Never Back Again // The Hobbit, Fili X OC

The tragedy of being a horse girl

Distant gunshots and the distinct sound of a cleaver hitting a wooden chopping board over and over again blended together into a haunting chorus. The sound echoed off the walls until she didn't know where one sound ended and the other began. Behind her an old door creaked open, letting in a single line of light to pierce the overwhelming darkness.

Voices. She heard voices. They were familiar to be certain but she didn't know what was being said, like they were speaking a language that didn't exist. A man and a woman, that's all she knew. A sudden but overwhelming desire to follow the voices pulled in her chest. Yes, she could help them.

Her legs moved on their own, a heavy strain weighing her muscles down with every movement she made, every step more difficult than the last. She could feel the wind in her hair as she picked up the speed, but no matter how far she went, no matter how big her steps, the door remained as far away as it had always been.

The impenetrable darkness that surrounded followed every step she took until she was running. To the door or just away from the dark she did not know, but even then she could not reach the light. As she sped up, so did the sounds echoing around her. The shooting amplified, shots overlapping with each other making her ears ring, and the chopping grew uneven and erratic. The subtle rhythm that it had before was completely lost and only chaos remained.

The door was getting closer. Was it her finally moving forward or did the door rush towards her? Just a couple more feet and then she would be in the light. Almost there. She reached out to the doorknob. The voices stopped talking and everything went still. She was no longer moving, or maybe she never moved in the first place? Everything was completely frozen in time, even the sounds that followed her like a shadow faded into the background and eventually into complete silence.

Then, there was a loud, piercing scream that made blood trickle down her ears, but she could not tell if the chilling sound came from her or the woman behind the door. The floor groaned, and with a drawn out crack it gave out beneath her and the chaos from before returned tenfold. The chorus of guns and knives came back louder than before until it was all she could hear. The vibrations rattled her bones and shook her lungs as she plummeted down into the abyss.

She was still falling, limbs flailing around in the wind helplessly. There was no way to tell where or when she would land, everything around her still pitch black. The only reason she knew for certain that she was still falling in the first place was the rush of wind in her hair and the feeling of her stomach in her throat.

She hit water, the ice cold river swallowing her into its angry currents. The river was mad at her. She didn't know why, couldn't remember what she did, but it was angry and would keep dragging her under for eternity.

She didn't know how long the waters had been sweeping her along. Could've been a few seconds, but it could also have been days. Her sense of time, along with every other sense she possessed, was jumbled and out of reach. She didn't even know if she had been moving forward at all or if the river kept pulling her down in the same spot over and over again in a cruel game. At this point she was so disoriented that she couldn't tell up from down anymore. The water was murky, almost darker than her already impossibly dark surroundings, and whenever some of it would end up in her lungs it brought a metallic tinge with it.

A boy reached out with his arm outstretched. His face was blurry and features kept shifting. She took his hand without a second thought. But the moment her fingers wrapped around his cold wrist, the boy disappeared. The only evidence of his existence being the severed arm she held in her hands. Another scream, and this time she knew it could only be her.

Water filled her lungs. Or was it blood? She didn't know, but it does not matter. She can't breathe. No matter what direction she swam to, an invisible force kept pulling her down. She can't breathe. Her hand breached the surface, but the boy's arm pushed it down again. She can't breathe. Blood poured from her eyes and mouth as she screamed. She can't breathe. Her strength was failing her, limbs going still. She can't breathe-