Prologue

It was not planned. No-one could anticipate it. The decision was made on the spur of the moment, out of pure impulse and certainly not thought through with. It was a sheer accident in the first place that they were even noticed among the millions and trillions of other souls from all kinds of worlds and dimensions that were on the same endless line, on their journey to their final, eternal resting place.

"Hello…? Hello…?"

"It hurts…. It hurts so much…."

In the middle of all the soul-lights, somewhere among the beautiful sea of soft-glowing lamps, two had been different. Not hugely so, but still enough to catch the attention of someone with attentive eyes. The two shed different lights, felt heavier and moved slower than the others around them. They even smelled different – of a scent that was more common in a wholly other world.

"Anyone…? Please… I'm scared… I'm so scared…"

"Help, it hurts… Someone, help me…"

There simply was no time to think twice. It was then or never, for once a soul reached it's last resting place, it could never be awakened again and returned back to the circle of life. And so, the decision was made. They were picked out, pulled away from the line, and forced to leave and change their destination. It may not have been planned in advance, but plans could always be formed later on, details could be molded on the way.

"I want to go home…"

"Save me… Please…"

Perhaps it was cruel. Perhaps it was unfair. They were, after all, innocent to the reasons why they were singled out. They were confused, lost and frightened, just like all the other souls that had ended their earthly lives and were momentarily stuck traveling through the gap in between life and rest. They were tired and ready to accept their well-earned sleep - exhausted beyond belief as was excepted of something that had just gone through the sharp jab of death itself. They never asked for it, never wanted it. They had done nothing wrong to deserve such a cruel thing to happen to them, to have someone take away their longed-for reward of everlasting sleep.

"Fear no more, children of men. I will cause you no harm."

"Please…"

"Help…"

It was not meant for a mortal soul to make such a transmission, it was not normal to continue journeying to somewhere else after death. Once taken from the sacred line, they were denied of their peace and could not be easily returned back to the natural circle again. Not without the sincere blessing of the one that had taken them away in the first place.

"So tired, I see you are. Tired, and suffered with life. My, my, such dim life-lights... Fear not, I am here only to collect you. You do not belong here yet."

"Please, let me go home already…"

"It hurts so much…"

Perhaps it was all nothing but simple coincidence, how the two were spotted among so many else, and how their fates were turned upside-down right after that. Perhaps it was not. However, it happened, that without their permission and approval, they were forced to carry on into a second lifetime, into strange lands with strange time and strange creatures, all because of the will and whims of a higher being.

"Amuse me, children of men, show me what you are truly made of. Make this worth of my time and efforts. And, after, I shall give you your earned rest."

It was night time and eerily dark around a small lake kind of a pond. A gloomy atmosphere hovered around along with an abnormal silence with only the chilly night wind rustling the plants and branches every once in a while. It seemed as if the nature around the dark water was sleeping too, resting undisturbed and waiting for the first gentle rays of morning sun to awake them again.

Had the heavy clouds not covered the view of the sky and stars and moon, a blinding shot of a light, similar to a shooting star but much brighter, would've been visible for anyone to see. What followed that flash of a light, was a sound of a splash in the pond that ruined the rest of that peaceful night.

A girl submerged with a loud, heavy gasp and greedily inhaled the chilly, precious air in sharp breaths as if it had been years since she was last able to breath. The cold weather above the water's surface immediately attacked her lungs and face, and made her feel like she had just broken through a thin layer of ice. Nausea rose inside her, she could barely hold in the need to vomit. All her senses were on fire and reacting to her environment in an unnecessarily sensitive way, giving little painful electronic shocks to the nerves all over her body. The female's head throbbed as if it had just been hit by a shovel, and for a moment, she really thought that was the case.

Things were starting to register into her brains, little things from around her that made absolutely no sense at all. Things that were completely absurd. Things that could not be real. Things that made her more and more scared of her current situation.

To put it bluntly, the girl was having a panic attack – a major one. She kept on rabidly swinging her wet head from one side to another, trying to catch her surroundings while keeping her hands and legs working together so that her head remained above the surface. Her rabid breaths only grew faster and louder when it was confirmed that she had no grasp of where she was, or how she had ended up in there. Funnily, the last thing she could recall was a dazzling bright light and someone screaming in an ear-throbbing way, before her brain shut the memory out at once with a sharp pain. The girl choked a cry and a chilling, heart-stopping dread began to creep inside her. 'Good god, what is happening?!'

It was not right.

It didn't make sense.

She was not supposed to be there.

The only thing keeping her from grumbling into a pathetic mess of a human, was the awfully cold water that numbed her mind out of any unnecessary thoughts and made her teeth chatter together loudly. Her body was going into a shock, she knew it was only a matter of time. And she was still in the water - 'Freezing-fucking-cold-ass water!' – meaning that she would die if she remained there waiting for the shock to paralyze her completely. A strong instinct of survival took over her. She did not want to die. She would not die.

To hell with it, she would not let herself die.

'Need to get myself out of the water. To land. Off the water. Find help. Get dry. Get warm. Come on, work with me legs and arms! Swim! Bitch, swim!' The girl forced her stiff limbs into action and kept her desperate eyes on the closest spot of land she could see. She was determined to reach her goal. Getting off the water was all she could think of.

Gentle waves moved on the surface of the dark-looking water as she swam closer and closer to the shore. The progress looked ridiculous with the girl's stiff limbs and rough movements, added with the sudden violent jerks she made when making contact with some of the several slimy water plants under the surface, and she was partly glad that there was no-one there to witness her swimming like that. There was an odd, clinging feeling on her legs and she realized, with an added panicked thought, that she was wearing a dress. A dress that tried hard all the time to sink her down with its' heavy weight.

Suddenly, a loud splash came somewhere behind her, startling badly the girl and making her accidentally gulp down some water from the pond. The splash was followed by several despaired gasps of air and a coughed shout of 'help!', that made her glance back towards the noise. Loud, watery coughs echoed around the otherwise silent lake and the girl was loss on what to do. 'WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP ON APPEARING FROM THE DEPTHS?!' She kept on swimming to the shore, but couldn't ignore the new presence in the lake who clearly had managed to swallow quite a good amount of water into their lungs and now had trouble breathing normally. 'Someone is really trying hard to drown themselves.'

And so, she took pity on the person.

"Hey….!" the girl gave a trembling shout to the hopeless being somewhere behind her. "T-the shore! This w-way!"

The coldness was really starting to grow unbearable and she felt her heart thundering like a maniac inside her chest, battling hard to keep pumping the warm blood into her body. Her eyes stung with the cold and lips trembled just above the water as she forced herself to move onward. Praised be all the gods, she finally saw the shore closing up.

Her call seemed to quiet down the scene behind her, and judging by the additional splashing sound, the other person had also decided to take up the task to get away from the ice-cold water. Having a good head start, the female was the first one to close the distance to the shore and she searched for the bottom of the lake with her bare feet. 'Why am I bare-footed?' That was an irrelevant fact, one she had no time to cling into. Her wet hair clung over her face and her eyes were tight shut in pure disgust as she wobbled through the muddy bottom with her shaking legs. 'Ewwww! I stepped onto something slimy!' Something slithery and nasty brushed against her ankle and the girl almost screamed out in repulsion. 'Oh please, no leeches, no leeches! I might just die otherwise.'

When finally stumbling out of the water, the dress she had on still clinging onto her like a second skin, she shakily turned around to gaze through the darkness for her follower. An unexplainable, strong weariness hit her like a truck, making jelly out of her limbs and causing her to swoon around a little. 'No! I'm not going to pass out now!' She shut her eyes tight and tried to force herself to stand stable. 'At least not until I see who's the other one in the water.' She hugged and rubbed herself, seeking warmth and trying hard to stop the exhaustion from taking over her freezing body.

"H-here!" she guided the other survivor with a strength she knew wouldn't last for long.

From the bottom of her heart she hoped the stranger wouldn't turn out to be some kind of a psychopathic murderer, and that she wasn't digging her own grave by trying to help this person. The splashing came nearer and soon she was able to see a head above the water making its' way towards her. The darkness still blocked any better view of her follower.

"O-oh shit!" a deep, shaky exclaim came from the water, revealing the other person as a man.

Taking a slightly less impressive way to get out of the water, the man straight out crawled his way onto the dry land with powerless, shaking limbs. When reaching the area of moist grass, he completely collapsed onto his stomach and muttered dark curses through his chattering teeth. He was covered in mud and other slimy grime.

The girl also slumped on her knees and collected her limbs against herself into a fetal position, all while watching the man with tired, suspicious eyes. The cold night air made her even more frosty with her soaked dress and hair. She realized she didn't even know if she was injured or not, but with her limbs somewhat working and all the mattering functions in her body mostly doing their jobs, she doubted she had encountered any serious damage to her body. 'Except the traumatic experience my poor feet had to go through there.' The thing she was actually very frightened of, was the unusual exhaustion that was all the time trying hard to overrun her and send her unconscious. She had to fight to keep herself awake.

"Good lord," she whispered to herself, eyes tight shut as the familiar panic was starting to take its' hold of her again. "What is h-happening here…?" She rubbed her eyes hard and was surprised to see her hands covered in some familiar, dark substance. 'What the-. Oh, this is just great. Now I have my make up smudged all over my face too!'

The man rolled onto his back, taking his first real glimpse of his new surroundings. The night sky above him was gloomy and full of thick, dark clouds that efficiently hid all the light given from the moon and stars. Not much could be seen through the lingering darkness, but what could be sighted was enough to tell that the scenery around him was that of a forest. Big green trees with really chunky trunks grew around, along with thick bushes and a great variety of odd-looking plants. It all looked very curious and unfamiliar.

Too strange, and certainly too wrong.

A sudden thought flashed through the man's mind and his already racing heart trashed around even more wildly, feeling like it was close to bounce out of his chest. With one quick panicked movement, his hand shot out to his chest and aimlessly patted around the area in a search of something. The man found familiar shapes of a sturdy silver chain and two golden rings, and he let out a relieved sigh while clutching the rings tightly into his mud-covered hands. 'Praise Jesus, they're still safe.' He still had them on and that was all he needed. Everything else he had, held no true value.

Around the shore blew a gentle night breeze and it chilled the man to his core. The panic of losing his chain and rings vanished, only to be replaced with a fright of something else. 'I'm-, passing out? What the-?! I'm actually going to pass out soon!' His thoughts were blurry and so shaken and mixed with the feeling of coldness, that he did not even notice it first when he had started undressing himself. Two strongly trembling hands began to pull off the wet clothes on him, one cloth after another, and the man briefly wondered who it was that had commanded them to do so. However, he did nothing to stop the process.

Pair of soaked, muddy sneakers went flying away and they caught the attention of the other human in the shore.

The girl let out a high squeak.

"Just, w-what do y-you think-k you're doing?" the said woman spluttered out, wide eyes looking at the man who was tugging off his wet, now dirty brown t-shirt and leaving him bare chested in front of her.

The man gave a surprised glance at her, as if just remembering there was another person with him also. 'Ah? Oh. Ooh. Right.' The surprise was short-lived, however, and the girl's presence didn't bother him as much as it probably should have, and so he immediately continued dragging down his soaked jeans from his trembling bottom. They too were tossed aside with a wet plopping sound.

"You s-should strip also," he muttered shakily back and rubbed his shaking legs. 'Wait-. Ah, fuck. That came out wrong…' "You'll catch h-hypothermia." 'There. That'll do.'

If only the girl had some warm blood in her body, she would have blushed and hard. 'EXCUSE ME?' Was it just her, or did this stranger man just give her an advice to strip nude right in front of him? And in not the joking-kind of way? 'Is this guy for real? And what is he doin-OH MY GOD! PUT THOSE BOXERS BACK ON, RIGHT NOW!'

The man was suddenly sitting there in front of her, butt naked. As in, completely bare. With no pun. Like, the guy was just casually chilling there on the moist grass with everything hanging open in the air, as naked as a goddamn jaybird. And he did not even look embarrassed of it.

The girl felt faint. Thank goodness for the darkness that prevented her from seeing his figure clearly, or him from seeing just how put out she felt with this sudden, unexpected turn of events. She could not understand, just how she had stumbled into this kind of situation in the first place. She could only watch him dumbstruck with her jaw wide open. 'JUST-. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU MISTER?! AND WHY ARE YOU SUDDENLY NAKED IN FRONT OF ME?'

"W-what-, what the hell are you-u doing?! PUT ON S-SOME CLOTHES! NOW! Stars! What's g-going on in here!?" 'This is happening way too fast! I don't even know your name! I don't even know what you look like! MY MAMA'S GONNA KILL ME IF SHE EVER FINDS OUT!

"Listen-," the man huffed out and curled up to seek warmth, "-i-it's not like I like it any be-better to be buck naked here i-in the cold, sh-showing my junk for all the world to s-see," he stuttered bad from the cold and tried to warm up by rubbing himself, "I-if you haven't notice-ed; it's a fucking n-night time, we're in the middle of bloody n-nowhere, and it's a-already cold e-enough even w-without that u-u-unnecessary, and very unwelcome, fully-clothed midnight s-swim! So worrying-g about modesty is not m-my top priority right now!" 'When is it ever, actually?'

The girl let out a shaky growl. She stubbornly blinked away the sudden rush of weariness that once more threatened to put her asleep and banged her shaking fist onto the moist ground, though not really succeeding in making any kind of strong statement with that gesture. 'Well, thanks for sharing the facts, asshole!'

"OHHH! I k-know it's cold!" she replied, pissed. 'You were not the only one swimming in that ice hell!' "B-but you want to wh-what? Get w-wild and party-y na-naked?! Oh ho ho, in your dreams, mister! I'm n-not gonna fall for-!"

"I-I couldn't give a rat's a-ass about a p-pair of tits right now!" the man yelled angrily, cutting off her whining. 'Well. I never thought I'd live to see the day I actually say that.' "W-would you fucking think f-for a second and get t-the facts straight!? Look a-around you!" he gestured wildly around them, "You s-see anyone?! You see help c-coming?! Y-you want to go-o run around into a f-fucking forest in the middle of the night to s-search for it?! To freeze to death in some random bush?! T-that what you want? Go a-ahead and be my guest, I'm not going-g to stop you, you s-stupid little girl!"

The girl swallowed thickly. He was yelling at her. And she hated when people yelled at her. Even more, she hated when they yelled at her when she was not right. This was not going well. Not only did she now have a random naked man there with her, but an angry, random naked man. Who knew what kind of a street thug he really was? Would he hit her? Did he have a weapon on him? Would he do something else? 'Oh god, I'm going to die. By the hand of a naked madman! And I'll be dumped into some dirt pit in the middle of nowhere and no-one's ever going to find my body!'

Neither one moved. The girl breathed heavily and stared with wary eyes at the man, her muscles tense and ready to sprint off into a random direction if he so much as moved his finger towards her. Though, the only problem with that plan was that she was already about to collapse on the grass from the strange exhaustion. 'I'll probably stumble with my first step, face-first on the ground, with the grace of a bloody elephant.'

There was a moment of deep silence.

To be fair, the man did not seem to want to grab her – for now. And. He might have spoken the truth. The girl was cold. Freezing actually. And she was not dumb, she knew what he was saying made sense, in a way. She would not be able to stand conscious for long. The odd weariness was sure to overpower her any minute now. Before that happened, the drained dress-. It really needed to go. 'Mama's so not going to be proud of me. I can see this ending up in the news; Naked couple found passed out in the shore – see pictures on page 5. Oh, my, god. I've really done it this time… There's no way of explaining this. Mama's gonna whoop my ass when she sees me! She'll think I'm doing drugs and shit!'

A rough, frustrated huff escaped the girl's mouth. She had made her mind. Very sourly and begrudgingly she began undressing her own wet clothes, not even sparing a glance to the man who was curled into a ball in front of her. Her dripping long-hemmed dress was a struggle to get rid of but eventually she managed, and she threw it on the ground next to her. When she found herself in nothing but her underclothes, a sudden memory flashed through her mind. 'I'm wearing my new lingerie…! Oh god, oh god! And the dress…! Stars! I was on a date with Elias! I must've been, because that's why I bought these skimpy things… But why can't I- shit, why can't I remember anything else?'

With a despaired groan, she held her head in her hands, as if clutching to her hair would solve the problem of her sudden memory loss. She glanced down at her half-naked state and frowned hard. 'Back to business. There's no time to weep like some girl about strange, sudden amnesias.'

The strings – 'Bloody leopard patterned too!' – were staying, this she stubbornly decided, but her bras… She inwardly sobbed. They were with paddings and completely soaked, and currently freezing the living light out of her precious twins. Those cursed things had to go. 'Lord have mercy on me, I've never been one for public nudity.'

And that was how the girl then found herself in the strange shore, wearing nothing but her soaked leopard printed strings, in the middle of a night, and with the company of a naked stranger, could-be-a-thug, man. And with absolutely no faintest clue of how the hell she had gotten herself in such a situation. 'I'm living a bloody nightmare here.' The girl quickly copied the man's pose and gathered herself into a human ball, rubbing her freezing, bare body. She didn't look up to the man, feeling shy and very much humiliated of her current state. And she did appreciate when he gave no comments to that.

The tiredness was really growing overwhelming.

"Listen, I didn't meant-t to shout," the man suddenly muttered a dead tired but very sincere apology with a throaty voice, "I'm just s-so fucking l-lost on what's h-happening here," he kept a pause and swallowed hard, "Shit… Do you know w-what this place i-is…? Or-, or… H-how'd we get in here…?" He sounded so small and ready to break down.

Instead of answering, the girl gulped and forced down her tears. She shook her head at him, not even sure if he could see the gesture. 'This is not home. None of this feels right. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to-. Just what is going on?' Hearing a quiet, broken sob coming from her new companion, she opened her eyes to look at the man and his shaking form. He was crying silently, his face pressed against his knees. 'Oh shit, I can't take the sight of crying men! It's too much for me to handle!' She felt herself automatically feel sorry for him. 'He came with me. Asshole or not, he must be feeling as lost as I.'

"H-hey," she swallowed and scrambled closer to him, "It's o-ok. Look. Look, it's g-going to be alright-t. We just h-have to make it through the night. Someone will find us-s - the police, l-locals, someone…! Someone will c-come to help. Or, o-or-! Maybe this'll g-go away, maybe it's only a-a dream! We'll wake-e up at h-home."

The man breathed shakily and looked at her, searching for an eye contact in the darkness. His short, soaked hair dripped cold water on his face and shoulders.

"I-It's not r-real? Any of t-this?" he mused out and was silent for a while. 'I've finally gone mad. Fucking nuts. Should've just stopped playing around with the sleeping pills when I still had the chance.' He shook his head at the girl, feeling more tears rolling down his cold cheeks. "B-but, I'm r-real. I'm here. I'm n-not fucking crazy…! I k-know this shit is r-real," he muttered under his breath. Cautiously, he reached out for her hand and slightly touched her cold fingers. "And you m-must be real too."

The girl let out strangled sob at the man's words and suddenly squeezed his hand with her own. His skin was muddy and cold, and real. Real flesh and bone. Just like hers. It was a devastating fact. And yet she felt oddly comforted by the small human contact he gave to her. 'You better not turn out to be some knife-waving lunatic, you hear me...!'

"I don't k-know," she cried brokenheartedly, trying to keep down the dread inside her. 'I want to go home. I want to be somewhere familiar, and warm, and safe and-god! I just don't want to be here! I-. I want my mama.' She let out tiny sobs, still clutching the man's trembling hand. 'And I want some goddamn dry clothes on!'

The man let out curses in a miserable way and tightened his hold of her. The girl's breakdown had somewhat sobered him up. Suddenly he felt like he had the responsibility, as the older one (it was an easy guess for him) and as the man of the two, to somehow find a solution, a way to make things better for them. The girl in front of him was a total stranger to him, and, a nobody, to be honest. But she was just a girl, surely not even passed her twentieth birthday yet, and she was all he had right now. By gods, the other option was to get rid of her and be all alone, to survive this odd nightmare on his own. He did not cope well with being alone.

"Ok. Listen," he began hesitantly after coming to a quick decision on how to go on, "Y-you need to trust me now. Alright? Hey, just, look a-at me," he shakily brought his other hand on her bare shoulder, getting her to raise her head to look at him through her tears, "That a girl, brave girl," he praised her and locked her eyes into his, trying hard to create a trustful bond between them,

"Listen. I-, I know we're c-completely s-strangers here. And you got no reason believe I'm n-not some random p-pervert lusting after young, lost girls, but-," he swallowed hard and tried to find words, his mind too numb to work out the usual charming manners he was normally known of, "-b-but, we're going to freeze in here if we d-don't g-get warm soon. Don't know why, but I'm f-fucking exhausted right now. Like death exhausted. That kind of exhausted that I'm going to-o pass out any m-minute now. You understand? You f-feel the same?"

The girl hesitantly nodded to him, and he continued. "So. S-so. Uh. It'll help - and I s-swear if you know of any-y other way then p-please tell me now – but. It'll help if w-we were skin to s-skin. You know, share our b-b-b-body heath. Through the night. Y-you know... Uh." 'Oh fuck. Hit me please. Man, just what am I saying?'

The girl swallowed her silent sobs and looked at him dead in the eye. Her tired eyes blinked very slowly.

"O-oh." Was all she said.

'He wants to-.' The girl blinked again. 'Bugger. Now he wants to cuddle in nude. Well, that's just-. Bugger.' She tried to answer him but the words wouldn't come out.

"Oh."

"No funny business, I s-swear" the man groaned out, obviously thinking her silence meant she got the wrong idea. "It's simply for warmth, nothing-g more. I'll k-keep my hands to myself." 'You don't have to, though, but I'd better not to say that.'

When the girl still could not muster up any words to answer, the man let out a loud awkward noise and collapsed on his back on the ground with his hands on his face, immediately missing the feeling of another's hand in his. He began to ramble to himself. "Aaaaaaahh, s-shit…! What am I saying-g, like that's going t-to change everything, aiii, it's no use a-anyway, we'll f-freeze no matter what, die in this g-goddamn forest and end up i-in the news, just-, motherfucker, just get i-it done with and t-take me already, I got n-no patience with this all this kind of horse s-shit, even if-."

"Okay, s-shut it already…!" the girl growled out rather loudly when she finally grew irritated enough of the man's muttering, "Y-you've made your point." 'I'm already naked with a stranger, in the middle of nowhere. So why not. Just another thing to add to the list of why mama's going tear me a new.'

Just like she had made her mind again. With hesitant movements, she crawled closer to him and searched out for his hand again. It was curious how comfortable it felt against hers. 'I'm not going to die here. I'm a survivor. One night outside, wet, cold and butt naked isn't going to kill me. I can do this.' She pushed herself against him, guiding his shaking, cold arms around her and hooking her own arms tightly around his goose pimpled torso, all while trying hard to push down the obvious awkward feeling of knowing that her bare chest and hardener nipples were currently pressed against his naked side. She breathed in smell of mud and dirt and lake.

"I swear I'll knee you in your-r b-bloody balls if you d-do something-g to me…!" she growled to him, not knowing what else to say in the situation. "I-if you dare to use my-y trust for y-your advantage…!"

The man quickly collected himself from his little shock and adjusted his hold on her, bringing her smaller body even closer to him and making them lay down on their sides on the grass, legs tangled. He gave her no answer, just pressed her head against his shoulder while his other arm sneaked around her back to push her more against his freezing flesh. This action came as natural as breathing from him, as he was used to have another's body against him while sleeping. Her body trembled as much as his did and the cold moist ground under them did nothing to improve the situation. The man could feel the girl's heart racing inside her chest, matching his own. 'Stifler's mom be damned. There's a naked girl in my arms, pushing her perky tits against me, and all I can wish for is to be at home, wrapped in my warm thick blanket, on my soft comfy bed while sipping some spiked hot chocolate, and letting the air conditioning roar at full heat. Fuck me, this is so wrong.'

The feeling of another's skin brought them both slight comfort in the disaster they had stumbled into. Neither one knew what was happening, where they were, or how they had ended up into the pond in the first place. But, somehow they just felt they were far away from home and from everything familiar. Something big had just occurred, and it was downright frightening.

Surviving through the night was the number one priority at that moment. Nothing else was relevant as they were both finally surrendering to their exhaustion.

"What-… Is y-your name…?" the shaking girl muttered against the man's cold collarbone, already halfway to sleep.

…

"A-aleksi…" the man sighed against the girl's wet hair.

"I'm Meri."

…

"It's… nice-to…" Aleksi slurred drowsily, giving into the tiredness.

"Aleksi…" Meri whispered lastly, earning a low shaky hum from the man that was barely holding onto his awareness. 'Don't you dare to die on me. You hear me? I'm not going to take on all this madness by myself!'

"Please… don't leave-e me here… alone."

That night, the two humans dreamed of strange things, of strange events that felt too real to be just mere dreams. Quick flashes of a mighty lone Mountain, and big golden halls that were full of riches and treasures of every possible sort. Images of strange runes, and of two hammers and a crown - a crown that later had a beautiful, eyes-capturing stone placed on it, one that shined light brighter and purer than the sun itself. And then-. Then a shadow of something big and terrifying above them. And then there was fire, fire and smoke all over, along with blood and death. And in the middle of it all-.

In the middle of it all…

There stood a King.

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have." -Bob Marley

Hello all you beautiful people and thank you for reading the first chapter of my new baby And so died all warriors. And oh yes, you guessed right, it's one of those awesome stories where an unexpected human from our world gets tossed into Middle Earth, stumbles across a band of hairy little men, yada yada yada, big innocent doe-eyes, hot dwarves, elves and men running all over the place, little bit fighting here, little bit twisted ankles there, little bit of grumpy Thorin everywhere, and then the usual big and very much unsuspected turn of events when our main character just happens to be someone's soul mate. Woo boy, what an adventure! Let's get started then!

Now, I got to be honest, I haven't published anything in a long forever. And this story too has been waiting to be out here for a good while now - people, we're talking about almost years now. Yeah, I know, that bad... I'll give you a fair warning, this is going to be one long and slow journey to take on. Like I said, I already got part of the whole story written down but a it's a very rough base to start working with, and truthfully, I don't have the time and/or motivation to make myself finish the chapters in any certain given timeline. It's not going to be one of those 'oh boy, you know what, I'm just gonna pop out a new chapter once a week!' thingies (with no disrespect to those who can manage such a thing, may all holy spirit be within you and give you strength to carry on, you precious, precious people). No, no. I'm a lazy writer and absolutely terrified of the thought of committing to such binding promises as timelines. I'd rather quit now than sign those papers, thank you very much.

Another matter to keep in mind while reading my work, and I'll repeat this in every posted chapter until it's been made perfectly clear for all you guys; there will be mistakes. In the grammar. And I mean, huge, big-ass grammatical mistakes, if you get my point. I'm no native speaker of English. Even worse as a writer. I'm not perfect human being, surprise there, and I write stuff only because it's a great way of releasing work-stress and such. I know, I know, a horrible excuse to start any kind of public work, but then again it's the truth and at least I'm being honest with you from the very beginning of this journey. I'm most likely going to frustrate the heck out of you with my terribly ignorant ways, and you can rave all you want in the reviews, no-one's stopping you from telling me off. Just know that I'm an amateur writer and only have Google Translate as my pack up here, my very trusted assistant since school days. Yeah, we two have a long history together, walked one long, long and troublesome road together. And survived. Bitches.

Back to the point. So lastly, I decided to play safe and put M rating to this. Just so that no momma's little cupcakes are going to get upset or anything when suddenly there's curses flying everywhere and stuff about willies and tits and butts and such... Which, of course, are few of my favorite things to write about but I can understand if not everyone appreciates them the same way I do and would rather not see them planted all over the text. Talking about willies, I'm not planning on writing anything too erotic here, so sorry to all you hungry readers who seek for love and passion, but I'm trying to restrain myself from taking that road. This story is mainly romantic, but in a wholly other level than just the normal 'a boy meets a girl' kind of way. All the situations, relationships and feelings that I write of are all purely romanticized but have only little to do with actual sex and such like, if you know at all what I mean.

Hopefully my story caught your interest and you're planning on staying tuned and seeing where this'll be going! I have such big plans for the future chapters, such big plans baby...

Review and tell me what you thought of this beginning!

Respectfully,

Miss Always Wrong.