"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times,

if one only remembers to turn on the light."

-Dumbledore

{001}

There wasn't much that she could remember anymore. Everything had become rather hazy as her time in the dank dungeons of Isengard had somehow washed away her memories like waves washing away a sandcastle on the beach. Some things remained; the memory of her mother's smile and her father's laugh. These were things she had engraved into her mind every year since their death. She was still wondering how she had managed to land herself in such a position but the more she thought on her circumstance the harder it was to recall.

Freya didn't need a crystal ball to tell her how her future looked because she knew that it would be grim. It hadn't taken her long to realize the bizarre situation in which she found herself was not a dream nor a drug induced hallucination as she would have liked it to be; she was truly where no one would have every thought it possible to be. A world that was not her own.

The wizard was easily recognizable by his long grey hair and silver robes. His was a deep voice that resonated with authority off the marble walls of the darkened fortress of Isengard; a place that had once held beauty. Freya knew herself to be in Middle Earth; a fictional world that was part of a fictional story-or so she had thought. However, no matter how hard she tried to conjure the memories of this fictional world there was nothing to be found. Bits and pieces came to her when needed, unbidden, such as names of people and places but as for the story as a whole…there was nothing.

Night and day had become almost indistinguishable from one another. Her hovel had no window to speak of so she had taken to scratching lines on the walls each time she heard the heavy Counting the days seemed to be useless for the most part but each time she heard the heavy footsteps of the Orcs who came to collect her. Today was day one hundred.

Freya's body groaned in protest as she lifted herself up from the cold ground, brushing the dirt from her backside. Not that this it mattered; her captor paid no attention to her highly disheveled and remarkably foul odor. He cared about one thing and one thing only; information. She assumed it was for how the story would play out in the end. Whether he would be triumphant in his quest for—she couldn't remember that part. Each day he searched through her memories and every time he did, she lost more and more of who she was.

At first it was small things like the name of her first dog or the color of the house she grew up in. However, the more he searched for information the more blank her mind seem to become. Freya could no longer remember the names of her family, only faces. Things such as her favorite color and music had long faded and now, she was left with not much more than her name. Sometimes she cried in her sleep at night; missing the people whose faces haunted her mind and whose names she could no longer recall.

Heavy footsteps could be heard clunking their way down the small passageway to her hovel. It was time again. Freya was weak on her feet, but she managed to draw back her shoulders and hold her chin up high in defiance as the two Orcs dragged her out the door to their master. She had memorized the passage, having walked it so much, and each turn that drew them closer to the wizard made her sick to her stomach with unease. At first, he had been gentle while shifting through her memories and had treated as if she was an honored guest. However, the more frustrated he became at not being able to find what he had been searching for led to difficulties for her.

For a hundred days she had been tortured, beaten, and broken but instead of making her into a meek and quiet lamb; he had created a wolf. In the depths of her forgotten memories there was still one thing she knew about herself and that was that she never backed down. She was a fighter and that would never change no matter how many things he took from her.

"Where are we going?" Freya barely recognized her own voice anymore; it had become deep and raspy over the course of her stay. She looked around at the passageway not recognizing it as one that she knew. The Orcs beside her stayed silent as they hauled her up a spiraling staircase towards the uppermost part of the fortress. Fear flashed in her eyes as she wondered if this was it…if this was the end of her life. The height of Isengard was unmatched by any building she could ever recall from her world and being thrown from it was a sure death sentence.

Freya jerked her arms with every ounce of power she had within her, pulling herself backwards against the Orcs forward movements but her strength had long been depleted. They said nothing, merely held tighter to her upper arms, lifting her in the air just enough so that her feet could not connect with the ground. She continued to squirm but there was nothing now that she could do to prevent her fate.

The marble of the roof painted her body black and blue when she landed unceremoniously on the floor after being hurled through an open door at the Wizard's feet. A cold hand yanked her to her feet before she could regain her composure and she found herself once again face to face with the silver wizard whose name she knew as Saruman. Freya hadn't told him she knew his name, and never once had she uttered it aloud, for he had never told her his name, she had simply known it upon looking at him for the very first time.

"What have you done, Saruman?" Freya tried to turn to face the deep gravelly voice of an unfamiliar presence that spoke from behind her, but her body refused to move. There were notes of exhaustion and pain as the voice continued to speak and Freya felt as if she somehow recognized it from somewhere. Her mind, however, could not conjure up the memory.

"I have performed magic beyond what anyone believed to be capable," Saruman boasted with pride. "From her I will learn all things and with that knowledge Sauron will conquer the Middle Earth and regain his power." Freya's body stiffened involuntarily as a lidless eye wreathed in flames appeared in her vision. Yet, as soon as it had appeared it was also gone. Saruman noticed the change in her behavior and smiled. "Watch, my friend, as I take the last of her memories. She is the beacon of darkness that will shadow the kingdoms of Middle Earth until they fall one by one."

Her knees hit the floor, pain lancing through them. Freya closed her eyes against the onslaught of agony that was yet to come. With his palm against her forehead he began to utter the low chant that precipitated his invasive attack on her mind. Her eyes flew open at once, heart beating erratically. From her mouth emerged a sound of anguish so terror-filled and nightmarish that it could have not possibly been hers. It was a blood-curdling scream that chilled the watching wizard to the bone.

Freya was gasping for breath, groping blindly in front of her for something to hold onto, sweating profusely. In horror she watched as one by one more of her memories disappeared from their precious holding place into the mind of Saruman. The tears were running freely now in small rivers down her dirt marred face. Soon it felt as if she would even lose her name and what use would she be then.

A small voice rang in her mind and the flow of tears ceased; leaving only silent hiccups in their wake. Freya snuck a peek at Saruman whose eyes were closed and mouth still moving his chant. He seemed unaware that anyone had spoken. Freya. The voice spoke again, louder now, and it was then that she realized the voice was in her own mind.

He cannot hear me, my dear, the voice continued to speak; deep and gravelly. Freya recognized it as the voice of Gandalf, the grey clad wizard. It is time for you to leave now and I need you to trust me. Freya shook her head in her mind; paralyzed with fear. How was she to escape under the thumb of such magic. Where would she go? She could barely remember her own name now let alone how to survive in an unknown land. She would be as good as dead.

You will be dead if you do not leave now, his voice was hard but reassuring and she knew he was right.

What do I do then, wizard? She asked. Jump? She could feel his smile.

Exactly. Freya shifted beneath Saruman's hand. If she was going to do this, she would need to do it now before she lost everything. She closed her eyes against the pain, shutting them tight as she readied herself to make her move. Go!

There was no hesitation as she brought her hand up to twist Saruman's palm away from her head. Taken by surprise, the wizard lost his concentration, effectively ending his spell. Freya rolled away and onto her feet making a mad dash for the edge of the fortress. Behind her she could hear Saruman's scream of rage, but she didn't have time to worry about that now.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she launched herself off the edge and into the air. The raging wind around her suppressed the scream that she was sure was emerging from the depths of her diaphragm. Terror flashed across her face as the ground approached and for an instant; she thought that the wizard had failed her. Freya drew her arms up to protect her face as she prepared to hit the dusty terrain of Isengard but instead there was nothing but darkness...

What are your thought?