Disclaimer: My ring is not on The Hobbit, However the plot does, along with its theories, OC's and general qualms. References of modern culture and people mentioned. All the original stuff, the sandcastle's shape in the sandbox, belong to me – you copy it, and your ass is grass, and I'm mowing the lawn.
.
Her determination to survive in a different world, coupled with desperation and self-preservation, had her want nothing to do with the plot – she wasn't a brave Hero, and she definitely didn't want to be one. Then came the Wizard, his Dwarves and the Hobbit. (Realistic 'IN THE HOBBIT' challenge.)
The Hero-Villain Theory: Any Hero, cannot be a 'Hero' until and unless there is a balancing factor for them to conquer. A Villain cannot be a 'Villain' without any balancing factor for them to be vanquished. The Hero-Villain cycle goes on and on – for every time a good deed happens, a bad one is committed to keep it in balance.
Here comes our Protagonist – An Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain who is caught up in the struggle between the balances.
.
.
.
"But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself."
― Albert Camus
.
.
.
Chapter Zero – Denial, Desperation and Danger.
.
.
It took her almost half a year, several troll-orc-wargs encounters, self-preservation and desperation to accept the fact that she was no longer in her world, but inside another – fictional one. And a famous one, too.
When you drop in the middle of a forest, surrounded by dead bodies in medieval deck, the first thing you think isn't - Oh! Im in another world. No, the first thing is you panic, you cry for help and you desperately try to figure out what is going on. It was the first day – She was just going to a trip to Australia, when she was kidnapped and knocked out.
Charlie had woken up scared and was terrified when she saw her condition. She had wandered, tried to call the police, and cried herself to sleep. She spent the next week wandering around – and had found a small river, the water was murky, but she boiled it and drank anyway – she was thirsty, tiered and scared. Hungry – very, very hungry. The only thing she had eaten were white capped mushroom and one little fish she had caught.
She was filthy – bathroom had to be used in the open, leaves replacing soft paper and Charlie was sobbing yet once again – mortified and ashamed. She looked at the dead bodies – they had to have money that could be used (She had none), they had tools? Weapons? That could be used (She had none), they had to have something that could help her (She hAD NONE).
They didn't have any cards, or money – just pouches full of gold (Smugglers?) and Chain's. She took everything she thought could help her – the two axes now strapped to her hips, the hammer hanged to her jean buckle, the biggest leather pack filled with water skins (Stupid, stupid! Should've done that a long time ago! They were dead! What would they do with it!?) A used bed roll, dried meat (Food, fOOD!) and knives.
She left that place, following the river, determined to get back home and mark this event on her body as another one of her Tattoo accomplish tick mark list. Three weeks had past (At least she thought it did – according to her slash marks), her mobile, long dead – full of sobbing goodbyes and frightened voice mails and desperate whispers for assurance.
.
.
.
.
Help me! Someone, anyone! I don't wanna be alone anymore. Mum! Mum!? Where are you!? OH wait, You're dead. You've always been dead, leaving me alone in this shitty world and dad heartbroken, with a kid and a Army job, you ran away, after all didn't you!?
The night was too loud, it echoed around her, reminding her that she was the weak - the prey. She would be devoured if she stood out to much, snapped and killed like a little bug at someone's foot. The mosquitoes were buzzing all around her, sucking her blood and nourishing their bodies- she was so hugry, she wished she could be like them - weak looking prey who's actually a predator.
Someone has to come for her - she couldn't be alone, someone will and when she finds civilization she will be fine, and back at home - greeting her friends. Her dad would be so proud of her being the brave hero he had been. Dad would be so proud.
.
.
.
.
She sang to herself every day – in English, in Hindi, in Korean and Spanish and whatever song's she remembered. Then on her twenty seventh day in hell, she saw it. It had come out in the middle of the night, ferocious growls echoing in her mind, terror replacing blood as she had looked into the glowing yellow eyes of her death.
A sharp, sharp, thing cut into her face, the flesh across her face flaming with pain, as blood coated her mouth and jaws. Another sharp swing to her shoulder – she felt the skin break. Pain flooded her nerves, tears mixed with sweat and blood and she had bashed its face in with the hammer she had. Charlie then had passed out, waking next day to the body of something out of nightmares. Her face and shoulder felt as if it had been drenched in acid.
She had moaned and withered, whimpering as she cleaned her face and shoulders, using a relatively clean rag to wrap around her shoulder and her makeshift bandage to wrap around her face. Then her eyes landed on it.
It was twisted, face caved in, wore leather and next to it was a rotting body of a gigantic wolf. She had looked at them, and proceeded to puke her guts out. It almost looked like an orc-warg pair from the LOTR fandom. Charlie froze as the thought registered in her mind. Suddenly desensitized, she rushed to the already maggot infested corpse and observed them.
She had hastily removed all that was salvageable, skinned the wolf, Warg, her mind whispered. – Wolf, and had managed to get a good piece of coat for herself. (She ignored the blood and skin clinging to it, and instead though of her expensive fur coats) and with savage strength backed up from her rock-climbing days, she used the disfigured man's, (Orc), sword and cleaved the meat off the bones – leaving the meat alone and instead cleaning the bones.
She then went on, her mind full of ideas. Swords, Medieval attire, disfigured creature that wasn't human, gigantic wolf-like monster with humongous teeth (Teeth that had been broken off and stored) and the mess you're stuck in! Her mind screamed, and she felt a panic attack coming. Inside a fictional world? BULLSHIT! It isn't possible and this is just a damned coincidence.
She ignored the fact that she had bashed in the head of two living things and disfigured their corpse, she ignored the fact that all the points were pointing at something very logical sounding, but that simply can't be, because another universe? Inside a fictional plane? That was Ridiculous. This wasn't some kind of fan fiction – this was real, and that was impossible, the scientist would've known.
And if it was real then- (Then she had nowhere to go, and a future of the world's weight on her shoulders, and NO! NO! NO!). So she ignored the scent of blood on her skin, the feeling of drying flesh on her arms, the feeling of hollowness and helplessness and clung to her mantra – She will be home. She will be home. (Because if she couldn't then it was it-). She followed the small river, which had now turned into a decent sized river – civilization was bound to be near.
On the morning of her two hundredth and forty sixth day, eight month, she was in a particularly melancholic mood. She traced the watch – still working, it had he initials, C.J.R – Charlie Johanna Reed Jr. Named after her father and her mother's mother. She thought of what would've happened if she hadn't taken six years of self-defense, if she hadn't insisted on taking survival classes and if her father wasn't an ex-military.
She thought of the numerous ways she would've been dead.
She shook her head and looked at herself in the somewhat clean water – she long ago gave up boiling it. Her hair – which had been a cool pixie cut with dyed green hair and dark roots – which now had become a more murky green – washing it wasn't enough. Not to mention dandruff (No lice, thankfully) – which she had long given up on too. Her skin which had once been a nice butter-scotch tone with small scars peppering, was now a deep brown – with scars covering almost everywhere, making her tattoo's stand out more than ever.
Her ink was her greatest love. Her entire body was covered in black and grey. Her sleeves portrayed out battles and wars, the roaring tiger on her shoulder was now destroyed because of a puckered scar – which made it seem scarier. Her face had one long scar starting at her right eyebrow, going across her nose and stopping at the curve of her lips.
And many more, but that wasn't what was alarming – it was her body that alarmed her. Gone was the small muscles, replaced with thick cords of power, the Lilith body replace with the body of a hulking mass of muscles. Instead of staring on meager food, and trying to avoid monsters, she lured them to her, killed them and ate their flesh.
Suddenly, as if just realizing how much she had changed she glared into the water, in the runny reflection of her cold, murderous grey eyes. Months ago she couldn't even dream of hurting another life and now, now everything had changed. There was no denying it anymore, no use of travelling anymore, because there was no home to return to. The wargs had been seen in the day light, the Orcs had been heard in their vile language, the trolls had been fooled in their stupid means.
.
.
.
.
This was real.
There was no home back in India waiting for her, no friends stewing for her return – because they didn't exist anymore. She was in a fictional world, on the mercy of someone who kept her here even when she didn't want to. She was in LOTR, or HOBBIT, but that really didn't matter anymore – she wasn't the person she was months ago who would've tried to go to Gandalf and help – what's the use? She wasn't a hero – she would certainly die on the quest. She had already known that everything would be fine, so really, it wasn't her business.
Obviously who ever sent her here wanted her to mess with the plot – maybe make it beter or worse, but why would they assume that she would do anything? Because it's the good thing to do? It's hero-like? Well even after these hellish months, if there was one thing that didn't change about her was the fact that she was a vindictive bitch. So she sat there in the grass, trying to wrap her head around the fact that whatever was her reality was no longer her reality.
'Flesh-Eater' they called her. Her face was way too recognizable, her features way too prominent. They hated, feared and respected her. She had been to the civilization a month ago – a quaint little village with hardly twenty people. They had bowed to her, offered money and food and clothes, but at the same time they feared her. They told her how her name was spread across middle earth, how she had saved many people.
.
.
.
.
She remembered those people – she had saved many, but they always ran away, screaming and sobbing. Even if she caught up to them they would stutter answers she couldn't accept, and wouldn't accept. She remembered the hunger – the desperation of not having food in her belly as she tore into a piece of roasted wargs for the first time in her third month or second.
She remembered her early days into combat – it was all desperation and no strategy, where sometimes she almost died and was mostly dead. Sometimes she had to run away, desperately to not be killed by a bigger opponent. But, she was just so hungry, they were answer to her hunger and their riders always carried metal, clothes and water. The temptation was too great, and soon enough, by her fifth month or so, she started to get addicted to the easier way to get meat – Warg meat was Delicious.
She wasn't prey anymore. But neither was she brave. Dad would still be proud.
.
.
.
.
She was already known too much, her reputation feared too much.
She had then wandered away from that village – the children while scared, were also very curious and when she told them stories from her home, the parents became queasy. She couldn't make out the feeling she felt, staring at the wary gazes they shot her, she took the money they offered, fought off some bandits nearby and left the now peaceful town.
Now here she was – her two hundredth and forty sixth day in and she could fell the prickle of tears threatening to trickled down the eyes of the 'Mighty warg Killer' Charlie. A so-called 'Hero' who wanted to do nothing with the four letter word with a weight of four-fucking infinity in it. She looked down at her arms tracing the words 'esto fortis' – be brave.
She didn't want to be brave and a hero, but she could be human and live a little. She had been brave for so long, surely a little break wouldn't hurt. After what seemed like years, but was in fact eight months, Charlie reed smiled. And somewhere in middle earth a certain wizard started at a certain key in his hands.
.
.
It was time to start.
.
Thoughts? Criticism?
Question: What do you think of the protagonist?