Chapter 4
"Are we there yet?" Lisa asked.
"Lisa," Courtney yelled enough to make Lisa notice but not enough for Aragorn to slice and dice us, "do you want to get to Moria sooner?"
"Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it." Lisa answered.
"Lisa, shut up." Courtney said through gritted teeth.
"Or do you need me to explain those two word?" I said. "Because I would be more than happy to."
"Oh. So Rachel." She laughed.
That night we arrived at the doors of Moria.
"Okay," I whispered to Courtney, "Should we tell them?"
"I think, either way, we're screwed." She replied.
Lisa joined our conversation. "If we don't, the entrance gets blocked. If we do, we can get back out the way we came, and save everybody a lot of trouble."
"I like the latter better."
"Me too." Courtney said.
"So," Lisa remarked, "Let's go."
"Wait, wait, wait." I said stopping. "We can't all go."
"You're right." Lisa exclaimed. "I'll go."
Courtney laughed. "No way! You'll just show them how dumb we! I'll go."
"Fine by me." And with that I sat down on a rock.
Lisa however, put up a fight. "Yeah, maybe you agree but."
"Lisa, Lisa, Lisa." I interrupted. "Shut up. The decision has been made."
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Peace, love, and happiness."
Lisa sat on the rock next to me. That's when I noticed Pippin getting ready to throw a rock in the water.
"Don't." I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Throw a rock in the water."
"Why?"
I sighed. "You really don't want to know. So, just trust me."
Well, apparently, he did trust me because he stopped throwing rocks.
Courtney came back.
"Well?" I asked.
She smiled. "Three."
"Two." Lisa chimed in.
"One." I finished.
Then I heard the doors open.
"Perfect timing." Lisa said.
"Of course."
"Let's go you guys." I said putting my pack on my back.
"Yeah." Lisa mumbled. "Let's go straight to our deaths."
"What's up with you girl?" Courtney asked. "You're the one who said "let's tell 'em'."
"I know. But."
"But there's no way around Moria. And if we go through, there's Orcs and the Balrog." I finished for her. She nodded.
"Laura!" I heard Pippin call. "Come on! You'll get left behind!"
As we started walking I said "At least I know Pippin doesn't hate me."
Well, what can I say about Moria? It was darker than I expected. And all we had was Gandalf's staff to lead the way. Okay, we also had my flashlight, but I wasn't about to use it with almost the whole company hating us and Aragorn ready to chop us up.
After what seemed like forever, we finally camped.
"Finally," Lisa muttered, "I thought we were never going to stop. My feet are so damn sore that they have blisters."
"Yeah, stop complaining. We all had to walk in the same boots." I shot back.
"You can't stop me from being a pessimist. I plan to do that the whole way." She replied.
Courtney laughed. "So, you're going to complain the whole way."
"Yup."
"Great," I muttered, "I'll worry the whole way."
"Perfect!" Lisa exclaimed. "Courtney, you can be the optimist!"
"Someone has to be." Courtney said.
After dinner (or what they qualified as dinner, I swear they gave us less than everyone else), we all laid down our blankets to go to sleep.
"Laura," Courtney whispered.
"What?"
"Do you still have your flashlight?"
"Yeah, but."
"Just give me it."
I handed it to her. "Where are you going?"
"To get more wafers."
She got up when we heard two bodies slam into each other.
"Sorry." The person said.
"Merry," Courtney hissed, "Watch where you're going."
"Same to you. Where are you going?"
"To get some more wafers. You?"
"The same. But you're heading in the wrong direction."
"Oh." She turned on the flashlight.
"Turn off the flashlight!" Lisa whispered into the dark. "You're kind of noticeable!"
Courtney and Merry set off to find wafers. Lisa and I began to fall asleep. Not two minutes had passed when something hit me on the head.
"It was her!" Courtney said.
I threw the wafers onto Lisa. "It was her!"
Lisa, who woke up just as I threw the wafers on her, didn't have time to react.
Aragorn laughed. "You think you've fooled me haven't you? I'm not a fool. Now kindly give me the wafers, we need to save our rations." He took the wafers from Lisa and walked away.
I sighed. Then with heavy sarcasm I said, "Next time we need wafers call on Courtney: The Wafer Master!"
"Shut up." She said in reply.
We woke up the next morning and kept on walking. I never thought we'd stop. Finally when we did, we stopped in this chamber. Gandalf handed Pippin his hat and staff.
"You guys," I whispered, "Do you think we should, like, make Pippin not drop the skeleton down the hole?"
"Great idea!" Lisa said. We all ran behind Pippin. He turned around and gave us a weird look. We smiled and waved in return. I swear he rolled his eyes. He was learning quickly.
Gandalf picked up a book and began to read from it. Lisa picked up a rock and showed it to me.
"How much do you think I could get for this?"
I laughed quietly. "How much do you think P.J. would pay for an actual stone from Moria?"
She smiled. "A lot."
I rolled my eyes and turned back to look at Gandalf. Suddenly I heard a rock drop down the well/hole. I had a gut instinct it was Lisa's fault. I twirled around and in doing so my arm hit the skeleton and that dropped down the hole.
"Well, can I say shit!" Courtney said then kicked the wall of the well. The sides collapsed and fell in the hole.
Gandalf turned to face us. "Do you realize what you've done!"
Then suddenly, DOOM-DOOM.
"I'm freaking myself out man." Lisa whispered.
DOOM-DOOM.
And suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. I heard Orcs coming and al I thought was, This is it.
"Orcs!" Legolas cried.
I took that line and tried to make a joke. "Why did we have to get stuck with people who state the obvious?"
Lisa dropped to her knees and started to scream. The only thing I could make out was, "Why?"
"Why what?" Courtney yelled.
But Lisa couldn't answer because that's when all the Orcs started to pour into the room. And with no prior experience, I went into battle.
An Orc came running at me and I put my sword through his chest. It died with a piercing shriek. After that fighting came easily.
I decapitated another Orc and that's when my already weird life got even weirder. Sam Allen, Lisa's friend, popped up in front of me.
"Lisa?" she asked.
I rolled eyes. Being a twin sucked sometimes. "No, Laura."
"Where the hell am I?"
"How the hell did you get here?" I asked.
"I was just reading Lord of the Rings and listening to the soundtrack and I popped up here. Where is here?"
"Shit. You're in the middle of a battle in Moria." I took my dagger from my boot and gave it to her. "Now go save Lisa's ass."
"Where is she?"
I pointed to her getting surrounded by Orcs. I laughed. Yes, despite the fact I was in the middle of a freaking battle with Orcs, I laughed. If I was paying attention I could have seen the Orc coming up behind me. But Sam did.
"Behind you!" she screamed.
I whipped my sword around and chopped the Orc in half.
"Gross!"
"Just save Lisa!" I yelled.
While she went to go save Lisa I fought my way to Courtney.
"Sam Allen." I said.
"What about her? How the hell can you think of her at a time like this?"
"She's here."
I swear her jaw dropped to the floor. She almost dropped her sword.
"You're kidding."
"Nope."
"She just left." Lisa said coming up behind us. She startled me. I don't know about Courtney. Lisa handed me my dagger.
I was about to say something when I heard a voice scream, "Aragorn!"
"Frodo!" all three of us yelled at the same time. Then we all bolted. Frodo was really close to being stabbed by a cave-troll. We were about twenty feet away from him when Courtney yelled:
"Mithril!"
She and Lisa t stopped but I, being the smart one I am, kept running to save him.
"Laura!" Lisa yelled.
But it was too late. I leaped and pushed Frodo away from the spear. He landed on top of me. I pushed him off when the troll pointed the spear at us. As I began to roll my cloak got stuck on something. I turned around to see what it was stuck on. The cave-troll had tried to stab at me but had missed and got my cloak instead. Now the spear was stuck.
I looked up at the troll who now had an arrow in his throat. It was going to fall on me if I didn't move. The only problem was that I couldn't.
"Courtney, Lisa!" I yelled. "Help!"
"You idiot!" Lisa shrieked, "Rip your cloak! You'll get another one!"
I tried to rip it, but it wouldn't tear. "Shit."
"Laura, move!" Boromir yelled.
"Ya think?"
That's when the cave-troll landed no more than five inches beside me.
"You're a damned idiot Laura!" Lisa yelled.
I laughed. "Talk about an adrenaline rush."
Courtney rolled her eyes.
"Come on you guys help me!" I whined.
Lisa and Courtney came over and managed to pull the spear out and I stood up.
"To the bridge of Khazad-Dum!" Gandalf said way too calmly.
Well, we ran. And the Orcs chased us. In fact, they surrounded us.
"Well, this isn't good." Lisa said.
"Lisa," I groaned, "don't start singing."
"What?" Courtney asked wide-eyed.
"I can't help but to sing." Lisa took a deep breath and sang, "Get off of my back and into my game." It was a song from the "Spirit" soundtrack, but she didn't sing anymore because at that moment the Orcs started to run away.
We all lost our happy mood ver quickly.
"Well," Lisa said trying to lighten our mood, "either my song worked, or my singing sucks."
"I don't think it was either of them." I said softly. See I had seen a light coming and I knew it was the Balrog. I saw Courtney's face, apparently she knew too.
"Hey," Lisa complained, "I'm supposed to be the pessimist!"
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to worry, and I'm worrying." I said turning to run.
"Oh! Okay. I get it." Lisa went to Gandalf. "Mr. Gandalf sir."
"Lisa!" Courtney yelled turning to run with me, "Now is NOT the time!"
"But I have to say it!"
Courtney and I didn't wait for her. We started to run hoping Lisa would follow us. If we had bothered to look back we would have noticed the hobbits running right after us then the rest of the Fellowship after them.
Courtney and I ran faster than we ever had in our entire lives. Which, more than likely, our lives did depend on how fast we ran. When we finally did stop running we were past the gap separating the two places in the staircase.
Courtney and I looked back. The Fellowship had just come through the door at the top of the stairs. But there was no sign of Lisa.
"Where is she?" Courtney hissed at me.
"Right there." I said pointing to the top of the staircase.
Lisa was running through the door screaming and her hands waving in the air. She could have been waving 'hi', but I knew Lisa and right then she was scared shitless.
She ran fast enough to catch up with the Fellowship and they came to the gap. Legolas jumped first then Gandalf. Boromir was about to throw Lisa when she screamed:
"Don't throw me! Don't throw me!"
Then an arrow missed Lisa's boot by an inch to which she replied:
"Throw me! Throw me! Throw me!"
And instead of someone throwing her, Merry and Pippin accidentally tripped into Lisa making her topple over the crack separating the stairs. She landed on her back right at our feet.
"I'm going to feel that one in the morning." She said forcing a smile.
"Come on you ass!" Courtney yelled as she and I turned to head toward the bridge.
Once again we ran. I could hear the Balrog coming. After about five minutes of running we finally reached the bridge of Khazad-Dum.
As we ran Courtney yelled, "Keep running straight and don't look down, keep running straight and don't look down!"
I tripped over a rock and fell face down.
"Courtney, I'm looking down!" I yelled.
"Laura, now is NOT the time!" she screamed helping me up.
We got across the bridge and turned to look back. Lisa was in front of everyone still running with her hands waving in the air. She got across.
"Courtney, Laura." she said breathless.
I rolled my eyes. "Lisa, we weren't going to get ourselves killed even though it seemed like you did."
"I know, but I was wondering if we should.you know." she added the last part in a whisper, "save Gandalf."
I snapped my fingers. "Good plan. Courtney." I turned to ask Courtney who had been standing next to me but she was no longer there. I looked down on the bridge. Courtney was halfway to Gandalf already saving him.
"Looks like she's one step ahead of us." I said.
Lisa and I ran to back her up, but Aragorn grabbed me and stopped me. Lisa kept running. I looked at him and said:
"Not today buddy!"
I kicked the back of his knees and he buckled to the ground. I, you know what? You know what I was doing, so lets keep it at that.
I caught up to Lisa just as the Balrog fell into "The Shadow".
Courtney, Lisa, and I grabbed Gandalf and pulled him back. Courtney was standing on the edge looking satisfied. I saw the whip come up and all I could as myself was:
Was that what the whip really looked like?
It grabbed Courtney's ankle and she yelled, "SHIT!" and a couple of others I shouldn't mention.
It pulled her down but somehow she managed to hold on to the edge. Lisa and I grabbed her hands. Her eyes held a horrified, helpless look. Like she had already died. Lisa looked the same exact way. It was to be expected they were best friends.
"Lisa, if I die, you can have all my CD's." she said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gandalf starting to get up.
"Only your CD's?" I pressed.
I saw Frodo starting to come down.
"Okay, you can have the CD player too."
"Only your CD player?" I continued to press. Help was almost there.
"Okay, the TV too, but that's it." She said choking on tears.
"See you Courtney." I said letting go of one hand. Her eyes got wide but Gandalf took my place and pulled her up.
I turned to Frodo. "It's been one hell of a day hasn't it?"
"Are we there yet?" Lisa asked.
"Lisa," Courtney yelled enough to make Lisa notice but not enough for Aragorn to slice and dice us, "do you want to get to Moria sooner?"
"Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it." Lisa answered.
"Lisa, shut up." Courtney said through gritted teeth.
"Or do you need me to explain those two word?" I said. "Because I would be more than happy to."
"Oh. So Rachel." She laughed.
That night we arrived at the doors of Moria.
"Okay," I whispered to Courtney, "Should we tell them?"
"I think, either way, we're screwed." She replied.
Lisa joined our conversation. "If we don't, the entrance gets blocked. If we do, we can get back out the way we came, and save everybody a lot of trouble."
"I like the latter better."
"Me too." Courtney said.
"So," Lisa remarked, "Let's go."
"Wait, wait, wait." I said stopping. "We can't all go."
"You're right." Lisa exclaimed. "I'll go."
Courtney laughed. "No way! You'll just show them how dumb we! I'll go."
"Fine by me." And with that I sat down on a rock.
Lisa however, put up a fight. "Yeah, maybe you agree but."
"Lisa, Lisa, Lisa." I interrupted. "Shut up. The decision has been made."
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Peace, love, and happiness."
Lisa sat on the rock next to me. That's when I noticed Pippin getting ready to throw a rock in the water.
"Don't." I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Throw a rock in the water."
"Why?"
I sighed. "You really don't want to know. So, just trust me."
Well, apparently, he did trust me because he stopped throwing rocks.
Courtney came back.
"Well?" I asked.
She smiled. "Three."
"Two." Lisa chimed in.
"One." I finished.
Then I heard the doors open.
"Perfect timing." Lisa said.
"Of course."
"Let's go you guys." I said putting my pack on my back.
"Yeah." Lisa mumbled. "Let's go straight to our deaths."
"What's up with you girl?" Courtney asked. "You're the one who said "let's tell 'em'."
"I know. But."
"But there's no way around Moria. And if we go through, there's Orcs and the Balrog." I finished for her. She nodded.
"Laura!" I heard Pippin call. "Come on! You'll get left behind!"
As we started walking I said "At least I know Pippin doesn't hate me."
Well, what can I say about Moria? It was darker than I expected. And all we had was Gandalf's staff to lead the way. Okay, we also had my flashlight, but I wasn't about to use it with almost the whole company hating us and Aragorn ready to chop us up.
After what seemed like forever, we finally camped.
"Finally," Lisa muttered, "I thought we were never going to stop. My feet are so damn sore that they have blisters."
"Yeah, stop complaining. We all had to walk in the same boots." I shot back.
"You can't stop me from being a pessimist. I plan to do that the whole way." She replied.
Courtney laughed. "So, you're going to complain the whole way."
"Yup."
"Great," I muttered, "I'll worry the whole way."
"Perfect!" Lisa exclaimed. "Courtney, you can be the optimist!"
"Someone has to be." Courtney said.
After dinner (or what they qualified as dinner, I swear they gave us less than everyone else), we all laid down our blankets to go to sleep.
"Laura," Courtney whispered.
"What?"
"Do you still have your flashlight?"
"Yeah, but."
"Just give me it."
I handed it to her. "Where are you going?"
"To get more wafers."
She got up when we heard two bodies slam into each other.
"Sorry." The person said.
"Merry," Courtney hissed, "Watch where you're going."
"Same to you. Where are you going?"
"To get some more wafers. You?"
"The same. But you're heading in the wrong direction."
"Oh." She turned on the flashlight.
"Turn off the flashlight!" Lisa whispered into the dark. "You're kind of noticeable!"
Courtney and Merry set off to find wafers. Lisa and I began to fall asleep. Not two minutes had passed when something hit me on the head.
"It was her!" Courtney said.
I threw the wafers onto Lisa. "It was her!"
Lisa, who woke up just as I threw the wafers on her, didn't have time to react.
Aragorn laughed. "You think you've fooled me haven't you? I'm not a fool. Now kindly give me the wafers, we need to save our rations." He took the wafers from Lisa and walked away.
I sighed. Then with heavy sarcasm I said, "Next time we need wafers call on Courtney: The Wafer Master!"
"Shut up." She said in reply.
We woke up the next morning and kept on walking. I never thought we'd stop. Finally when we did, we stopped in this chamber. Gandalf handed Pippin his hat and staff.
"You guys," I whispered, "Do you think we should, like, make Pippin not drop the skeleton down the hole?"
"Great idea!" Lisa said. We all ran behind Pippin. He turned around and gave us a weird look. We smiled and waved in return. I swear he rolled his eyes. He was learning quickly.
Gandalf picked up a book and began to read from it. Lisa picked up a rock and showed it to me.
"How much do you think I could get for this?"
I laughed quietly. "How much do you think P.J. would pay for an actual stone from Moria?"
She smiled. "A lot."
I rolled my eyes and turned back to look at Gandalf. Suddenly I heard a rock drop down the well/hole. I had a gut instinct it was Lisa's fault. I twirled around and in doing so my arm hit the skeleton and that dropped down the hole.
"Well, can I say shit!" Courtney said then kicked the wall of the well. The sides collapsed and fell in the hole.
Gandalf turned to face us. "Do you realize what you've done!"
Then suddenly, DOOM-DOOM.
"I'm freaking myself out man." Lisa whispered.
DOOM-DOOM.
And suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. I heard Orcs coming and al I thought was, This is it.
"Orcs!" Legolas cried.
I took that line and tried to make a joke. "Why did we have to get stuck with people who state the obvious?"
Lisa dropped to her knees and started to scream. The only thing I could make out was, "Why?"
"Why what?" Courtney yelled.
But Lisa couldn't answer because that's when all the Orcs started to pour into the room. And with no prior experience, I went into battle.
An Orc came running at me and I put my sword through his chest. It died with a piercing shriek. After that fighting came easily.
I decapitated another Orc and that's when my already weird life got even weirder. Sam Allen, Lisa's friend, popped up in front of me.
"Lisa?" she asked.
I rolled eyes. Being a twin sucked sometimes. "No, Laura."
"Where the hell am I?"
"How the hell did you get here?" I asked.
"I was just reading Lord of the Rings and listening to the soundtrack and I popped up here. Where is here?"
"Shit. You're in the middle of a battle in Moria." I took my dagger from my boot and gave it to her. "Now go save Lisa's ass."
"Where is she?"
I pointed to her getting surrounded by Orcs. I laughed. Yes, despite the fact I was in the middle of a freaking battle with Orcs, I laughed. If I was paying attention I could have seen the Orc coming up behind me. But Sam did.
"Behind you!" she screamed.
I whipped my sword around and chopped the Orc in half.
"Gross!"
"Just save Lisa!" I yelled.
While she went to go save Lisa I fought my way to Courtney.
"Sam Allen." I said.
"What about her? How the hell can you think of her at a time like this?"
"She's here."
I swear her jaw dropped to the floor. She almost dropped her sword.
"You're kidding."
"Nope."
"She just left." Lisa said coming up behind us. She startled me. I don't know about Courtney. Lisa handed me my dagger.
I was about to say something when I heard a voice scream, "Aragorn!"
"Frodo!" all three of us yelled at the same time. Then we all bolted. Frodo was really close to being stabbed by a cave-troll. We were about twenty feet away from him when Courtney yelled:
"Mithril!"
She and Lisa t stopped but I, being the smart one I am, kept running to save him.
"Laura!" Lisa yelled.
But it was too late. I leaped and pushed Frodo away from the spear. He landed on top of me. I pushed him off when the troll pointed the spear at us. As I began to roll my cloak got stuck on something. I turned around to see what it was stuck on. The cave-troll had tried to stab at me but had missed and got my cloak instead. Now the spear was stuck.
I looked up at the troll who now had an arrow in his throat. It was going to fall on me if I didn't move. The only problem was that I couldn't.
"Courtney, Lisa!" I yelled. "Help!"
"You idiot!" Lisa shrieked, "Rip your cloak! You'll get another one!"
I tried to rip it, but it wouldn't tear. "Shit."
"Laura, move!" Boromir yelled.
"Ya think?"
That's when the cave-troll landed no more than five inches beside me.
"You're a damned idiot Laura!" Lisa yelled.
I laughed. "Talk about an adrenaline rush."
Courtney rolled her eyes.
"Come on you guys help me!" I whined.
Lisa and Courtney came over and managed to pull the spear out and I stood up.
"To the bridge of Khazad-Dum!" Gandalf said way too calmly.
Well, we ran. And the Orcs chased us. In fact, they surrounded us.
"Well, this isn't good." Lisa said.
"Lisa," I groaned, "don't start singing."
"What?" Courtney asked wide-eyed.
"I can't help but to sing." Lisa took a deep breath and sang, "Get off of my back and into my game." It was a song from the "Spirit" soundtrack, but she didn't sing anymore because at that moment the Orcs started to run away.
We all lost our happy mood ver quickly.
"Well," Lisa said trying to lighten our mood, "either my song worked, or my singing sucks."
"I don't think it was either of them." I said softly. See I had seen a light coming and I knew it was the Balrog. I saw Courtney's face, apparently she knew too.
"Hey," Lisa complained, "I'm supposed to be the pessimist!"
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to worry, and I'm worrying." I said turning to run.
"Oh! Okay. I get it." Lisa went to Gandalf. "Mr. Gandalf sir."
"Lisa!" Courtney yelled turning to run with me, "Now is NOT the time!"
"But I have to say it!"
Courtney and I didn't wait for her. We started to run hoping Lisa would follow us. If we had bothered to look back we would have noticed the hobbits running right after us then the rest of the Fellowship after them.
Courtney and I ran faster than we ever had in our entire lives. Which, more than likely, our lives did depend on how fast we ran. When we finally did stop running we were past the gap separating the two places in the staircase.
Courtney and I looked back. The Fellowship had just come through the door at the top of the stairs. But there was no sign of Lisa.
"Where is she?" Courtney hissed at me.
"Right there." I said pointing to the top of the staircase.
Lisa was running through the door screaming and her hands waving in the air. She could have been waving 'hi', but I knew Lisa and right then she was scared shitless.
She ran fast enough to catch up with the Fellowship and they came to the gap. Legolas jumped first then Gandalf. Boromir was about to throw Lisa when she screamed:
"Don't throw me! Don't throw me!"
Then an arrow missed Lisa's boot by an inch to which she replied:
"Throw me! Throw me! Throw me!"
And instead of someone throwing her, Merry and Pippin accidentally tripped into Lisa making her topple over the crack separating the stairs. She landed on her back right at our feet.
"I'm going to feel that one in the morning." She said forcing a smile.
"Come on you ass!" Courtney yelled as she and I turned to head toward the bridge.
Once again we ran. I could hear the Balrog coming. After about five minutes of running we finally reached the bridge of Khazad-Dum.
As we ran Courtney yelled, "Keep running straight and don't look down, keep running straight and don't look down!"
I tripped over a rock and fell face down.
"Courtney, I'm looking down!" I yelled.
"Laura, now is NOT the time!" she screamed helping me up.
We got across the bridge and turned to look back. Lisa was in front of everyone still running with her hands waving in the air. She got across.
"Courtney, Laura." she said breathless.
I rolled my eyes. "Lisa, we weren't going to get ourselves killed even though it seemed like you did."
"I know, but I was wondering if we should.you know." she added the last part in a whisper, "save Gandalf."
I snapped my fingers. "Good plan. Courtney." I turned to ask Courtney who had been standing next to me but she was no longer there. I looked down on the bridge. Courtney was halfway to Gandalf already saving him.
"Looks like she's one step ahead of us." I said.
Lisa and I ran to back her up, but Aragorn grabbed me and stopped me. Lisa kept running. I looked at him and said:
"Not today buddy!"
I kicked the back of his knees and he buckled to the ground. I, you know what? You know what I was doing, so lets keep it at that.
I caught up to Lisa just as the Balrog fell into "The Shadow".
Courtney, Lisa, and I grabbed Gandalf and pulled him back. Courtney was standing on the edge looking satisfied. I saw the whip come up and all I could as myself was:
Was that what the whip really looked like?
It grabbed Courtney's ankle and she yelled, "SHIT!" and a couple of others I shouldn't mention.
It pulled her down but somehow she managed to hold on to the edge. Lisa and I grabbed her hands. Her eyes held a horrified, helpless look. Like she had already died. Lisa looked the same exact way. It was to be expected they were best friends.
"Lisa, if I die, you can have all my CD's." she said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gandalf starting to get up.
"Only your CD's?" I pressed.
I saw Frodo starting to come down.
"Okay, you can have the CD player too."
"Only your CD player?" I continued to press. Help was almost there.
"Okay, the TV too, but that's it." She said choking on tears.
"See you Courtney." I said letting go of one hand. Her eyes got wide but Gandalf took my place and pulled her up.
I turned to Frodo. "It's been one hell of a day hasn't it?"