Another Life

Chapter 17 - Captive

I was not okay.

I knew it. I knew that whatever that arrow was doing, it was very bad, and I was not okay. But I was alive. Only barely though.

I woke, tried to fight the urge to sleep, my body begging me to sleep, to fade away. I was tied up, I knew that much, arms around the neck of one of the foul smelling Uruk Hai, their arms holding my legs up.

The arrow was removed while we ran, I woke for that, this horrible pain as they snapped the end off, yanked the entire thing out, I screamed for that. It gave them pleasure to hear it.

And far too often, fluid was forced down my throat, this black sticky stuff that clung to my throat as if it was alive, and they'd make sure I was awake for that. I would wake to a slap, my head forced back, shit poured down my throat.

I knew that I was peeing myself, shitting myself, but I didn't have the energy to be disgusted. The creature carrying me didn't seem to know or care. They smelt pretty rank anyway.

What I did know was that they wanted me alive. That they treated the wound, while on the run, and that I wasn't the only one alive. Pippin and Merry. I saw them from time to time, at my side, I heard Pippin sometimes calling to me or Merry.

The pain kept waking me up, that and the 'medicine', and I saw the light fade. The stars come out. I stared up desperately, or tried to, but I could barely move my body. My eyes kept fluttering, trying to close, and time would pass. Sometimes it felt like hours, days, months, but sometimes it felt like time moved too fast between the medicine, that horrible sticky shit.

As their shit slowly worked, I started to wake for longer periods, and started to really get what deep fucking shit I was in. What we were all in. They thought Merry and Pippin had the ring. And me? I remembered everything about this. I knew where Frodo would go. I knew what would happen. I knew how we'd beat the giant flaming eye. Rohan, Gandalf was still alive, I remembered everything. About me? Nothing new.

But this?

If he tortured me, how much would I be able to hold it back?

Did Saruman know how much I knew?

And...

It wasn't just fear of torture. The hands that touched me, that really touched me, grasping, groping, laughter, cruel sadistic laugher as fingers forced my mouth open for the medicine, at my pain, at my suffering.

I had already been raped, though I still was stubborn about it not being Boromir's true actions, but now I was surrounded by them. Creatures. Evil fucking creatures that raped women.

Would Saruman offer me to them when he was done? Would he give me to them to get information? Would they be my torture? For the first time, I felt real fear, fear of being helpless, being a woman, vulnerable. Boromir felt regret. But these creatures? I doubted they'd even hesitate. I would die if they were allowed. But not before Saruman got what he wanted out of me. They would torment and torture me for days, weeks, I didn't know how long.

I drifted in and out of conciousness, plauged by nightmares of this, of Boromir raping me again, only it wasn't him. It was them. Sometimes I felt like it was real. I'd gasp, awake, still on the back of whatever it was carrying me, and find myself still dressed, still untouched.

Alive and unspoiled. He wanted all of us alive and unspoiled. But what when he got us?

I had changed the future. What if the horse riders didn't come in time? What if they missed us? I had delayed this. What if they didn't need rest now? Had they needed to stop to take my arrow out? I couldn't tell the difference between nightmares and reality. Day, or night, they felt the same, I didn't know how long we'd been carried. I was covered in filth.