Another grunt escaped me. The hundred pound deer that I just shot and dragged three miles back to my truck was enough to have me sweating profusely in the chilly November air. By how long the sun had gone down, I was guessing it was just after eight. As soon as I got this buy guy home and hung him in the garage I would go to bed and dress him in the morning.

My little home in the woods was far enough from town that I didn't leave it very often if I wasn't working. Which was fine by me, it left me more time to sleep. The ache that tore through me from all the hard work had me almost unable to make it to the shower. As the hot water cascaded down my back, all I could think about was dreams I might have.

Ever since I turned nineteen, sleeping was my favorite part about life. When I fell asleep I almost always had dreams. Not all of them were pleasant, and I would refuse to sleep for days; but most of the time I dreamed of a handsome man with longer black hair, dressed somewhat oddly, but strong and mysterious all the same.

A little more than half of my pleasant dreams were of him. He had been popping in and out of my nightly adventures since I was old enough to understand was a dream was. It was as if I were watching a movie. I never got to speak to him, and any time I tried to yell at him he would acts as if he never heard me at all. Sometimes it was awkward, because I could see him bathe. Other times it was saddening, to see him throw things to the ground and scream at the top of his lungs.

It wasn't until I was nineteen that he actually paid me any attention. It is the only one I can always remember vividly—at least what we spoke of. Sometimes if I try hard, I can remember his face, every feature. Usually I always ended up with a headache when I tried to remember what he looked like. His face is always like a distant memory. Something that if you think real long and hard on it will appear at the tip of your tongue, but is always just out of reach.

The first time we properly met, he was stomping through the forest, and I was in a tree with my bow in hand about to let the string fly and hit a giant buck in the heart. My fingers just released, the arrow about to hit true to the aim taken. Someone stepped on a branch and the beast jumped and trotted away, the arrow sticking to the tree behind it.

I screamed in anger, jumping from branch to branch down the tree. Feet storming through the forest, I ripped the arrow from the bark and turned to become face to face with him. I was taken back, amazed that he was standing right before me. A similar expression was captured on his face.

We both shouted 'You!' at the same time. After the shock I started in.

"Why on Earth were you stomping through the woods like an everyday barbarian?! I almost had that buck," I poked him in the chest.

The man starred at me in shock, "Barbarian? How was I to know you were… hunting? You were hunting?"

"Of course I was hunting," I muttered, pointing to my bow and clothes. I was mildly surprised that my camouflaged jeans were replaced with a tuff brown pant of sorts, and I was wearing a long sleeved green… tunic? When my hand touched my face, it came away with dirt instead of the makeup I normally wore. Even my bow was different. Instead of the small compound I usually used, I was using an elegant black stained wooden long bow. It was a dream though—anything can happen in dreams.

He started to walk around me, hands behind his back while he looked me up and down. "Why would a… female," he paused, "whatever, be hunting? I do not know of any race of females that hunt for game."

A scoff left my lips, "I will have you know, many women of all races hunt! It isn't just for men you sexist pig!"

An equally offended scoff left him standing in front of me again, "Why do you dare to compare me to a filthy animal? And impose that I would be fornicating with it?"

With the way he was speaking and the clothes he was wearing—along with my own—I came to the realization that I was not in a familiar area. Was it even the same time period?

"…Where are we," I asked hesitantly.

"You are hunting in lands that you do not know of? That is very… unusual," he muttered. "We are in Mirkwood of all places it seems."

"Mirkwood? What state?"

"State? What is a state?"

"Alright what country are we in?"

"Country? We are just outside Rhovanion I suppose, I don't know if that is a country or not."

We both starred at one another, walking in circles and assessing. After a while I stopped and sat on the ground against one of the trees. With the sleeves of my new shirt I wiped the dirt and mud as much as I could from my face. "So why are you finally paying attention to me," I asked, looking over the bow I had acquired when I finished.

"I could ask the same of you," he replied just as quickly.

"What do you mean?"

He sat across from me fiddling with a dagger. "When I sleep, I dream of you a lot of the time. Though oddly, you did not see me. I always saw you since you were small."

The same thing was happening to him? It was obviously a dream. Something I am making up as I go so that I could have something interesting going on in my life. How come he has never aged, but I have? Probably yet another oddity of my dreams.

"The same happens to me," I whispered, "I would yell and scream for you to talk to me, but you always kept on going about your business like I wasn't even there."

That dream seemed to go on for days. The sun never set but I sat in the forest with him and told him of some of the dreams I have had of him. He told me most of the ones he had of me. We came to the conclusion that the dreams were not really dreams, we were seeing the others' lives. Even thinking about it had me giggling. Of course they were all dreams. No matter how much he told me that he was seeing my life, or I was seeing his; it was all simply unreal.

After that first dream, I had more of not being able to have him see me again. It was as if I were 'seeing his life'. From then on it was like a weird switch. Once in a blue moon we were able to actually sit and talk to one another. I enjoyed those times. Sometimes we were in his 'world' and others we were in the real world, almost. We would always end up outdoors, at the park or meadow, or in the woods that I first met him in.

All in all it sounded like a great story.

There was one night, where I dreamt of a cliff. He was on it, fighting with a sword against a monster. It was not human—gray in color all over, eyes red as blood, deformed in all sorts of ways. Though it had two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head. Spikes poked out of it in different areas; truly demonic.

I feared for my friend's life, gasping as he was speared in the chest with the sword.

With a start I woke, gasping for breath and sobbing with terror. My heart ached with dread at the thought of someone I was attached to—through a dream—someone that wasn't even real, was dead.

I called off work for the rest of the week, drinking endless amounts of coffee and not sleeping for days. When it finally won out and took me over, I didn't dream of him again. Over time I was able to come to terms and accept that maybe it was my own way of severing myself from the unhealthy attachment to a figment of my own imagination.

A month later we met again. I didn't ask him about the monster or being stabbed. I just was grateful to have him be alive. We just laid in the grass, watching the stars and listening to his tales of them. The constellations were different than my own, but the stories were fascinating.

I don't get to speak to him often but when I do I am always at ease.

Sometimes I'm afraid I fell in love with my imagined friend.

Why can't Kili be real?