Time was haunting her, the time she’d thrown away, and now it felt like she was running out of time. Not caring if she was skipping school or not, she walked home and went up to her room, falling onto her bed and laying there like a lifeless lump.
“Sarah?” A little voice came from her still open door and she rolled over to see her little brother staring at her sleepily from the doorway.
“Toby, what are you doing up? You know you’re suppose to rest, doctor’s orders.” Sarah sighed, getting up and ushering the toddler back down the hall to his room.
“Why are you home?” Toby asked with a little sniffle.
“School let out early, now get back in bed.” Sarah helped him up into his bed and began to tug him in as he wiggled defiantly.
“I don’t wanna sleep anymore, I wanna play.” Toby whined.
“Too bad.” Sarah replied, a hint of indifference in her voice as she turned to leave.
“Sing to me, Sarah.” Toby called out.
“Sing what.”
“That song.”
“Which one.”
“You know it! You sing it when I can’t sleep.”
“Oh, but I’ve sung it a million times…”
“Pleeeeaase?”
With a sigh of defeat, Sarah walked back to his bed and sat down on the edge, pulling the edges of his sheet up as she began to sing, “Spare a little candle, save some light for me. Figures up ahead moving in the trees…White skin, in linen, perfume on my wrist and the full moon that hangs over; these dreams in the mist. Darkness on the edge, shadows where I stand, I search for the time on a watch with no hands. I want to see you clearly, come closer than this, but all I remember are the dreams in the mist.”
As she sang, memories flooded her mind like a dam within her had broken, images of a man just out of view reaching out to her. Who was this man that haunted her?
“Sarah?” Toby’s voice brought her out of her trance and she blinked down at him.
“Sorry, I…I was just thinking about something. Where was I?” She forced a smile.
“Dreams in the mist.” Toby snuggled under his sheets in anticipation.
“Yes…These dreams go on when I close my eyes, every second of the night, I live another life. These dreams that sleep when it's cold outside, every moment I'm awake, the further I'm away. Is it cloak 'n dagger? Could it be Spring or Fall? I walk without a cut through a stained glass wall. Weaker in my eyesight, the candle in my grip, and words that have no volume falling from my lips.”
As she spoke those words, it was as if she was falling, falling from some high place in desperation to reach something important to her…or to get away from something she feared.
“These dreams go on when I close my eyes, every second of the night, I live another life. These dreams that sleep when it's cold outside, every moment I'm awake, the further I'm away. There's something out there, I can't resist. I need to hide away from the pain…there's something out there, I can't resist. The sweetest song is silence that I've ever heard, funny how your feet in dreams never touch the earth. In a wood full of princes freedom is a kiss, but the prince hides his face from dreams in the mist…”
A prince…a prince was hiding within her dreams, her memories…but who was he? Was he some childhood friend she’d long forgotten or a figment of her imagination? She longed to discover his identity, no matter what it took. Her heart raced to meet his outstretched hand and she quickly stood from the bed, surprising her little brother.
“Sarah? What’s wrong?” Toby asked.
“I uh…I forgot to do something.” Sarah muttered, racing out of the room and shutting the door behind her. She returned to her room and went straight to the bureau by her bed, ripping open the right drawer as if something were screaming to be let out. Digging around the old papers and random knick-knacks, she found a photo sitting near the bottom and pulled it out. In the photo was her mother with a strange man whom wasn’t her father, she vaguely remembered this picture when she had found it in her mother’s room many years before her death. She had remembered cherishing it like a priceless heirloom but something had caused her to bury it in the drawer like a painful memory. Who was the man in the photo and why did he make her heart race so?
The front door downstairs opened and disturbed her from her transfixion on the picture, causing her to turn violently toward the door, knocking the drawer out onto the floor. Quickly, she began to clean up the mess and put it back when she came across the old music box her mother gave her for her 6th birthday. She stared at the princess that stood within the gazebo structure, waiting to dance to the music within the box. Slowly winding the key on the base, she brought the princess to life and she began to spin around gaily to the tune. Sarah felt as if she was dancing with the doll, the world around her spinning in a blur of color and lights, mirrors reflecting visions of her in the same dress as the princess. Everything began to spin faster and faster until her head reeled uncontrollably into darkness.
“Sarah? Sarah, honey, wake up!” A voice called out to her from the darkness and she groped through the haze until light came into focus before her. Blinking dizzily, she gazed up at her father’s concerned face as he held her in his arms.
“Dad?” she slowly got up and ran her fingers through her sweaty hair in confusion, “What happened?”
“I don’t honestly know, I came home and found you here on the floor with this mess! Did you fall or something?” He asked her as they both stood.
“Yes…that’s it.” She mused to herself as she blankly took in the scattered belongings on the floor. Suddenly remembering that she was looking for something, she crouched and began to pick through the papers again subconsciously.
“Well, Abby was looking for you, she said you left school before drama practice had even started. You haven’t been yourself lately, is everything okay?”
“I…I lost something.” Sarah muttered breathlessly, tossing the pile into the drawer in defeat.
“What did you lose, hun?” He looked over her shoulder curiously as she slowly slid the drawer back into the bureau.
“I don’t know…I don’t remember…”
“Well, maybe you’ll remember after going over to Abby’s house to rehearse the play, she needs her Cinderella to be cruel to!” Her father laughed as he left the room.
She’d all but forgotten about the play, everyone was expecting a lot of her in the next few months before graduation. Glancing down at the watch on her wrist, she saw that it was barely an hour after practice had ended, time seeming to have escaped her completely. Gathering her book bag, she headed downstairs and hurried over to Abby’s house. It was only a few blocks away but the trip gave her time to clear her head of all the thoughts lingering within her. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the front door of Abby’s house and her mother let her in, leaving her to find her way to Abby’s room. She’d been here many times but it felt foreign to her just now, everything did, like she wasn’t meant to be here or anywhere else in this world. Shaking the feeling, she knocked lightly on the bedroom door and a very cross-looking young girl answered it.
“Where have you been? Do you know how mad everyone was when you ran off like that? You are the lead in this play, if you can’t focus on your part, you might as well give it to someone who can.” Abby scolded harshly, as if she were already getting in character for their practice. But Sarah was used to getting lectures, this wasn’t the first time she’d ticked her off like this and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Sitting in the chair by her desk, Sarah pulled out her script and prepared to read through it with Abby, even though she’d memorized this play when she was a little girl. Fairytales used to consume her life, now school and graduation were the only things on her mind, save for the daydreams now and then that interrupted everything. She stared through the script as she spoke her lines, not really needing it to do her parts but stared nonetheless as her thoughts began to wander again. Soon growing bored, her gaze roamed around the room and eventually landed on a little red book laying half hidden beneath Abby’s bed. As if something inside her demanded to have it, she leapt from her seat and dove for the book, whipping it off the floor and clutching it tightly in her hands.
“Sarah, what the-“ Abby began to shout when Sarah turned to face her, the book held close to her heart.
“I’ve been looking for this…” Sarah said, her eyes burning through Abby’s guilty face.
Leaping up from her chair and crossing the room, Abby said, “I only borrowed it! You left it buried in a drawer, I thought you’d forgotten all about it so I didn’t see any harm in taking it home with me.”
“I had forgotten…” Sarah muttered, holding the book out and examining the cover, the book was called “The Labyrinth”.
“Then you won’t mind me keeping it a little longer, I’ve almost got the ending memorized.” Abby made a grab for the book but Sarah quickly pulled away, frowning at her.
“I never said you could have it in the first place, this is MY book! You can’t go stealing things from people and expect them to not care!” Sarah replied defensively.
“Gosh, it’s just a book, Sarah! You act like it’s important!”
“It is to me!”
“Why?!”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Sarah screamed, causing a silence to fill the room as Abby stared at her in surprise.
Stammering, Abby said, “W-well that doesn’t make any sense, and neither do you, Sarah. If you ask me, you’ve had your head in those textbooks too long and you brain’s gone all funny. Maybe you need to drop out of the play and focus on reality more than these fairytales you’re chasing.”
“What is reality…” Sarah muttered, loosening her grip on the book. Seeing her chance to snatch it, Abby ripped the book out of Sarah’s hands and flipped it to somewhere near the beginning of the book, saying, “You know what’s my favorite part of this book? Where the princess wishes away her annoying sibling to be turned into a goblin! I wish you would go away so I can be the princess I deserve to be, you’re always stealing the spotlight and you don’t even CARE! Well, I’m going to do what the princess did in this book, I’ll wish you away!”
“Abby, what are you-“ Sarah tried to stop her but it was too late.
“I wish the goblins would come and take you away...RIGHT NOW!” Abby shouted.
Suddenly and without warning, the whole room went dark, not even the sound of her breathing broke through the void. She tried to scream but it just felt like she was falling into an endless abyss. Finally, the free falling feeling ended and she attempted to walk but felt nothing below her feet. A light ahead beckoned to her weakly in the distance and she swam through the soupy blackness to reach it. Stretching out her hand, she grasped at the light and took hold of the tiny candle, examining it for a moment before holding into the darkness to light the way. Off in the distance, the light reflected off something shiny and she made her way to it. Upon reaching it, she saw that it was an intricate glass mosaic of a maze, shimmering in dim light of the candle that didn’t seem to be melting. Gently running her hand over the window, something about it stirred a memory in her mind and she stepped forward into the window, passing through it as if it weren’t real. The image in the mosaic slowly faded into what could be considered reality, or as close as this world came to being real. It was dim, the sun just beginning to set in the distance over this bizarre landscape that seemed to lack any movement to indicate residents. It was as if the labyrinth had been abandoned long ago, judging by the decay and ruined look of the walls. Curiously, Sarah glanced down at her watch and found the hour and minute hands were missing.
“Does that mean…time doesn’t exist here?” Sarah muttered to herself, staring in turn at the ground below her. Shadows danced around her feet as the candle still in her hand danced on the wind, but these shadows looked alive. Feeling a chill run up her spine, she took off running down the hill to the front gate of the Labyrinth, pounding on it as the shadows encroached on the last signs of light.
“Please, someone let me in! Open up! Let me into the Labyrinth!! HELP!” Sarah shouted frantically, the darkness attempting to consume her again. Finally the gates creaked open and she forced herself through, quickly forcing them back shut before the shadows could follow. Breathless and panic stricken, Sarah glanced up and down the long corridor. It was as if she’d been there before, a feeling of familiarity setting in as she slowly walked down the endless passageway. Had she really been here before or was this all just a dream? Something was definitely different but she wasn’t sure what, she could barely even remember ever seeing this place before. As she walked, she heard the clatter of something glass rolling over the dirt ground behind her, becoming startled when something hit her heel. Whirling around and staring down, she saw a single glass orb sitting idle before her as if waiting for her to pick it up. Wordlessly, she knelt and took hold of the ball, examining it closely and turning it in her hand in wonder.
“Where did this come from?” Sarah mused, staring even deeper into the reflection in its crystal surface. But it was not her own face staring back but that of a man whom looked equally surprised to see her staring back.
“Sarah?” The man’s voice carried through the glass like an echo and she gawked in awed silence. Suddenly it dawned on her: this was the man that had been haunting her for the past few months, the man from her dreams…her masked prince.
Chapter 2
Title: Haze and Despair
Fandom: Labyrinth
Rating: PG
Characters: Jareth, Sarah, Abby, Toby (for now)
Summary: It's Sarah's senior year in high school and life is going non-stop for her. But despite being too busy to think, she's haunted daily by hazy memories of a world far more familiar to her than the reality she knows. Driven crazy by these flashes of a time long past, she begins to neglect her responsibilities and makes an enemy among her school classmates whom takes it upon herself to force Sarah to remember the past...one way or another.
Haze and Despair
By: Shania Nowhere
Chapter 1
“But Sarah, we have practice, remember? What do you mean you have to go? Come back!”
The voices calling out to Sarah were lost in the pouring rain as she ran out of the auditorium at her school. It was her senior year and she was lead in the school play, but none of that seemed to mean anything to her these days. Her thoughts were elsewhere, fantasies of the past entangling her very senses every second of the day. She couldn’t think clearly, only moments of solitude in a storm seemed to bring her back from the brink of her daydreams. It was almost as if something or someone was watching her all the time, trying to reach out to her from some far away place that she’d forgotten.
Distracted by the blurred images swimming in her subconscious, she blindly ran on through the rain until she found herself standing before the clock tower in the park near her home. She had always visited this place since she was a young girl, using the silence and peace to practice her lines or just be away from everything. Panting and staring up through the downpour, she gazed drearily up at the clock as if it were mocking her anguish, ticking away the hours without skipping a beat.
“Why do you torment me so, time? I struggle to make sense of the life I have and fight to make every minute count but to you an hour is just a second in your life. I bet you never worry about what will happen an minute from now or even a day…it’s only forever, not long at all…” Sarah spoke to it as if it would hear her but she knew it wouldn’t change anything. There was an emptiness in her that seemed to have devoured any recollection of why she felt so incomplete; nothing would help her remember. All she had her blurry memories of a time long past from the childhood she left behind, haze…and despair.
She turned from the clock and ran from it as if it were haunting her every second that she stayed beneath its shadow. Time was haunting her, the time she’d thrown away, and now it felt like she was running out of time. Not caring if she was skipping school or not, she walked home and went up to her room, falling onto her bed and laying there like a lifeless lump.
“Sarah?” A little voice came from her still open door and she rolled over to see her little brother staring at her sleepily from the doorway.
“Toby, what are you doing up? You know you’re suppose to rest, doctor’s orders.” Sarah sighed, getting up and ushering the toddler back down the hall to his room.
“Why are you home?” Toby asked with a little sniffle.
“School let out early, now get back in bed.” Sarah helped him up into his bed and began to tug him in as he wiggled defiantly.
“I don’t wanna sleep anymore, I wanna play.” Toby whined.
“Too bad.” Sarah replied, a hint of indifference in her voice as she turned to leave.
“Sing to me, Sarah.” Toby called out.
“Sing what.”
“That song.”
“Which one.”
“You know it! You sing it when I can’t sleep.”
“Oh, but I’ve sung it a million times…”
“Pleeeeaase?”
With a sigh of defeat, Sarah walked back to his bed and sat down on the edge, pulling the edges of his sheet up as she began to sing, “Spare a little candle, save some light for me. Figures up ahead moving in the trees…White skin, in linen, perfume on my wrist and the full moon that hangs over; these dreams in the mist. Darkness on the edge, shadows where I stand, I search for the time on a watch with no hands. I want to see you clearly, come closer than this, but all I remember are the dreams in the mist.”
As she sang, memories flooded her mind like a dam within her had broken, images of a man just out of view reaching out to her. Who was this man that haunted her?
“Sarah?” Toby’s voice brought her out of her trance and she blinked down at him.
“Sorry, I…I was just thinking about something. Where was I?” She forced a smile.
“Dreams in the mist.” Toby snuggled under his sheets in anticipation.
“Yes…These dreams go on when I close my eyes, every second of the night, I live another life. These dreams that sleep when it's cold outside, every moment I'm awake, the further I'm away. Is it cloak 'n dagger? Could it be Spring or Fall? I walk without a cut through a stained glass wall. Weaker in my eyesight, the candle in my grip, and words that have no volume falling from my lips.”
As she spoke those words, it was as if she was falling, falling from some high place in desperation to reach something important to her…or to get away from something she feared.
“These dreams go on when I close my eyes, every second of the night, I live another life. These dreams that sleep when it's cold outside, every moment I'm awake, the further I'm away. There's something out there, I can't resist. I need to hide away from the pain…there's something out there, I can't resist. The sweetest song is silence that I've ever heard, funny how your feet in dreams never touch the earth. In a wood full of princes freedom is a kiss, but the prince hides his face from dreams in the mist…”
A prince…a prince was hiding within her dreams, her memories…but who was he? Was he some childhood friend she’d long forgotten or a figment of her imagination? She longed to discover his identity, no matter what it took. Her heart raced to meet his outstretched hand and she quickly stood from the bed, surprising her little brother.
“Sarah? What’s wrong?” Toby asked.
“I uh…I forgot to do something.” Sarah muttered, racing out of the room and shutting the door behind her. She returned to her room and went straight to the bureau by her bed, ripping open the right drawer as if something were screaming to be let out. Digging around the old papers and random knick-knacks, she found a photo sitting near the bottom and pulled it out. In the photo was her mother with a strange man whom wasn’t her father, she vaguely remembered this picture when she had found it in her mother’s room many years before her death. She had remembered cherishing it like a priceless heirloom but something had caused her to bury it in the drawer like a painful memory. Who was the man in the photo and why did he make her heart race so?
The front door downstairs opened and disturbed her from her transfixion on the picture, causing her to turn violently toward the door, knocking the drawer out onto the floor. Quickly, she began to clean up the mess and put it back when she came across the old music box her mother gave her for her 6th birthday. She stared at the princess that stood within the gazebo structure, waiting to dance to the music within the box. Slowly winding the key on the base, she brought the princess to life and she began to spin around gaily to the tune. Sarah felt as if she was dancing with the doll, the world around her spinning in a blur of color and lights, mirrors reflecting visions of her in the same dress as the princess. Everything began to spin faster and faster until her head reeled uncontrollably into darkness.
“Sarah? Sarah, honey, wake up!” A voice called out to her from the darkness and she groped through the haze until light came into focus before her. Blinking dizzily, she gazed up at her father’s concerned face as he held her in his arms.
“Dad?” she slowly got up and ran her fingers through her sweaty hair in confusion, “What happened?”
“I don’t honestly know, I came home and found you here on the floor with this mess! Did you fall or something?” He asked her as they both stood.
“Yes…that’s it.” She mused to herself as she blankly took in the scattered belongings on the floor. Suddenly remembering that she was looking for something, she crouched and began to pick through the papers again subconsciously.
“Well, Abby was looking for you, she said you left school before drama practice had even started. You haven’t been yourself lately, is everything okay?”
“I…I lost something.” Sarah muttered breathlessly, tossing the pile into the drawer in defeat.
“What did you lose, hun?” He looked over her shoulder curiously as she slowly slid the drawer back into the bureau.
“I don’t know…I don’t remember…”
“Well, maybe you’ll remember after going over to Abby’s house to rehearse the play, she needs her Cinderella to be cruel to!” Her father laughed as he left the room.
She’d all but forgotten about the play, everyone was expecting a lot of her in the next few months before graduation. Glancing down at the watch on her wrist, she saw that it was barely an hour after practice had ended, time seeming to have escaped her completely. Gathering her book bag, she headed downstairs and hurried over to Abby’s house. It was only a few blocks away but the trip gave her time to clear her head of all the thoughts lingering within her. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the front door of Abby’s house and her mother let her in, leaving her to find her way to Abby’s room. She’d been here many times but it felt foreign to her just now, everything did, like she wasn’t meant to be here or anywhere else in this world. Shaking the feeling, she knocked lightly on the bedroom door and a very cross-looking young girl answered it.
“Where have you been? Do you know how mad everyone was when you ran off like that? You are the lead in this play, if you can’t focus on your part, you might as well give it to someone who can.” Abby scolded harshly, as if she were already getting in character for their practice. But Sarah was used to getting lectures, this wasn’t the first time she’d ticked her off like this and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Sitting in the chair by her desk, Sarah pulled out her script and prepared to read through it with Abby, even though she’d memorized this play when she was a little girl. Fairytales used to consume her life, now school and graduation were the only things on her mind, save for the daydreams now and then that interrupted everything. She stared through the script as she spoke her lines, not really needing it to do her parts but stared nonetheless as her thoughts began to wander again. Soon growing bored, her gaze roamed around the room and eventually landed on a little red book laying half hidden beneath Abby’s bed. As if something inside her demanded to have it, she leapt from her seat and dove for the book, whipping it off the floor and clutching it tightly in her hands.
“Sarah, what the-“ Abby began to shout when Sarah turned to face her, the book held close to her heart.
“I’ve been looking for this…” Sarah said, her eyes burning through Abby’s guilty face.
Leaping up from her chair and crossing the room, Abby said, “I only borrowed it! You left it buried in a drawer, I thought you’d forgotten all about it so I didn’t see any harm in taking it home with me.”
“I had forgotten…” Sarah muttered, holding the book out and examining the cover, the book was called “The Labyrinth”.
“Then you won’t mind me keeping it a little longer, I’ve almost got the ending memorized.” Abby made a grab for the book but Sarah quickly pulled away, frowning at her.
“I never said you could have it in the first place, this is MY book! You can’t go stealing things from people and expect them to not care!” Sarah replied defensively.
“Gosh, it’s just a book, Sarah! You act like it’s important!”
“It is to me!”
“Why?!”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Sarah screamed, causing a silence to fill the room as Abby stared at her in surprise.
Stammering, Abby said, “W-well that doesn’t make any sense, and neither do you, Sarah. If you ask me, you’ve had your head in those textbooks too long and you brain’s gone all funny. Maybe you need to drop out of the play and focus on reality more than these fairytales you’re chasing.”
“What is reality…” Sarah muttered, loosening her grip on the book. Seeing her chance to snatch it, Abby ripped the book out of Sarah’s hands and flipped it to somewhere near the beginning of the book, saying, “You know what’s my favorite part of this book? Where the princess wishes away her annoying sibling to be turned into a goblin! I wish you would go away so I can be the princess I deserve to be, you’re always stealing the spotlight and you don’t even CARE! Well, I’m going to do what the princess did in this book, I’ll wish you away!”
“Abby, what are you-“ Sarah tried to stop her but it was too late.
“I wish the goblins would come and take you away...RIGHT NOW!” Abby shouted.
Suddenly and without warning, the whole room went dark, not even the sound of her breathing broke through the void. She tried to scream but it just felt like she was falling into an endless abyss. Finally, the free falling feeling ended and she attempted to walk but felt nothing below her feet. A light ahead beckoned to her weakly in the distance and she swam through the soupy blackness to reach it. Stretching out her hand, she grasped at the light and took hold of the tiny candle, examining it for a moment before holding into the darkness to light the way. Off in the distance, the light reflected off something shiny and she made her way to it. Upon reaching it, she saw that it was an intricate glass mosaic of a maze, shimmering in dim light of the candle that didn’t seem to be melting. Gently running her hand over the window, something about it stirred a memory in her mind and she stepped forward into the window, passing through it as if it weren’t real. The image in the mosaic slowly faded into what could be considered reality, or as close as this world came to being real. It was dim, the sun just beginning to set in the distance over this bizarre landscape that seemed to lack any movement to indicate residents. It was as if the labyrinth had been abandoned long ago, judging by the decay and ruined look of the walls. Curiously, Sarah glanced down at her watch and found the hour and minute hands were missing.
“Does that mean…time doesn’t exist here?” Sarah muttered to herself, staring in turn at the ground below her. Shadows danced around her feet as the candle still in her hand danced on the wind, but these shadows looked alive. Feeling a chill run up her spine, she took off running down the hill to the front gate of the Labyrinth, pounding on it as the shadows encroached on the last signs of light.
“Please, someone let me in! Open up! Let me into the Labyrinth!! HELP!” Sarah shouted frantically, the darkness attempting to consume her again. Finally the gates creaked open and she forced herself through, quickly forcing them back shut before the shadows could follow. Breathless and panic stricken, Sarah glanced up and down the long corridor. It was as if she’d been there before, a feeling of familiarity setting in as she slowly walked down the endless passageway. Had she really been here before or was this all just a dream? Something was definitely different but she wasn’t sure what, she could barely even remember ever seeing this place before. As she walked, she heard the clatter of something glass rolling over the dirt ground behind her, becoming startled when something hit her heel. Whirling around and staring down, she saw a single glass orb sitting idle before her as if waiting for her to pick it up. Wordlessly, she knelt and took hold of the ball, examining it closely and turning it in her hand in wonder.
“Where did this come from?” Sarah mused, staring even deeper into the reflection in its crystal surface. But it was not her own face staring back but that of a man whom looked equally surprised to see her staring back.
“Sarah?” The man’s voice carried through the glass like an echo and she gawked in awed silence. Suddenly it dawned on her: this was the man that had been haunting her for the past few months, the man from her dreams…her masked prince.
Chapter 2