The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

And The Very Unexpected

Journey of a Finn

Chapter 1 Where the hell Am I?

Summary: In a forest of green, an object is found and a sentence such as: '' VOI PERKELE!'' is an appropriate statement to utter in a situation where you've suddenly and unexpectedly ended up in the middle of nowhere in an unfamiliar land.

Disclaimer: I do not own the fine work of J.R.R Tolkien. I only own the adventurer I myself created.

…...

I had always known in my sane state of mind that falling into another world or dimension through unexpected portals that just popped out of nowhere without any warning or fall through TV- screens or computer screens, was something that just didn't happen to sane people.

Except maybe in peoples wildest dreams as they sleep comfortably in their beds.

I had read so many fanfictions on my computer of such wild stories happening. Some stories were the written content is well thought through and some that had not been so good with Mary-Sue tendencies (then again, some were pretty good even with the slight touch of Mary-Sue: ishness).

And some that only needed half a chapter to determine that they had been unworthy OF reading and so Mary-Sue: ish that it was more than a little annoying to I detain from elaborating which ones exactly I did not deem worth reading further.

Well, I had believed that going to another world (or dimension) was simply in the impossible zone and so out of reach of reason.

Until such a fate did happen to me.

An adventure (or more like nightmare) had been shoved on me out of the blue like some great big boulder. Just in a manner that was unexpected, and not at all welcome if anyone had been there to ask me about my opinion at that very time it happened.

And to be bluntly honest, what sane sort of person with 'a brain' would purposefully want to be taken to another world without their consent? Without promise that you'd see your beloved family again? To face danger that could kill them?

UGH!

And in case anyone wants to know if I'd have rather taken a boulder or an adventure on the day I had found myself completely lost and confused, I would have very much have preferred that boulder.

Well, this had been a small part of my less than savory opinion. At least in the very beginning.

Later, as I went through many experiences in the course of my journey, I did learn a lot about bravery, friendship, and ''Finnish Sisu'', which would be the best described as ''Finnish perseverance''. The word perseverance meaning steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Especially discouragement.

I even found my love. My true love.

But that love didn't come without the big choices I had to make for my future. And those choices were to affect not just myself, but others as well.

...

Anyway, about this part of my life...

My adventure began one fine Autumn morning. There was excellent weather neither too warm, nor too cold.

No rain.

Just the right temperature in the air to go out in the woods to seek out funnel- chanterelles (yellow-foots) in the pine- woods of ' Kuominanmäki ' near my grandparent's old wooden house that had been built with help from my grandmother's younger brother who was a construction worker by craft.

And a very lovely, big house it was with its walls painted a bright colored red and white on the window-sills.

It even had a bathing-room down in the basement. And of course a nice electric sauna and another bedroom on the opposite side to the washroom.

The basement itself was somewhat underground as you could see the grass-line hovering at window-level when you peeked outside.

...

I breathed in the scents of nature around me and day-dreamed about eating the mushrooms I'd already found, for lunch, and the rest I would shove in my freezer for later use.

But I was also enjoying the familiar scenery, as it had been sold a long time ago but it didn't stop me from coming back to this area. The woods were still there, and so were the berries and mushrooms when it was their season to grow.

The area I was scavenging was a place someone had conveniently named ''Nurkkakivi''( Corner-rock) as it was the only massive stone landmark in the area.

The rock in question being a very large, moss covered boulder with also other vegetation growing from it.

It was so big that it might have very well been a piece of an eroded mountain that had been transported to this area of the woods long, long ago by the floods created by the melting and flooding during the end of the Ice Age.

My basket was about half full with delicious (in my opinion, as I rather liked cooked mushrooms and mushroom pie) chanterelles and I'd deemed myself totally fed up with the small moose-flies flying around me and crawling inside my clothes and in my shoulder length, blond hair that I'd twisted into a messy braid.

The flies were nasty little buggers which would not leave me alone! As nasty as the blood drinking horse-flies and as irritating as the mosquitoes.

I was about to head back towards the ''main road'' and call a taxi over to take me back home to 'Lappeenranta town' where I had my apartment, as buses seldom came to these areas during the day. It was annoying, really, as taxis weren't exactly the cheapest form of transportation.

It was then that I spotted something that caught my interest.

I gently dropped my basket of mushrooms on the ground and stooped to pick up the object that turned out to be a quite large, old style metal key that sure wasn't something made in the twenty-first century.

The thing was from my middle finger and down to my wrist in length and the width of four baby sized fingers (on the key part).

I turned the key around between my fingers that were in snug leather gloves, before shrugging my shoulders.

I didn't know who it had belonged to or how it had gotten there. And it really wasn't that important to me. All the same, I decided to stash the key in the pocket of my thick sailor blue Sports- jacket and make a necklace out of the object before turning to grab my basket of mushrooms.

It was then that I managed to spot another nice patch of the wonderful tasting chanterelles on the mossy ground near my basket. In a hole next to a wood-stump.

A rather large patch at that. My decision to leave had just been delayed.

Smiling at the luck of such a find, I immediately started picking them up and cleaning the dirt off them with a mushroom- cleaning brush that had a pocket- knife attached to it. I then used the knife to chop the very end of the stumps.

I ended up being so enthralled with picking the morsels of fungus that I failed to realize that the woodland scenery around me was beginning to shift from familiar to something entirely unfamiliar.

I hummed quietly as I finished cleaning the last mushroom, before dropping the morsel into my basket.

When I'd finished cleaning off the knife and brush I stood up and turned to give one last glance around me for anymore edible fungus when I suddenly realized that something was terribly, utterly wrong with my surroundings.

'' MITÄ... HEMMETTIÄ TÄMÄ OIKEIN ON (WHAT... IN THE HELL IS THIS)?'' I cried out loud in bewilderment as I swiveled my head around, trying to spot the familiar landmark that was ''Nurkkakivi'', but everything around me was wrong.

Wrong and unfamiliar!

The massive boulder that had stood tall on my right as a marker to where I was, had disappeared entirely; moss, plants and all.

Now there was an obvious man-made dirt road to my right that lead in two directions leading someplace I hadn't the faintest of idea.

I felt my legs collapse underneath me and I fell to the moss covered ground with a stunned expression frozen on my face. My throat felt extremely tight and my lips quivered as I breathed out harshly and continued to look around me, trying desperately to understand how I'd managed to find myself in a situation where I had no idea where my familiar surroundings, the ones I'd known from way in the past during my childhood, had disappeared.

Something like this just didn't happen to people!

It just wasn't POSSIBLE! IT WAS TOO SURREAL!

Swallowing hard, I buried my face in my gloved hands, chanting:'' Miksi, miksi, miksi?( Why, why, why)?'' in my head as I tried my best to not panic in my obviously very distressing situation.

Or burst into sobs of frustration.

I stayed thus for a long moment until I'd managed to snap myself back into a more aware state of mind.

It was no longer a question of how I got here; it was now a question as to what I would have to do next that would turn the tables in my favor. I couldn't just stay in this one place forever. I needed to find a settlement and then figure out what the hell I should go for from there.

Cursing at the fact that my day had started off so great before turning foul, I stumbled to my feet and lifted the basket of mushrooms off the ground whilst shoving my mushroom-brush and closed pocket-knife inside my jacket-pocket.

I glowered witheringly at the dirt- road for a long moment, trying to determine which way I should take, but it wasn't easy to make a decision. Which ever way I were to choose, it would still lead me somewhere unknown and I had no idea if the other way just lead me further away from civilization.

If only there had been people crossing my path at this time.

'' HAH!'' I cried out loud in frustration.'' Koita nyt tehdä oikea päätös tässä tilanteessa (Ho, you try making a right decision in this situation)!''

Angrily, I just began walking briskly in one direction with my army-green rain-boots crunching loudly on the tiny pebbles of the dirt-road. My mushroom-basket was waving around in my hand in tandem with my brisk pace.

I needed to find a water source somewhere, too, if I didn't find myself in town before dark but at least I had the mushrooms to prepare for food source when I became hungry. That is, if I managed to light a fire somehow without any matches.

''Hienoa! Todella vittumaisen hienoa! (Great! Just 'damn' great!)'' I snarled out in my rage.

I would have to eat the mushrooms raw after finding a water source to wash them off if it came to it, but at least I knew these mushrooms weren't poisonous.

All the same this situation was really crating on my nerves, and it showed as I continued muttering curses in my mother-tongue.

Using words like: ''Hemmetti! Vittu! Helvetti! Perkele!

The curse words, that in my opinion, added more punch to how I felt about being in a situation where I had no idea whether I'd find somewhere to stay the night.

I had no travel equipment except for the small red Fjallraven- packpack, the clothes I was wearing, my thick wool- hat with flaps on the sides and a thick yellow scarf (which were stuffed in my backpack), a ''puukko'' (that was one of my most prized possessions), water-bottle, my phone, the mushroom-brush attached to the pocket knife.

And the basket of mushrooms.

I kicked a rather large pebble out of my way and watched it soar somewhere in the underbrush surrounding the road, then abruptly kicked harshly at another that skittered away from the road and disappeared very much like the first one.

Yep, I was definitely in a very foul mood!

And I was sure my mood would only get worse as hours pass if I didn't find any form of civilization before nightfall.

...

End Of Chapter 1 Where the hell Am I?

...

Author Notes: Yes, I didn't tell the adventurer's name yet. I'm saving it for later. I'll just try and be more detailed in other parts of the story to make things interesting.

Now, the place called 'Kuominanmäki' is an actual small town( or rather a village) in Finland. In fact Nurkkakivi (Corner-rock) is a place where my sisters, grandma and I often went mushroom picking for those delicious funnel-chanterelles.

The red painted house I mentioned does exist and was built by my own grandfather's hands.