Author's Notes: Hello, everyone, and welcome to my story! This isn't the first story that I tried to post on FanFiction, but it might be the first one that I may continue. The inspiration for this story actually came from seeing all of those stories about people (mostly girls) landing in Middle Earth and going on the adventure with the characters. Since I'm a sucker for always wondering how I could write my own version of this genre, I finally decided to do it.

I know that fanfics with OC's can either be a hit or a disastrous miss with said OC's being too powerful and perfect. Believe me, I understand! To come clean about my OC addition is that she is modeled after me. I will not deny that this is somewhat of a self-insert story, and I know that that can be a deal breaker for many of you. But, I promise you, that she won't steal the show or take away character development from the other characters. She will have strengths and she will have many flaws.

I hope with that note in mind that you give this story a chance. I'm not perfect, but I'm going to do my best to get character personalities right. Thank you, and enjoy the introduction!

Prologue

"I swear, if she says we can't go after all the work we put in this, I'm gonna be so pissed."

"I think the knowledge that you hand sewed our puppets will give us the go ahead anyway," a girl with blonde hair commented as she lifted her hand from the blue bed sheet that was sprawled on the floor, her palm entirely green.

"Even with that, I wouldn't put it passed her to fail us anyway. Did you forget that she wanted us to quilt our background? She can never make anything simple."

"Well, thankfully Annetta's idea got her off our back and onto another group's," another girl with long, bushy brown hair pointed out as she slathered her hand in bright yellow paint before also leaving her hand prints on to sheet, "I'm still upset that she made us change the entire ending of our play."

"Ugh, I know," Haley agreed, "I cringe every time the bully flip-flops his personality. That does not happen in real life."

"It sucks, but I'm willing to do anything as long as I get my A at the end of the semester," Annetta said. Haley snorted at her comment.

"Says the girl who decided to take twenty-nine credits this semester…"

"Twenty-six now," she corrected, "had to drop one of my math classes since I was failing miserably." Haley simply 'hummed' at her reason before she glanced over at the other girl.

"Anyway, how are the puppets clothes coming, Alicia?"

"Eh. I'm getting there. I need to teach myself how the use the sewing machine. If not, I'll probably have to hand-sew them. That's gonna take forever," she grumbled.

"Oh, yes, how will you survive?" she joked. A rude painted covered gesture was flashed her way in return with a laugh in response.

"Hey, dear," Annetta interrupted, "can you check the time?" With a noise of acknowledgement, Haley flicked her wrist out before her and peered at the numbers on her watch.

"Oh, you two better get going! Class ends in five minutes," she informed them. Letting out a sharp curse, Annetta flew over to the nearby sink and started wildly scrubbing the paint off. Alicia followed at a more sedated pace.

"Don't you have a class after this too?" she asked over her shoulder as she nudged Annetta to scooch over and share the sink.

"Nah," Haley responded as she slathered on another layer of brown paint on my palm, "Mine was cancelled today."

"Cool. We can head over to the Mill," she said.

"Oh, no! You get your ass to class, young lady! You've skipped that math class way too many times this semester," she scolded in return.

"All she does is lecture and I already know everything in that class," she countered desperately, but Haley remained firm.

"Doesn't matter," she shot back, "I made the mistake of skipping classes in my first couple of semesters and that dug me in a massive hole."

"You skip classes now!"

"Do as I say; not as I do," she repeated the quote her father usually recited to her. However, he only said that when he was driving. Especially when he's going twenty above the speed limit and zig-zaging around cars on the turnpike when they were going too slow for him. And he was also the one teaching her how to drive. Better him than her mother. Her road rage was the stuff of legends.

"Ugh, fine!" Alicia gave in after giving Haley her brand of the stink eye, which was actually very unintimidating considering she's trying not to laugh at the same time.

"Good girl," Haley praised with a flash of a grin. She merely rolled her eyes and went back to her task at hand. Faster than what way probably possible, Annetta finished her washing, snatched her backpack, kissed the top of Haley's head, back-hugged Alisha, and bounded out the door with a call of goodbye to them as she raced to her next class.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Alicia asked as she shouldered her satchel a moment later.

"Yeah. I'm not gonna stay long anyway. I'm gonna finished this tree trunk and then head out," she answered as she repeated the slathering and pressing motion.

"Alright. I'm gonna work on our puppets clothes this weekend, so they should be done by Monday," Alicia said as she walked out the door and up the hallway stairs.

"Good! Just don't stress yourself over it," Haley called. Her echoed response of 'I won't' came back as the basement door slammed shut.

Without the constant chatter that flowed between the three of them, the basement was deadly quiet with only the occasional random noises Haley made between moving this way and that. Time seemed to flow by as she fell into a constant rhythm of putting paint on her hand, pressing said hand onto the sheet, mixing a new batch of paint, and shifting around from one side to the other. She had caught herself more than once going to either scratch her face, tuck her hair, or secure her glass with a painted hand. It felt like only minutes later when she was finally satisfied with her work.

A lovely tree created from hand-prints graced the side of the sheet; her pride and joy on their puppet play background. The grass was only halfway down and the sun looked rather sad, but with two weeks until the actually showings, they had time to fix it later. Going through the duties of washing her hands and cleaning up the leftover supplies was rather time consuming itself since the damn paintbrushes decided to absorb the paint. With that battle eventually over and done with, Haley glanced at her watch.

"Wow, I've been here for an hour and a half," she muttered to nobody. That meant she missed the lunch special. Oh, well. It was probably something she didn't want anyway. With a sigh and a crack of her neck, she carefully lifted one of the sheet corners and processed to hang it up to dry. Alicia was already done with her classes by now, so she was more than likely waiting for Haley at the Mill, their college's one and only cafeteria.

She was halfway through hanging up the other corner when she felt something strange go through her. She paused and knitted her brows together. Where was that vibration coming from? Frowning, Haley lifted up one of her hands and studied it closely, waiting for it to tremble. Maybe she was low on sugar. That usually caused her to shake like that. However, the hand before her was completely steady.

Odd.

Shrugging it off as nothing, she finished hanging up the sheet and stepped off the chair she had used as a step-stool. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she felt it again. That odd shaking feeling. Was that coming from her?

SMASH!

Haley nearly screamed when the piercing sound of shattering glass startled her. What the hell?! Whipping her head around, she finally found the culprit to be a fallen clay pot that was just resting on a shelf not a moment ago. The shaking continued and was growing more violent with each passing second. Haley realized with a growing horror that the shaking was definitely not coming from her.

It was the actual ground. It was an earthquake.

Adrenaline fueled panic overwhelmed Haley as the room around her shook like it was being shaken like a snow globe. A glass case filled with pottery smashed to the ground in mere seconds. The vending machine next to it violently rocked until it joined the ground as well. Art supplies and stacked chairs became scattered in an instant. Her own body felt like it was about to stumble and give out if she didn't press as hard as she could against the wall. Her heart pounded in her chest and her lungs left like lead.

'What do I do?! What do I do?! What do I do?!'

She remembered being drilled on what to do during an earthquake during her elementary school days, but for the life of her she couldn't remember them now! Wasn't there something about curling into a ball and protecting your head?

It was then that a loud groan caused her heart to stop completely. Looking up, her breathing hitched in her throat. Through the haze of the earthquake, Haley watched as dust and powdery debris fall from the ceiling to the floor. Another groan came and bending metal rafters and pipes followed.

'Oh my God! The roof's collapsing!'

Those panicked thoughts spurred her into action. Pushing away from the wall with as much force as she could muster, she ran towards the door that led to the stairs and the first floor. If she got up the stairs, the door to the outside was right there. She would be safer outside than in.

She was halfway there when the ground slammed into her all of a sudden. Hissing in pain at her busted up hands and knees, she clamored over the fallen chair and rushed towards the door desperately. A cry of despair and fear tore from her lips when the roof over the door suddenly collapsed. Pure panic and adrenaline raced through her blood as she tried to claw and pull away the debris from the door.

Another groan made her freeze. Glancing up, she could only watch in horror as the roof above her came crumbling down.

She didn't have time to scream before darkness took Haley.

Author's Notes: And that was the introduction to my story. I hope you like it and tell me what you think! If you have any questions just ask and I'll answer them when I post the next chapter. I'm currently working on the next chapter and I hope I can create longer chapters. Anyway, see you next time!