Labyrinth Fan Fiction ❯ To Defeat the Rotting Labyrinth ❯ Disgust ( Chapter 7 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

This chapter is when things take a turn for the worse. :( You're warned.

Warning: Moderate horror.

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The next morning, once they were both well-rested and supplied, Abernathy and Sarah set out into the thick of the Labyrinth again. Sarah had tried to bring Ludo along, but he was reluctant, and she agreed to leave him be. She felt badly for the creature, but she couldn't help those who didn't want to be helped. Abernathy was in the front, leading in her stalk-like stride. Her pace was long and languid, with large steps. Sarah took two for each one of hers. It was irritating when she tried not to make it so, tried to ignore it. She sighed, watching her legs snap back and forth as if she meant business. With who? Nobody was out here aside from Sarah and Abernathy.

They walked all morning, stopping shortly for food and water when the sun was high, and moving again after they had eaten. Sarah found more fresh water and filled her water bottle again, scrambling away quickly when a fish slapped the water. Abernathy laughed at her when she noticed that the fish was about the size of her hand, rather than the size of a whale like the one she had encountered the day before. Sarah had glared, and they moved on.

Abernathy frowned and said, “Silence is depressing.” She looked over her shoulder at Sarah. “Sing something?” she asked.

She blinked at her. “What?”

“Sing something,” Lady Abernathy told her. “Anything.”

Sarah thought for a few moments, and sighed. She didn't fight the first song that came to her mind, and started to sing softly, “As the pain sweeps through, makes no sense for you. Every thrill has gone, wasn't too much fun at all. I'll be there for you-oo-oo as the world falls down...” She looked at her feet. The song had a little more meaning to her than it usually did, in light of her recent divorce. She swallowed hard. Everything in her life had been turned upside-down by her divorce with Bryan, no matter how much she tried to deny it. She hadn't loved him, but he had been something to anchor herself to.

Glancing back at her curiously, Abernathy decided to leave her alone to her troubling thoughts. She finally said cheerfully, “I think we're getting closer.”

Sarah gazed up at the castle, staring quietly. “I'll be there for you-oo-oo as the world falls down,” she sang softly to herself. She passed Abernathy on the path, and hooked a right turn. “Come on, Abernathy,” she called over her shoulder. “We can get there soon if we just try to keep moving in the right direction.” When Abernathy didn't reply, Sarah stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Abernathy?” she called, a thread of fear making its way into her voice.

A distant, strangled yell was all that she heard. Sarah stared at the turn she had just taken, but it wasn't there anymore. Now, it was just a solid wall. She looked up at the castle, and frowned. “Alone again. Fantastic.” She shifted the backpack on her shoulder and trudged onward. “Got to get to Sylvie,” she told herself sternly. “I have got to get to Sylvie.”

With no map and no companions, Sarah felt the suffocating silence of being alone. She sighed, and turned into another area towards the castle to find another familiar, open area. She blinked at the two gate guards that reminded her of playing cards. One was red, and the other was blue. They still had heads coming out of either end of the shield, but they were no longer similar-looking man-creatures. One had the head of a serpent and the other had the head of an owl. She stopped in her tracks upon seeing the owl, and stared at its heads before she approached. “One of you always lies and one of you always tells the truth, right?” she asked and dropped her bag onto the tiles.

The snake hissed. “No. One of us will eat you and one of us won't.”

The owl clicked its beak. “I'm the one that won't. Owls never killed humans before. Snakes do all the time.”

“Snakes can't swallow people. If venom does it, it doesn't mean they get eaten,” the snake argued.

Sarah watched them bicker back and forth for awhile. “Alright!” she finally yelled. “One of you will eat me and one of you won't. I've got it. Snakes are a symbol for intelligence, but also for trickery, malice, and evil. Eve and the serpent. Owls are also a symbol of intelligence. I don't know what else for, but I do know that the king in that castle often takes the form of an owl, so I'm not really inclined to trust you either.” She glanced between the two cautiously. “Do I choose a door, or do I say my choice?”

The snake blinked at her. “Silly girl,” it quipped. “You are not choosing a door. You are choosing the way you will die.” The head from the bottom of the shield slithered out from under it and approached her.

The head from the top of the shield with the owls grew a pair of wings and took flight, aiming for her with sharp talons. “It doesn't matter which door your decide upon. You still die, and just choose which one of us gets to have you for lunch.”

“Neither,” she snapped, and brandished the club. This snake could swallow her whole, it wasn't natural. She took a few hesitant steps back. She felt her heel depress onto a tile. Before she could even articulate a swear word, she was falling into a tunnel. It was slick with something thick – blood? - that she didn't want to think about, and she slid down, down, and still further down. She flew out of the tunnel and into an atrocious-smelling room that almost made her feel happy. She landed on something soft, and wondered if she even wanted to know. She looked down and screamed to find that a pile of corpses had broken her fall. Specifically, a brown-eyed little boy who was staring at her with wide, frightened eyes. She screamed again and again, scrambling backwards until she was off of the pile of corpses. She stared around in the area, and found that this was not the only pile. There were piles everywhere.

Abernathy stood near Sarah, her arms crossed and her face unreadable. “I had no idea that it had gone this far,” she murmured. “I had no idea that he was torturing people like this... piling the dead in the Bog. What a monster I have birthed...” Another body dropped out of the tunnel and landed near Sarah, letting out its last breath as its arm flopped pleadingly towards her. Sarah let out another muted shriek and she backed up again until her back was against Abernathy's leg.

“What is this place?” Sarah asked fearfully.

She looked down at Sarah. “This is supposed to be the reception area, where the children are sorted between goblins and dreamers. These are children who have been wished away, and instead of being sorted and being happy, they have suffered and died.” Abernathy's fists clenched. “Damn it, Jareth, and damn you! How could you do this to these children?!”

Sarah cringed as she said the king's name, turning and grabbing at the tunic material around her thighs. “Don't say his name! He can't know that I'm here!” she protested.

She sighed and shook her head. “He won't hear you, Sarah,” she murmured. “If he has gone far enough to let this room go, to let all of the sorting go undone, to let his Labyrinth go into this much of decay, he can't be aware of the Labyrinth. I doubt that he's even aware of you. Maybe if you shouted it in fear, maybe then, but I really doubt it.” She sounded disappointed, but even more worried and angry. She was afraid for her son, Sarah realized, and afraid for herself.

“Hoggle said that if he dies, then everyone dies – everything in the Underground,” Sarah said quickly. “Is that true?”

Abernathy looked down at Sarah, and shook her head. “He may be the heir to his father's crown, but so long as his father still lives, so will they. His kingdom will perish without him, that much is sure, but the whole of the land will live on,” she explained. Sullenly, she sat down.

Slapping her hands on her thighs as she sat on her knees, Sarah stared hard at the ground. “Does he know?” Sarah asked.

She looked up at Sarah. “What?”

“Does he know?” she repeated louder, and closed her eyes as she heard another sickening thump.

Wondering, Abernathy shrugged after a moment. “I don't know. He should know. He should've been told, but I don't know.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet and looked around. “We need to get out of here. We need to get to the castle. We need to get him to fix this – fix this!” She turned around on the spot and yanked on her own hair, whining.

Abernathy got to her feet and grabbed Sarah by the shoulders and shook her. “Sarah!” she shouted. “Get a hold of yourself!” Sarah's eyes again darted towards the piles and piles of dead bodies, and she squeaked. Abernathy put her hand over Sarah's eyes, and held her tightly as she tried to get her hands up to her face, nails pointed towards her eyes. “Stop it, Sarah, you're going to hurt yourself. Calm down.”

Sarah screamed.