A/N My first fanfiction! So nervous. Anyway, The characters featured in 'Those Left Behind' are based off my real-life friends, so hopefully they won't turn into mary-sues, and, yeah, that's about it. Goldie Gamgee helped me with this one, so special thanks to her! (Please go check her out if you haven't already, she is an amazing writer.) Anyway, on with the story! :D
Have you ever wondered where fictional characters come from? People say they come from imagination, from nothingness. But others argue something quite different.
You see, when a writer dreams up a seemingly original and purely fictitious person, what they are actually doing is summoning a spirit from the world of the dead, moulding them slightly to perfectly resemble the picture in their mind, and sending them off into the world that they made up. An alternate universe.
But when a writer dreams up a character and then dismisses it, thinking the story to be better without the character, the person is in a spot of bother. For they belong no longer to the world of the dead, and the story of which they do belong is already being written without them. So instead, they are reincarnated as a human on Earth, which is where all the stories originate.
Now, these people can be unstable, as they don't belong on Earth. So sometimes, they can vanish suddenly and land in the world they were meant to live in. But when this happens, there is no going back. They are forced to either adapt to their situation and follow the plot, or destroy their world.
This is the story of five such beings, and their adventure in Middle Earth.
...
Shouting, yelling, screaming. It didn't stop. It was thunder in her ears. Oh why didn't it stop? She was having such a nice dream. She was being taken to a better place. A magical place. She had never particularly liked Earth, for she had always felt out of place, and often wished she could go somewhere magical. This obviously couldn't be it. There was too much noise.
"There! A man! Gondorian, by the look of 'im! What do you think eh, Lurtz? Capture or slaughter?"
Slaughter? No, that didn't sound right. Nothing like the average buzz of her apartment, with the occasional shout outside her window. So, with involuntary protest, Aaria Jane Greenewood pried her eyelids apart, gazing around drowsily. Amazed, she found she was lying on dewy grass, the sun producing miniature rainbows amongst the tiny blades. In front of her were bushes, and trees behind. She sat up, suddenly wide awake.
"Bugluk, your ears are infested with maggots! Master told us to capture the hobbits, and kill those who stand in our way! Now what do you think the answer is?"
There it was again, those strange voices. She peered through the bushes and saw two men standing alert, brandishing curved scimitars. Man, where could anybody get those, and why? A better question, why was she here? She had no way of knowing, but these men seemed dangerous somehow, so she kept quiet, studying them. They were moving now, with a strange, jerky gait, towards something -or someone. She followed them silently, from beyond the tree line. The shorter of the two, Lurtz or whatever he was called, motioned for the other to wait, as he produced a bow. Nocking an arrow, he aimed for a dark shape a few meters away. Aaria realised what was happening, and burst out from the tree line, shouting for the man being aimed at to move. Suddenly startled, Lurtz released the arrow, sending it whizzing into the trunk of a nearby tree. The man turned around, brandishing a large broadsword in one hand and an intricately carved horn in the other. Suddenly he came sprinting toward Aaria. She gulped. Uh-oh, maybe she shouldn't have interfered...
She darted out of the way, yelping, as he charged right past her. She had expected him to turn around and go after her again, but no, instead he kept on charging toward the other two men, and with a yell of "FOR GONDOR!", he beheaded both of them.
Aaria brought her hands to her face, wide eyed with shock, as one of the heads slowly rolled across the grass toward her. She removed her hands and stared down at the black, leathery skin, the flat nose, the squashed face, the slanted yellow eyes and the mouthful of yellowed fangs. This was no ordinary person, she knew that much. But it looked familiar somehow... Almost as if, she had seen it before.
She looked up as the man with the horn approached her.
"You have my thanks, shield maiden. I am Boromir of Gondor." He paused, and it took Aaria a while to figure out he was waiting for her to speak.
"Uhh... I am Aaria Greenewood, of New Zeala- Wait, did you just say Gondor?" Boromir looked confused.
"Yes...? Where is this 'New Zeallah' you speak of?"
"New Zealand. It's... I don't know. Where am I?"
Boromir frowned.
"At the summit of Amon Hen."
Aaria returned the frown.
"What city?"
"City? There are none for miles."
"That isn't logically possible though...Wait…"-Aaria bit her lip-"What year is it?"
Boromir studied her.
"February the 26th of the 3019th year of the third age."
Suddenly everything seemed clear. She wasn't in New Zealand. It wasn't the year 2019. She was in Middle Earth in the time of The War of the Ring.
That was the last thought that entered Aaria's mind before she collapsed.
A/N Yay! Thanks so much for reading! So, I'll probably be posting the next chapter in a few days or so, but until then, please review! It helps me so much, because until now, I've never really had a chance to share my writing with anybody, so I don't really know what people think of it... :/ Anyway, review! :D