Title: Rejuvenation

Fandom: Labyrinth

Parts: one

Rating: PG for concept

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the labyrinth, that honor is purely Henson’s.

Summary: After a complete horror that wipes out the earth, a strange new

creation is birthed by creation itself.

****

In the end, it really didn’t matter who caused it, who pushed the button.

Really, after each continent took up the war cry and centered on their own

national hatred of the entire world, every country took its turn wiping

out as many others as its armory could reach. Eons after the fact, even

ten minutes after the fact when the few surviving humans rushed to

underground caverns to painfully live out the rest of their burned and

tortured existence, no one could remember who or what started it all.

When each missile hit, the people screamed and uselessly tried to outrun

destruction’s reach. Many were caught off guard, their bones and flesh

instantly reduced to fire and ash, their death immortalized for that one

painful moment with their silent, horrified death screams. Whoever thought

that humanity could never stoop to its lowest underestimated the true nature

of man. The hate, the prejudice, the jealousy, the greed, all of these contributed to

destroying the world. Such feelings levelled the cities until civilization

was mere dust, boiled the water until the oceans became a toxic cauldron,

poisoned the air with smothering ash that snowed from the empty, forelorn

sky, and caused the horizon to glow like a giant, demonic firefly for the

next five thousand years.

Soon no one was left. There was not a soul to remember. No archives, no

memories, no time capsules.

Mother earth had been wiped clean by the rape of her land, by the homicide

of her inhabitants at their own hands. And then came the silence. The slow

silence of mourning. And the silence of thinking, of pondering. For this

battered planet began to take on a sentient mind of its own through the

electric flow of the radiation that pulsed deep within its ruined core. At

last, it decided it would have to take its new existence into its own hands

There was no people to tend to it, no God to recreate it. It had to take

time to ponder the new life it would lead. For what use is simply drifting

in space, acting as a mute warning to the stars?

Decades of debate passed, and lapsed into centuries. The tarnished dirt

and wrong-colored sky discussed their new life with the sea. All

conversed, trying to forget the destruction that their last symbiotic

children rewarded them with. Instead, they began to remember. They

remembered many things, but left most of them behind, deciding that they

contributed far too much to their last downfall. Technology should not be

needed. Extreme wealth that did not come directly from the land should not

exist. Whatever inhabitants there would be should depend on where they

live, should depend on the earth. Each remembered a time a long, long,

long space back when man was kept on his leash by the land. When there

were dangers that served to keep them humble Yet also compelled them to be

better to themselves and those around them. When time and earth and all

creation was feral, then things were good. When superstitions ran amock,

when men were terrified by the unknown, when man was compelled to strive

for knowledge and his own survival then things were right.

Dust, boiling hot water, and poisoned sky took their findings to their

Mother Earth who had long gone into mourning after her slaughter. She was

intrigued by these ideas, and she too remembered, vaguely

remembered these days of old, this fleeting golden time where such a thing

called magic existed not only in the imagination. It was decided that the Rebirth

would begin. This would be the second era of the world, where it finally took control.

And it was discovered that all things were right for this new era. All

buildings, all roads, all steel and iron and concrete and plastic had been

either annihalated by the purging fires, or had been unable to take the

contents of the air All had eroded into a fine misting of soil, which hid

a truly rich soil underfoot All life had left the sea, and the waters were

slowly cooling. The sky still glowed red, but the air was not as bad as it

once was. The continents had lost their previous shape in their decimation

and over the course of those five thousand years of waiting had slowly

formed a rick-rack of passes and slivers and masses all over the globe.

They were all connected, but not as one thick mass. The entire world was

now covered with tendrils of these new lands. And the heat, the

bizarreness of the explosions mixed with the chemicals and energies that

man had attempted to control had actually congealed and given birth to a

strange new regenerating power. An odd incarnate power of creation that

left the world a barren, ripe canvas with the perfect medium to paint it.

Its own kind of magic.

Pleased with this, the Earth nodded to her children, and gathered her own

courage. This time, it would be done the way it should have been. The moment

of birth was inconspicuous: just a few blades of grass slowly uncurling from one

of the few seeds that hadn’t been burned and had remained dormant for all those

years, buried alive in the dust. It unfolded from its kernel, and grew. And lived.

Pleased, the mother commanded it to spread, and differentiate into species

and with this magical aid this little seedling Did, without the need of

thousands upon thousands of years of evolution. The earth was a bit

startled at how easily this was accomplished, but happy, still the same.

Soon, most of the strange fingers and globs of the mass continent were

covered with some sort of plant life. Trees began to reach for the sky,

their branches grasping at the air like withered fingers, flowers slowly

began to uncurl, as if hesitant that the life would be choked from them

once more. Some were striped or polka dotted, some were lacy, and some

plants had been fused with the body parts of the humans that had killed

their ancestors. Moss with eyes began to cling to trees and rocks, forever

watching against further invasion. Some areas were still of dust, and they

were left alone; a reminder of what had once been. Slowly, reddish clouds

gathered in the sky, and the entire expanse of creation held its breath As

the first rain poured down upon the earth. Greenish lightning tinged the

sky, and the thunder was the first real voice it had heard in a long time.

But the rain was not lethal, but life-giving. The new plants took, and

grew, and multiplied and slowly began to flourish. That was enough for the

first hundred years. After all, the last time it only took seven days, and

look what happened then.

After getting bored with the plants, Mother Earth decided to rehang the

moon and the sun. They slowly beamed into place and amazingly enough

their added light to the glow of the sky didn’t kill anything. The

plants rejoiced at not being alone anymore and began to double their

offspring. Then came the insects, but not the kind of old. These were

weird shaped creatures that could talk and had some human

attributes. No species would be lower than the others anymore. Some birds

were created, but somehow signals got mixed and little fairy creatures

appeared as well. This went along well enough with the magic of the new

planet so they stayed to pollinate the flowers and ward off stinging

brutes with their razor teeth. Animals slowly were born, and there were

cats and dogs and horses and chickens and some that were sentient enough

to become guards of different places. But there were now other things

which the population of before would have no idea what to do with like

dragons, and manic beasts which came out all fire like and could dissemble

themselves and still live. There were big lumbering furry giants that

grazed off the land contentedly. The earth was not sure if this was right

compared to the last population. But then she reconsidered, and could see

that this would indeed be different. Peaceful in its own way. Obedient.

For no matter how almost human things would be they would never be of that

race.

Another rest, as things grew acclimated with their new world. A shorter

one this time, for it began to be apparent that these creatures needed company,

needed a race to live among them. Using what twisted resources she had, the earth

called into being a new race whose name had been whispered of by humans in

fear: Goblins. They slowly were created from mud and deeply buried bones from

thousands of years past, with moss and flower, pollen and sludge thrown within the mix.

So there became the goblins, along with gnomes and hobgoblins; gnarled and

bumpy creatues with wide eyes and harsh voices, and sometimes scarred

flesh or even fur. They weren’t the most beautiful of creatures, or the

smartest, but they meant well, and with their limited intelligence they

could only use sticks and rocks for their wars. And for the most part they

were happy. They made crude dwellings along the flatter parts of the

world, while many creatures traveled to twisted forests, or the barren,

stony deserts, or even one of the few land-locked bodies of water where

the Great Lakes used to be. That marsh still embodied the ashes that had

been dumped there, and the bodies that had rotted along with the

vegitation, giving off a horrible stench that would kill most men, though

these goblins, and giants, and sentient animals were sturdier, hardier,

and were only inconvenienced.

But these goblins could not always fend for themselves. The wind and rain

and bits of ash that mingled with the snow could still prove threatening.

And they got lost easily, even though they liked to stay in one mass

group, letting the other species spread out. So the earth gathered her

elements, and her resources, and slowly, over the next thousand creeping

years, took stone and mud, and the metals that the goblins were slowly

able to create and began to build its most complex Creation in this bold,

magical new world. It would rival its so-many-great grandfather at

Knossos. It would put the meditation versions of the previous race to

shame. It would enclose the entire land of the world, and always be

different so that no outsider, if one ever developed, could find its way

to this beloved new race and harm them. Bit by bit, turn by turn, dead end

by dead end, the Labyrinth was born. Oubliettes were added, traps were

hidden. There were many levels that extended under the ground and into

water and sky in some cases. And it was always sentient, always living.

Parts of it could speak, and guarded doors to its weaker points. Parts of

it could not communicate but simply knew when danger was coming, and would

change immediately. It was a fluid construction that tapped directly into

the newfound magical source of energy. It extended directly into the root of

Creation and the earth itself.

The inhabitants were pleased with this, and began to spread out to their

different respective habitats. Only the goblins kept moving to its center, happiest

to be enclosed and safe, drifting out into the expanse of the world by day, always

home by night Time itself was different here. The sun and moon themselves were

not perfect, but added an extra hour each onto their patrols of the sky. The goblins

were excellent at constructing things, and built their city at the labyrinth’s center,

as well as thick doors around the entire perimeter, and a giant fortress in the very center

where they could go in times of desperation. Still though, they were

naive. They needed a shepherd, a leader, a guardian. As generations died

out and gave birth, the earth considered this dilemma. Only one of this

new advanced race would be needed...and it would live for all time. It

would take the last bit of the mother’s strength, but it was what her

children needed. And then things would be completed forever more and she

could sleep again, leaving things to this caretaker and the magic of the world.

Slowly, in her brain, the fetus formed, and grew directly from embryo to

man. He was given phenomenal power and would be husband only to the magic

of the world Itself. His image would be that of the race that had

destroyed this world’s pregenitor, but he would not show the ugliness of

that race like the goblins did on their faces. Instead, he would be

beautiful, his oddness lying in his extreme beauty. His curse would be

that he would never find another like himself and that he would forever be

alone, knowing that it was in everyone’s best interest that it be so.

He was born in a flash of light outside the main entrance to this world.

His first task was to charm the gates, then enter his labyrinth, and go to

the center that beckoned him, meeting each of his brethren, each of the

childlike creatures he would look after. And deep in his heart, he

possessed the shame of what had come prior to his existence, and the

longing and loneliness that he would feel for all time besides the duty he

held. Yet he was amazed at this new place, and he walked to his castle,

and invited the goblins in. Like the humans before him, he felt superior,

but unlike them, he was gifted with the shame and humility this feeling

brought, making him forever guilt-ridden and brooding: aged from birth. He

took his place, and with the knowledge creation had put into his brain,

called himself Jareth.

With a covenant prayer of thanks and duty to the Mother Earth, he accepted

the flow of magic as it coursed through his system, forever marking and scarring him

as the supreme caretaker of this land forever. And the earth mother’s spirit grew silent,

and soon went into slumber as up above, and indeed throughout the entire mass of

the planet, life soon flourished and went on.

The only loophole ever to exist in the whole of the creation, was in the

very magic that the earth itself possessed. Jareth found after millennia that he had

the power to travel to other places, other worlds that existed out of the universe Earth

had been set in. Out of loneliness he sent a book to these adjoining

worlds, in hopes that somehow he could call others to him for

companionship, never knowing that it would only serve to deepen his

loneliness and his curse. For once an outsider would enter this reborn

world, it could not stay in its original form, but would be molded into

the likeness of the true children of earth, the goblins, after a thirteen

hour half day. But he accepted his destiny, as the whole of the labyrinth

accepted there’s. And Life went on, and the earth slumbered, and everyone

more or less was as happy as they could be in this enchanted, mutated,

reborn world.

And it was good, or as good as it could be.

End.