This is the story of a journey. Which road will you take? Sooner or later, everyone must choose.

I do not own Middle Earth. I do, however, love constructive criticism.

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king."

-J.R.R. Tolkein

You know how, every once in a while, something happens that makes you rethink your life – that makes you stop, retrace your steps and start down a different path – that makes you realize, all of a sudden, that you've been looking at everything in completely the wrong way?

Sometimes it's not as obvious, and you have to think a bit to realize this is meant to be a life-changing event. But sometimes... something really big happens. Something impossible.

Maybe to the few who are privileged. Or maybe the few are just really thick-headed and stubborn. Which I certainly was. But if you are one of those few, one thing is certain – you can never look at life the same way again.

I'm honestly not sure how it first happened. I can only theorize that sometimes, parallel universes overlap a bit. With help, of course. It's not like you can get to Narnia by knocking on the back of any closet.

And everything, everything, happens for a reason.

But certainly, all I knew on that March night that changed my life was: it is only humanly possible to go so many hours without sleep.

An endless stretch of complicated chemistry equations is probably one of the worst things to try to focus on when it's 2 A.M. and you're at the end of a long week of finals and running on nothing but caffeine and willpower.

It was dark in the little bedroom – all but one of the bulbs had gone out in the overhead light, which gave out a sickly yellow sort of glow. The wind howled outside the blank black wall of the window.

My head drooped slowly toward the keys of the laptop, then came back up with a jerk. I rubbed my eyes vigorously and refocused on the meaningless row of symbols and numbers.

Three and a half percent molarity... calculate the percent composition...ionic structure of this molecule... the experiment failed in lab, write up a list of possible inaccuracies...

My brain seemed to be going fuzzy. When I stretched out a hand in front of me, the fingers shook from the excess of caffeine buzzing through my bloodstream; but my eyes wouldn't stay open all the way. It was impossible to concentrate – everything blurred together.

The storm outside was picking up force. Windowpanes rattled slightly; a tree branch was caught up in the roaring gust and slapped against the side of the house.

If I could only sleep...

No. This matters too much.

But I just can't hold on any longer – a lumpy old mattress has never looked so wonderful. Or maybe I'll just curl up on the floor under my desk...

Oh god, why should I even care. Screw the future, screw what everyone expects. I can't do this anymore.

Disconnected, I saw my own hand slam the laptop shut.

And then... the wind was whistling, howling, shrieking – closer and closer, as if the walls had simply disappeared – the roaring in my own ears rose up to meet it - finally giving in, my head dropped down onto the thick book that sat on the corner of the desk – the fog swirled into my weary brain and my vision went black.

But the roaring went on and on – mixed with disembodied voices now, howling in my ear as I felt my body spinning away, whirling into the darkness. Into a funnel, into a vortex, powerless.

Have you ever had one of those half-asleep dreams where all of a sudden you're falling, jerking awake before you're sucked away into a nameless dread and it's too late?

This dream didn't stop.

I heard voices rushing past me, whispering things I didn't understand. A hissing voice, smooth, menacing, thoroughly evil, out of the depth of some chilling nightmare. "Come to me. Listen to the darkness. Come, come..."

I saw the open jaws, breathing cold flame, the scaly wings of a dragon. Its glowing red eyes. Then the vision was somehow a great lion, roaring, the sound terrifying, but the evil serpentine voice faded and was gone. I felt the lion's golden presence for a moment – and then, suddenly, a great flash which burned higher and higher – a great red eye, the eye of the dragon magnified, pulsating, filling my world and drawing me, helpless, to the edge of a great pit, blacker than the blackness, a chasm from which heat pulsated, heavy, rank with fear – tongues of fire, sounds of torment from below – and I was screaming soundlessly, unable to escape.

And then mercifully, it all faded.

The storm was gone. And a voice called me, from the distance – "Child, you have fallen away. Return... follow the light."

I caught a glimpse of a door opening, with light streaming out like the coming of a sunrise, and I wanted to go through it. Suddenly it seemed as if everything that ever had or would matter was behind that door.

But I couldn't move. Images were rising up in my mind, like an old film reel – I was seeing pictures of my own life, and most of it seemed to be set to a background of angry rock music. A car sped down a country road, spewing exhaust. Two people talked urgently behind a closed door, faces lined with worry. A little girl cried. I saw myself rebelling against the system just because I could... snarking at anything and everything... doing the opposite of what anyone told me to do... pushing buttons, and pushing away all I had once loved. I realized that, for months now, I had cared about nothing but me.

Blackness, again. The door was closed. There was a single strain of sweet music, then nothing.

I felt solid ground under me, and lay there gasping, trying to hold on to the vision of light, but at the same time wanting to block out everything horrible I had seen.

And then I realized where I was - or rather, where I wasn't, which was safely back in my bedroom. I was lying on my face in grass, in a hillside in cold gray daylight, with tears on my cheeks.

[A/N This is just the beginning; it is going to be a journey through Middle Earth, but I needed to set the scene. Please review this snippet, and I will upload as quickly as possible...]