Okay, new story. This is a little clichéd it's your typical girl falls into ME fic, hopefully with a little bit of originality! And hopefully not a Mary Sue. Please Read and REVIEW…this story is set to be a fairly long one, you have been warned!
Kelly
CHAPTER 1- In which we meet the 'heroine'
My life is dull, actually it's worse than that, it's tragic. Well not tragic in the terrible 'woe is me, what tragedy has befallen me' but tragic as in it's lame. Which in itself is a bit misleading, not to say that my life is boring and that nothing has happened to me, come to think of it my life so far has been rather interesting, full of ups and downs, not all happy I'll admit but I've had my moments.
I guess the truth of it is I'm one of those people who sits surrounded by a large group of friends and yet feels lonely. To be honest I never feel quite as absolutely alone in the world as when I'm surrounded by people, I guess I'm sort of a walking contradiction in that way.
So what is there to say about me? I'm not introverted or extraverted, I'm shy when I first meet people but once I know them I talk all the time. I can be humorous when the mood takes me but I'm not a funny person. I surround myself with beautiful people and later wonder why I feel inadequate. I over analyse everything, always questioning the motives of those around me, wondering why they do certain things, I'm probably a bit paranoid, as their motives all become a bit suspicious- I really need to start thinking in shallow terms. I prefer one or two friends who I can trust with everything than I would a large number of shallow friendships.
So where am I? I'm in a pokey bedroom, the smallest one that you could possibly imagine, it resembles a corridor with a lump taken out from one side for an 'en suit' translation being a cupboard with running water. To explain the dynamics of my bathroom I could sit on the toilet whilst taking a piss, brush my teeth leaning over the sink and clean my feet in the shower all at the same time...so it's not minuscule, it's actually promoting multitasking. Which is, as I'm sure most would agree a very valuable ability to have, especially when one is training to be a nurse, which subsequently I am.
It's just occurred to me that this is beginning to sound a little bit like a Hugh Grant monologue from one of his classics, such as Notting Hill, God help me.
Where was I? ... Never mind. This is, if you haven't guessed an introduction to me and a prologue to my story. Explaining something's about me, which I feel need to be established before I tell you about what happened. You see, I'm a fan of 'Lord of the rings,' I love to read, and I love the Internet, which naturally leads to a love of fan fiction. Perhaps that's why I need to introduce myself, so that I can be fairly judged as an 'OC' or a Mary Sue- and lets get this straight, I don't have long perfect hair in 'jet black,' 'shining silver,' 'golden blond,' or 'a rich brown that shines red in fire light.' Nor are my eyes emerald green, deepest sea blue, stunning violet or change randomly depending on my mood. Oh and when I cry, you don't get the 'one singly crystalline tear rolling down a pale smooth velvety cheek,' you get puffy red swollen eyes, runny nose, and a weird hiccuppy noise which comes from me crying so hard I can't actually breathe properly.
I am quite bluntly average. My hair is a mousy-ish brown, just blond enough for people to ask me if I consider myself a blond before launching into a round of rude blond jokes. My eyes are brown, plain but I am quite fond of them as a friend told me that they light up when I smile. I tried to test this theory by smiling in a mirror however apparently it only works when I am genuinely happy. I'm not skinny nor fat, but well proportioned with cleavage to be proud of.
There is far more to tell but I'm sure that you get the general idea, it's about time that I got on with it. So where to start?
Well, it was mid-January, a time I normally don't mind but as a nurse who works twelve and a half hour shifts (and must be up at five A.M) I do miss the sunlight. I was up and dressed after another particularly bad night of sleep due to my typical nightmares and general insomnia and was braving the cold and dark on the long endless trek to the bus stop. Okay, it's ten minutes but in the freezing cold and snow (yes, snow!) it's a long walk. Plus there's the braving 'almost certain death factor'.
The 'almost certain death factor' is actually cross roads, which have no pedestrian crossing and is hidden under a massive railway bridge, so it's nice and dark. Plus because of the curve in the road you can't really see a car/bus/lorry hurtling towards you until it's practically on top of you. In which case you have just about enough time to 'Meep' and then you're flattened.
Luckily on this particular day, I made it safely passed the 'almost certain death factor' crossroads and continued on my journey. I reached the roundabout, which is a strange dual carriage way contraption surrounded by zebra crossings. Now by British law, the moment someone steps out onto a zebra crossing all oncoming traffic must stop. Me being the somewhat paranoid person I am, I don't walk out onto the crossing, I stand on the curb and wait for the cars to stop. There aren't that many cars at 6.20 in the morning but still, once the car stopped I began to cross.
Now I'm not too sure what exactly happened next. Maybe the driver of the white van didn't see me as I was hidden from view behind the car in the other lane, maybe he was yawning, or sneezing or on his mobile phone. What I do know was that there was a screech of brakes and then the foul stench of burning rubber. That and I was vaguely aware I was no longer standing up but was in fact lying in a crumpled heap some meters away from where I had first started out.
It actually took me a while to realise that I'd been hit by the van. The reason it took so long was because it didn't hurt, which was the scariest thing. Quite possibly the worst thing about being in the health care profession is when you need medical treatment yourself you know all the ins and outs of it from the other side. Bearing this in mind I knew that not feeling any pain after being hit by a van and thrown across the road was not a good thing. It was in fact very bad. Either I was in shock, or I was dying and my brain was shutting itself down, more than likely a combination of both. Either way I was quite understandably terrified, more so when my vision started to go.
Having only fainted once before in my life (a highly embarrassing story which I may mention later) I recognised the signs. The weird creeping darkness starting from the edge of your vision and moving in until you can't see anything, muffled hearing and then nothing.
Now as this was happening I was wondering, will I regain consciousness or will I wake up in some strange afterlife, if for the matter there even is an afterlife.
As I began to wake up, I noticed two things which I considered answers to that question, one- I was in absolutely no pain what so ever, nor did I feel sleepy of sluggish, which meant I was not on heavy duty pain killers. Two- I was still in the same crumpled heap on the floor, if I was in a hospital I would have been on a bed and even if I had mangled every single bone in my body, they would have made some effort to straighten me out.
Dead then.
So I push myself up into a sitting position to get a good look at this afterlife I'm in. The ease that I sit up with just adding to my belief I'm now dead. A quick glance around me tells me that I must have done something terribly awful in life because this is most definitely hell.
That should probably be my own personal hell, I'm sure to someone that this would be heaven, but it's not to me. It's a wood, or a forest I'm not sure. Did I mention that I hate woods? I remember one foster family I stayed with when I was about six, they tried to take me on a picnic to the woods. I screamed the moment I saw them, and clung to my foster mums leg and the door of the car refusing point blank to enter the trees. Needless to say I was soon back in the children's home after that little display. I can't really decide what it is that I hate so much about woods and trees, I guess it started in my dreams.
Ever since I was a little girl, I've had the same recurrent nightmare. To begin with it's alright, I'm standing in the most beautiful woods you could imagine, but then I start to run. I don't know what I'm running from, it makes no sound and I never see it. I just have to run and if I don't run, if it reaches me terrible things will happen. And so I run and run, and run, until my legs are burning and my body feels heavy and I can't breathe properly and I know it's about to reach me...and I wake up.
So now here I am, in the middle of an afterlife/hell forest with no idea what to do. Shouldn't God or Buddah or something tell me what to do? Satan perhaps? With the extreme lack of explaining deities, I decided to walk for it, sooner or later I will have to reach a road or something. Right?
Two hours later, or what I'm guessing is two hours later, I'm really not that good at estimating things and my fob watch got destroyed when I 'died', I'm still walking, and it's still a forest. It's no longer a wood, it's too big to be a wood and there is still no road. What's worse is I'm running out of things to think about, and songs to sing, and movie scripts to recite. I have bad coping skills, people tell me this all the time, I've been relatively successful in ignoring the fact I'm dead and lost in a tree filled afterlife but only by continuously thinking about other things. Soon I'm going to have to start thinking about and accepting the truth, which I'm not ready for yet. Is it possible to have a panic attack in the after life? What about a mental break down?
Luckily I manage to draw myself out of my musings and catch myself before I walked into the arrow. It would have been embarrassing to have both been hit by a van and impaled on an arrow in the same day...
About then I realise that someone is pointing an extremely sharp and pointy arrow in my face, and that without me realising it I've been surrounded by people. Although 'people' isn't really the correct word, starring dumbly, I get a good look at them. And re-evaluate my being in hell, these, people or beings have to be angels. Someone up there...up here must like me. Except that all six angels have sharp and pointy arrows aimed at me.
The one in front of me lowers his bow a little.
"Westron?" I'm assuming it's a question but what he's asking I'm not entirely sure.
I blink at him, for a few seconds and try to think of a suitable answer. My oh so intelligent brain came up with; "Excuse me?" So now the incredibly gorgeous golden haired angel must now think that I'm an idiot. Although my answer can't have been too bad as the golden one makes a hand gesture and the others lower their bows and back off a few paces.
Taking this as a good sigh I brave asking a question. "Um, I hate to bother you but I, ah, seem to be a little lost. I don't suppose you could give me directions?"
He smiles back at me, although I'm craning my neck to look up at him, and I'm quite tall anyway. And he answers, "Of course my lady, where were you planning on travelling to?"
Again I stare up at him, and once again he must think I'm an idiot. Where am I going again? Purgatory is a safe bet; maybe I should ask him where I'm going. Perhaps this is a test. Before I can formulate some sort of answer he said.
"We can help you find your escort, if that is what you need."
"I don't have an escort." I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who got squished by a white transit van.
That apparently was the wrong thing to say, a muttering goes around the small group and the one in front of me stares at me incredulously. Which draws their attention away from my clothes (which they had been previously staring at), honestly, it's not that good of a uniform. Surely in the afterlife people or angels aren't still hung up on that ridiculous nurses fetish? And honestly what is that? What on earth could possibly be considered attractive or sexy about what nurses do?
"A woman alone, unarmed in these woods? Milady these are dangerous times, you should not..."
Now I'm highly confused, if you're dead then nothing can happen to you right? What could possibly be a danger to me, unless there was some soul eating demon lurking around. But come to think of it I don't feel particularly soul like, more solid, more alive. Then a truly terrifying thought occurs to me. What if I'm not dead, what if I'm in a coma and this is some weird deluded dream? Or even worse, what if this is real?
Some of my terror must have shown on my face because the golden one is looking at me with concern.
"Where am I?"
He answers softly, "The borders of Imladris Milady."
Imladris, okay so that's, that's Rivendale, a place in a book. A fictional book. A not real, it came from a persons imagination type of place. Suddenly I don't feel so well, and I think that maybe I'm going to faint for the second time in my life, or is that third?
I glance back to the golden one in front of me and whisper softly, "I need help."
He nods and smiles at me in a way that is both friendly and pitying. Then says, "I am Glorfindel, Seneschal to Elrond, and captain of the guard. And you are?"
My vision is going again, but I have to fight a bubble of hysterical laughter, of course he's Glorfindel, the reborn Balrog slayer who else would he be? I have just enough time to reply before I collapse.
"I'm Kelly."
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A/N, so that's it the first chapter. Tell me what you think bites fingernails all comments, advice and constructive feedback are most welcome and if you just want to say 'hey I read this', feel free. It encourages me to continue. Next chapter shall be around soon.
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