Labyrinth: Saving the Fallen City

Bound

He took out a crystal and smiled at me. “Watch this,” He said throwing the crystal on the ground. I watched it shatter into a million pieces and looked at him like he was crazy but he only watched the pieces of crystals. The crystals started to vibrate and move towards me. I scooted back as they swarmed around my body and engrossed me in what felt like a funnel of a tornado. The crystals reflected my image to me. The form of crystals moved in on me until the only thing I saw was a wall of light.

My eyes fluttered open to find I was in a huge bed. The covers were black silk that engulfed my body making me feel like I was being suffocated. I was unable to see around the room because of black silk drapes hanging from the top of the bed to the floor. Candles lined the stone wall behind me, supplying me with light. The wax dripped to the wooden headboard. By dripping on the headboard, the wax was creating its own design the swirled up the wall.

I pushed the covers off and looked down at myself. My clothes were gone and replaced with a black nightgown. It fell to feet and wrapped around the top of my body, twisting towards my neck but only reaching just shy of my collarbone. Confused and uneasy, I pulled up the nightgown on my legs to my thighs. Red burn marks were fading on my legs that crawled up my shins. I threw the material back over my legs and looked up. The black silk over my bed looked like black oil moving like ocean waves traveling over the sea. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things but that the silk was actually moving.

The door to the room I was in opened right ahead of the foot of the bed and something scurried in. My heart raced as it came closer to the bed. Suddenly the silk drapes were shoved to each side of the bed and a creature stood before me. She was old and wrinkled. The creature was not small but her height didn’t reach 5 5’. She was dressed in old material that needed to be thrown away and replaced. Her grey hair was in tangles around her face down to her chest. The creature stared at me with big brown eyes and a firm jaw neither forming a smile, nor a frown. Her midsection hung over her belt.

“Where am I? Who are you?” I asked moving away from the creature. She grunted and threw the darkest, black dress I had ever seen on the bed. “I am Engal, and you are in the dark tower” She said pointing a finger towards the window across from the bed. The window overlooked Jareth’s castle and his throne room. I saw a huge man standing by the destroyed wall. He stood looking out over the labyrinth with a black cape over his shoulders that looked like a bear’s coat. He stood tall and unmovable. His black hair fell to below his shoulder blades, shining off of unknown light like daggers. He looked off at smoke billowing from one of the oubliettes.

 What had taken place flooded back to me. The fire, Vitera, the strange figure, and loosing Jareth rang inside of me with a sense of sadness. My mind clouded with possibilities of what happened to Jareth. He didn’t come for me. I felt betrayed but I knew he never thought about me in any other way than something he could use to his benefit. Maybe he had no use for the crystal he claimed I had in my possession. If he did believe was actually a person, he would’ve come for me, but Vitera found me so he must have been killed by her. I wanted to feel like he deserved it from all the evil things he committed, but the last thing I imagined to feel was despair. He was the only person I knew and thought he was somewhat protecting me but know he’s gone.

 “Master has requested you” Engal said holding out her hand towards me and tearing me from my thoughts. When I failed to take her hand, she took hold of my arm and pulled me out of the bed. “Take off your nightgown and put the dress on while I find you something warm for your shoulders” She said hobbling away. I looked at the dress and picked it up. It was a velvet black dress with deep purple jewels under my chest like a belt. I took off my nightgown and put on the black dress. The scratchy material fell elegantly down my body, flowing out just barely at the hips. The dress fit my shape perfectly.