I wanted to write Bifur's lines in Khuzdul. But I couldn't find any site where all the letters were written in Khuzdul so I gave up and wrote it in English.

- Here lies our path through Mirkwood!

Gandalf says as we reach our destination.

The ones extraordinary forest is now a dark and scary place that is screaming with dark powers. Something has taken hold of it and sucked out the light and replaced it with this darkness. I don't want to go closer than I have but I know that there is no other way we can take if we want to reach Erebor and the hidden door in time.

- No sign of the Orcs. We have luck on our side.

Dwalin says as he rides up beside me.

I give him an angry glance before I say.

- Don't jinx it Dwalin. You know that anything can happen when it comes to us.

Dwalin looks at me with disappointed eyes but doesn't say anything.

He knows that I'm right. I am always right about those things. Even when I don't want to be that.

- This forest feels… sick.

Bilbo says as he jumps of his pony, continuing.

- As if a disease lies upon it. Is there no way around?

When he says that the forest is sick, immediately my mind starts to think of how the forest looked like before and what might have happened to it. What kind of sick thing that could turn this once great forest into this dark and corrupted thing.

"What have happened here? What is it for a disease that have got its grip on you?"

I walk over to Gandalf where he stands at the Elven Gate. He stands and are looking at a statue of an… Elf? His mind is listening to someone that I can't hear who it is. But this someone tells him to go somewhere.

- The High Fells. So be it.

He turns around and almost bumps into me. But I manage to take a step to the left before he does, and I give him a questioned look.

- The High Fells? Why are you going there Gandalf? The only thing you can find there is the tombs of the Nine. We need you here more than you need to be at some tombs.

Gandalf shakes his head and looks at me with sad eyes.

- Galadriel told me to go there Ratcha.

- Lady Galadriel? Was she here?

- No, no. I heard her.

"I know that."

- Gandalf, you can't leave us now. Not when we will need you the most. You find better in this forest than what even I do.

I say desperate while I shake my head.

But I know that he is not going to change his mind about it. Not when Lady Galadriel have told him to go there.

- (Sigh) Go then. Before Nori have released your horse.

I say as I point over my shoulder.

Gandalf looks, and his eyes widens. He rushes past me while screaming.

- Not my horse! I need it!

I turn around and walk to the entrance of the forest where I stand with crossed arms.

Kili gives me a questioned look and points at Gandalf.

~ Where's he going?

~ I haven't understood it myself.

Kili shrug his shoulders, then he looks at Gandalf who is standing and talking with a very disappointed Bilbo.

- I would not do this unless I had to.

Gandalf says to Bilbo.

Bilbo look at him and his mind is not happy over that he is going to see Gandalf leave us again. None of us is really.

Bifur comes over to me and points at Gandalf.

- Is he really leaving us?

I nod my head with a disappointed side smile.

Bifur looks at me with angry eyes, like it is my fault that Gandalf is leaving us again.

- Don't blame me for this. I have nothing to do with it. I tried to stop him.

I say with my hands raised in an innocent way.

Bifur shakes his head and walks away. Muttering something in Khuzdul.

- This is not the Greenwood of old. The very air of the forest is heavy with illusion. It will seek to enter your mind and lead you astray.

Gandalf says as he jumps up on his horse.

At the same time, it starts to rain even though the sun is shining clear and there is no cloud what's so ever on the sky.

"Yay, just what we wanted. A very positive pep talk before we walk into a corrupted forest, and of course it has to start to rain."

- You must stay on the path, do not leave it. If you do, you will never find it again. No matter what will come, stay on the path!

Gandalf shouts over his shoulder as he rides away.

Sighing and shaking my head to his back that disappears behind a hill, I look at Thorin who stands beside me. He looks back at me and his mind is arguing over if he should be angry at Gandalf for leaving us or if he should be relieved for not having him with us.

Giving him an angry look, I mentally slap him on his shoulder. He gives me a surprised look back while he rubs the shoulder.

~ Do not be happy that we don't have Gandalf with us any more uncle. That forest is so corrupted that I wouldn't have wanted to walk in there if I could choose another way.

~ Haven't you been there before?

~ Thorin! Mirkwood was not like this then. It was still called Greenwood and not this corrupted. If we lose the path, then I can't find it with my powers. It is something in there that is searching for magical things and if I use my powers, we will not be safe. So, you have to clear your head from your poisoned thoughts and act like the King you were born to be. Start with leading us safely through the forest!

Yea, yea. I know what you are thinking. But I can't help it. The sickness of this forest is already taking its hold on me, and we haven't even entered the forest. Wait, I have. Well, just some meters. When I talked to Gandalf. And I did use my powers, otherwise I wouldn't have heard Lady Galadriel and also seen that his mind was so broken.

"Oh, Mala. What have I done?"

Thorin gives me an angry glance before turning around and walks towards the forest.

- Come on. We must reach the mountain before Durin's Day.

- Durin's Day. Come on.

Dwalin says as he pushes me towards the forest.

Sighing, I walk up to Kili and take his hand. He looks at me with questioned eyes, but I shake my head. I will not say anything to him about this. Not now, it will only make him worried.

- Sorry Kili. Let's just say that I'm not looking forward to walking in this forest.

Kili nods his head and squeeze my hand. I squeeze his back and then I close myself from everyone.

"If this forest is as mean as Gandalf said. Then it would be better for everyone if I close myself and hope that I'll not use my powers in here."

After … I don't know for how long we have walked in here. We can have been here for many hours or just some minutes. If we try to see the sun, we can't see it. These trees have grown so thick, so the sun can barely shine through. The air is also thick, so it feels like that someone is forcing you to drink sand.

Everyone is grumpy, and they mumble things like;

- Where did the path go? Oh, here it is.

- Air, I need air.

- If you can speak Oin, you already have air then.

I say, earning some laughter's and some applauds.

Oin look at me with angry eyes but doesn't say anything.

My head feels dizzy and I have trouble with the walking. It feels like I will fall asleep while I walk.

I look behind to see how it is for Ori. But when I look. I only see myself.

"What the? What is going on?!"

Suddenly, we stop. I can't see why from where I am, but I can hear Dwalin using his hammer on the ground.

- This way.

"We're losing the path. We will lose the path."

"Ratcha! Don't use your powers!"

"I didn't! Or did I? I don't know anymore!"

After some time, we come to a river where the bridge has been destroyed.

- We can go here.

Kili says, he and Fili is standing with one hand on some vines that seems thick enough to take us over the river.

- Kili. Let the lightest one goes first.

Thorin says and gives Bilbo a meaningful glance.

Everyone looks at Bilbo and he gets a disappointed look. He then walks over to Fili and Kili and start to use the vines as a bridge.

- Don't fall into the water Bilbo. That water is as sick as everything else in this forest.

I mumble as I look around at this colorful, yet disturbing forest.

Everything is in the colors of purple, blue, red and green. The path that we are following is in a shady color of blue and grey.

"I really want to get out of this forest now."

While Bilbo climbs over to the other side of the river. The feeling of being watched hits me with such force that I almost stumbles into Dori who are standing right behind me.

"How can I feel that? I have closed myself, so I won't get any attention in here. Or have the atmosphere in here made me so unfocused that I don't know what I'm doing?"

Before I can 'look' to see what or who is watching us, Bilbo reach the other side. He sits down and tap his finger on his forehead while he shakes his head. Like he is trying to wake himself up.

Meanwhile, Thorin tells the rest of us to start climb.

- Stay where you are! Don't go over the river!

Comes from Bilbo just as I reach the middle of the river. In front of me I can see that Bombur is having a hard time staying awake.

- Stay with us Bombur. Don't fall asleep, please.

I say as I reach forwards to tap him on the shoulder. But just as my fingers reach him, Bombur falls to the side and into the water.

- Bombur!

Bofur and I screams in panic as Bombur floats by underneath us.

I look behind just in time to see that Bofur lets go of his vine but is stopped by Ori who grabs his jacket to prevent Bofur to jump into the water to.

- Don't Bofur! Don't jump into the water! That won't save Bombur. Climb over to the other side and we will get him there!

Bofur stops in his attempt to get rid of his jacket and, luckily for me, grabs the vine again. He looks at me, and I can see the desperation in his eyes, but he nods his head and Ori lets go of his jacket.

The feeling of terror that I had calms down a little and I start to climb again myself.

As I reach the other side, with some help from Thorin, I do the same thing that Bilbo did. I sit down and start to shake and tap my head in an attempt to clear it from the poisoned steam that I breathed in from the water.

Suddenly, the sound of a bow that gets stretched reach my ears and I look up just in time to see Thorin shooting an arrow to the other side where we came from. I look over to see a white deer fleeing into the forest.

- You shouldn't have done that. It's bad luck.

Bilbo says while shaking his head, still with his eyes on the place where the deer just stood.

- I don't believe in luck.

Thorin says as he lowers the bow.

He then walks over to Bofur and Bifur, who are trying to grab Bombur without falling into the water themselves.

Shaking my head once more, I also walk over to them and help with pulling Bombur out of the water. How we managed with that I actually don't remember.

But when we have gotten him out of the water, one thing was sure. No matter what we'd to wake him up, nothing works. I think Bofur even jumped on him. But that only made Bombur snore even louder.

- Can't you wake him up with your powers, Ratcha?

Balin asks.

I look at him from where I'm sitting on the other side of Bombur and shake my head.

- I can do that, but...

- Why won't you do it then?!

Bofur screams.

I know that he didn't meant to scream. But the fear over that Bombur might never wake up and the poisoned air that is surrounding us is making him, and all of us, tired and if you would mix those three things together, the fear, the poisoned air and the tiredness, you will have someone that can't control their emotions, like Bofur right now.

He has never screamed at me before so hearing and seeing it, breaks something inside me and I give him a hurt glance.

- If you just let me finish Bofur. Then I can tell you that I don't think it would be a wise idea for me to use my powers inside this forest. I don't know what will happen to any of us if I would use my powers. I don't want to hurt any of you, including Bombur.

I say as calm as I can while I look up from Bombur and at Bofur with tearful eyes.

Bofur looks confused at me for a second before I see in his eyes that he realize that he just screamed at me. He walks over and kneels down beside me and lays his left hand on my shoulder.

- Sorry for screaming Ratcha. I'm just worried for my brother.

- I understand that Bofur, if it would have been Fili or Kili I would have reacted the same as you. I'm also worried over Bombur, but he will be alright, you'll see. Now we have to fix something, so we can carry him.

Bofur makes an annoyed look and glance over at Bombur.

- How will we be able to carry him?

- We'll figure that one out too.

I say with a smile as I stand up.

I give Thorin a quick nod and he immediately puts us into work.

Soon enough, we have made a stretcher out of the materials around us.

I don't remember how we managed to get it under Bombur or how Dwalin, Bofur, Dori and Gloin managed to lift it up with Bombur on it. I knew that they were strong but apparently not how strong. But they lifted him up and we could continue our journey through the forest.

I'm walking beside Nori at the front of the Company when we suddenly stop.

"Where is the path?"

- What's happening?

- Keep moving. Nori, Ratcha, why have we stopped?

- The path… it's disappeared!

Nori says as he points in front of us.

Where the path should have been is a deep cliff instead.

"We missed it."

"We can't have missed it!"

- Find it. All of you look. Look for the path!

Thorin screams.

But I already know that we won't find the path again. Once we lost it, we won't find it again. Gandalf said that himself.

- I don't remember this place before. None of its familiar.

Balin says as he shakes his head.

I am walking behind him as we walk up a small hill. Balin stumbles, but I catch him before he falls on his stomach and helps him up again.

He looks at me and I can see that this forest is affecting him mentally. It does that on all of us, but it is really terrifying to see how it breaks everyone down, if only slowly.

- Is there no end on this accursed forest?!

Thorin yells.

I can hear the pain in his voice, and I get a sad feeling in my heart. I really want to use my powers to get us out of here, but I'm worried that if I do, I will only gain us unwanted attention. And that I don't want to gain right now.

After a long time, Thorin decides that we're having a break. I almost falls down on my butt for I am so exhausted that I can barely stand up. I am breathing heavily and have to force myself not to close my eyes in fear that I won't be able to open them again. In front of me Ori picks something up from the ground and says.

- Look!

I force my tired body to stand up, and walk over to Ori just as his brother Dori takes thing from him.

"A tobacco pouch? That's Bofur's tobacco pouch!"

- A tobacco pouch. There are Dwarves in this forest.

"Can it be us Dori?"

- Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, no less. This is exactly as mine.

- Because it is yours. You understand we are walking around in circles, we are lost.

Bilbo says annoyed to Bofur.

- We're not lost, we keep heading east.

- And how can you be so sure about that, uncle? We can't see the sun, so, which way is east?

I say to Thorin as I point upwards to the sky we can't see.

Everyone is tired and when I have said that we can't see the sun anymore, so we don't know if we really are walking east, they all start to argue over if we really are lost or if we are heading east.

Just then, the weakest of sounds makes its way through the noise to my ears and when I focus on the sound, the louder it becomes till I can hear it loud and clear.

- Attercop.

- What was that?

I whisper.

I look at Thorin and he have the same confused look. The sound fades away, and I get a tingle up mine spine when the feeling of being watch passes through my mind again.

- Enough! Quiet! All of you!

Thorin shout at the arguing group of Dwarves.

- We're being watched.

Everyone looks around themselves and walk even closer to each other.

Something is buggering me. Someone is missing.

"Where's Bilbo?"

I look around us and realize that Bilbo is in fact nowhere to be seen.

I walk over to Thorin and look at him with confused and worried eyes.

- What's the matter?

- Where's Bilbo? I can't see him anywhere.

Thorin look around as well, his face gets a terrified look when he realizes that I'm right, Bilbo is not here. Then, his eyes catch something some further away.

He starts to run to whatever he saw, screaming at us to follow him. With some doubtful looks, we do, but I look behind me one last time trying to see Bilbo.

Just then, my body screams 'attack!' and I stumbles down to my knees.

"Look up! Look up!"

Just as I do, I only manage to see a tangle of hairy legs and bodies comes falling towards us.

Before I can warn the others, a sharp pain goes through my body from my right arm, just above the Goblin wound, and the world goes black.