A/N: Bit of a strange one this, but nice and long.
Merry was trapped. A foul tunnel, slimy and sticky, was his prison. He has ventured both ways but found no exit only walls. The walls were wet from something seeping through the ground from above; perhaps he was under a river. The walls glistened in an unknown light and Merry was so thirsty, he'd drink anything. He ran to the walls, the smell of stagnant ponds hung round them but Merry didn't care. He cupped his hand under a running stream of liquid and collected it in his hand. Without stopping to check it he drank deeply from it and swallowed. He went to get more until he tasted the traces of liquid in his mouth, it had a familiar coppery taste, like blood. Merry spat out anything in his mouth that wasn't attached to him, he looked at his hands and to his dismay, they were red. He was loathed to wipe the foul liquid on his front but there was nothing else he could do.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped and turned.
"Mr. Merry, come back to us won't you?" Merry couldn't believe his eyes.
"Oh Sam! How ever did you get down here?" He said as he flung his arms around Sam's neck. Sam did not return the gesture though. Behind Sam was the interior of Bag End, the sun was shining and the Shire outside was the greenest it had ever been. Merry pulled Sam away from him, to point out the beauty of it, but then he looked at Sam's face. The eyes were sunken and almost completely gone, his skin was dry and hung off the bones as there was nothing inbetween. A horrible smell of rotting hung around Sam and Merry immediately let him go; he dropped to the floor like a stone. Sam's clothes slowly deflated, wrapping only Sam's skeleton now but that soon turned to dust and was blown away by a draft from an open window. Merry stared in wide-eyed horror as he fell to his knees and clutched Sam's dusty shirt to him. He lost all track of time sitting in that sunny room, holding the clothes of a hobbit that was once dear to him, but he knew that he must move on.
He rose and took a handkerchief from Sam's shirt pocket and tucked it into his own, he needed something to remember him by. He walked to the door and put his hand on the handle but paused there, what horror was awaiting him there? And why hadn't the sun gone down yet?
He pushed the door open and knew strait away that he was no longer in the Shire. The smell was more wild and there were trees all around. But the place was familiar to him nonetheless. He could remember what happened here so very clearly and he could hear a horn blow, as if out of a memory. The horn call blew louder and got closer, there was no mistaking it, it was the horn of Gondor.
Merry turned towards the sound and he could clearly see Boromir running towards him, his sword in one hand, his horn in the other and his elven cloak billowing out behind him. Merry could now hear the footfalls of the Uruk-Hai, he knew what was coming next and he glanced around for Pippin but he was nowhere to be seen.
Boromir faced the oncoming hoards and stood, preparing to fight to the death as Merry knew he would.
"Run Boromir! Run! Save yourself! Please!" He yelled in vain. Boromir merely looked at him and shook his head as the first of the Uruk-Hai charged towards him. He fought well, he deflected all of his attackers and none of them survived. Merry stood on and watched, he had no weapons other than his fists but he was dreading what was to come.
Boromir slew another foul creature and right on cue, the first arrow struck. Merry was distraught, he was going to lose Boromir all over again and there was nothing he could do about it. But there was something else he could do; he could be there for him this time. The second arrow hit and Boromir fell to his knees.
"No!" cried Merry as he ran to Boromir's aid, "Please stop! Why are you doing this?"
"Because I must." answered Boromir looking deeply into Merry's eyes before pushing him out of the way of the third arrow. Merry rolled across the ground and stopped himself in time to see Boromir struggle to get up, then fall back down. He ran over to him and knelt by his side, Boromir gripped his arm and tears poured freely down his face.
"Goodbye Boromir, and thankyou." He said quietly. Boromir managed a small smile and he gripped Merry's arm harder.
"Good luck to you and your kin, my friend." He said before his grip failed and his body fell limp. Merry knew what he would do now, tears still coursing down his face, he stood over Boromir's body and faced the oncoming army to defend Boromir as Boromir had him. His fists were balled up and he held them before him, ready to attack anything that came close enough. All he could see charging towards him was the filthy hilt of a sword, he screwed up his eyes and braced him self for the impact. It never came.
"Come on now Merry love" said a distinctly female voice. Merry opened up his eyes and looked all round, he was back in the Shire, on Bagshot row. Now, whose voice had spoken? It had sounded like Estella, how much he wanted it to be Estella. But no, Estella's voice was softer than that and she never called him 'love'.
"Merry!" said the voice again and Merry recognised it easily as Rosie's voice, from somewhere around his feet strangely enough. He looked down and he found that a huge hole had opened at his feet and at the bottom of it was Rosie. Merry opened his mouth to say something but Rosie got there first.
"Wake up Merry!" she said firmly.
"But I am awake!"
"Oh no you're not!" A voice from over his shoulder made him jump. The voice was deep but it wasn't smooth, it was the kind that grates against your ears when you hear it. Merry shuddered, he knew perfectly well whose voice it was, but he looked over his shoulder to check, hoping against hope it was someone playing a trick on him.
But no, it was just whom he had feared, Grishnákh was standing behind him, twirling a filthy knife. Merry spun around and stepped backwards, momentarily forgetting there was a hole behind him. He realised it too late and fell backwards onto the hard ground. The hole had disappeared! Were Grishnákh not standing over him, he might have started trying to dig Rosie out but Grishnákh was standing over him, so he scrambled up and ran for his life.
He glanced behind him after a while of running to find that Grishnákh hadn't been following him and he had run to a completely deserted part of the Shire, if it was a part of the Shire. The fields grew wild and some trees were dotted here and there, there were wildflowers aplenty. This place had a calm peacefulness about it. All Merry wanted to do was flop to the floor and sleep but there was something nagging in his mind that he knew he had to do. Yes! He remembered, he was going to find Frodo and Pippin and get them out of this place, it was already too late for Sam and Rosie.
A scream shattered the silence. To Merry's relief it wasn't a scream of pain or fear, but a baby screaming for food. His relief was short-lived when he realised whose cry it would have to be.
"Elanor!" He moaned, "Please don't say you're here too." He followed the direction of the screams to a tree, where the screams started coming from directly above him. He looked up and saw Elanor cradled in the branches. A new voice that Merry had never heard before was carried to them both on the wind and it soothed them.
Rock-a-bye baby, On the tree top, When the wind blows, The cradle will rock, When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall, And down will come baby, Cradle and all.
The wind began to pick up once the nursery rhyme had finished and the branches holding the baby began to sway and bend. The weight of the baby was becoming too much for them and they were at breaking point, they began to creak and one of the snapped, it was now only holding on by the bark, Elanor wouldn't be up there for much longer.
"How are you today Merry?" Merry looked down from Elanor up in the tree, the weather immediately reverted back to its original state and when he looked up into the tree again he could see only leaves and birds. He looked back down at the speaker.
"Frodo! I've been looking for you! You have to get out of here!" He ran towards Frodo, wanting to grab onto him before anything came between them, but he was too late. A young lad stepped out from behind the tree, directly into Merry's path and Frodo turned and began to walk away.
"Please move, I need to get to Frodo!" Begged Merry.
"I am Frodo!" said the lad indignantly.
"No you're not, that's Frodo!" said Merry, pointing to the figure in the distance, which was getting further and further away from him.
"I AM Frodo Baggins!" shouted the boy, stamping his foot. Merry studied him and after a little while he realised the lad was telling the truth. He was looking at a Frodo exactly as he had been on his thirty-third birthday, though he didn't sound like Frodo.
"I want to see the old Frodo though, please let me pass."
"You shall not pass!" Said Frodo, doing a very child-like impression of Gandalf. Merry sighed and looked down at Frodo, but Frodo wasn't there anymore, he was now just a ten year old and he was growing shorter all the time.
"I AM Frodo Baggins!" He yelled again, and then he began to cry. Soon enough he was a small baby crying on the floor in a bundle of clothes. Merry picked him up and tried to soothe him, rocking him gently and humming to him but still he cried and still he shrank. Before long Frodo had become lost inside his own clothes and when Merry shook them out he found nothing.
Merry was too shocked to cry or grieve, but he did take Frodo's shirt and tie it around his waist, he would have worn it but it was far too small.
"No! I won't leave him!" The sky darkened as clouds quickly blew over. The land dried and the trees died, becoming hollow pieces of rotting wood stuck in the ground. Merry faced the new voice, a voice so familiar to him he knew it almost as well as his own.
"I want to be here for him!" It shouted again. Shadows were flying above and they brought back horrible memories, which he pushed out of his mind for the moment. He strove through the darkness until he found his beloved Pippin.
Pippin was standing proudly, brandishing his sword and wearing the uniform of the citadel guard. The white tree shone out brightly against the black and each star looked as if it were real. Merry began running towards Pippin, until he saw who Pippin was brandishing he sword at. Pippin was stood before the great eye of Sauron. Merry couldn't help but use Gandalf's phrase.
"Fool of a Took!" He muttered to himself. The ground began to shake as a laugh began, almost like the world was laughing at his predicament. It was an evil and mirthless laugh from one who takes pleasure in other's pain. The entire world seemed to be shaking from fear of this laugh. Merry looked up at the eye again, tendrils of fire were reaching towards Pippin, he longed to tell Pippin to run but he couldn't move for fear. The fire twined itself about Pippins arms at first, pulling him in, then it reached around his body, drawing him in quicker. By this time Pippin was screaming hysterically as his body was burnt away.
Merry was fixated with horror, his mouth opening and closing uselessly. Suddenly a black object dropped from above and cut out his view. At first Merry was thankful until he realised what was standing in front of him.
The Witch-king sat atop his terrible beast, staring down upon Merry. The blackness where his face would have been was filled with hatred and revenge.
"You can't be here! You're dead! Eowyn killed you!" screamed Merry in his confusion. The leader of the nazgûl merely laughed. A laugh very similar to his master's. The sound filled his ears until it drowned out even Pippin's screams. He clamped his hands over his ears and sank to the ground, trying to think of anything but what was happening to him. When would this nightmare end?
After who knows how long, he took his hands away from his ears and listened. Silence. It was bliss. He opened his eyes, the darkness was gone. It was still night-time though, and it was overcast, but the moon peeped out from her hiding place and a handful of stars shone down. But it wasn't quite silent, he could hear footsteps. Then another voice, he'd already heard it here, deep and harsh.
"Find it? Find what? What are you talking about little one?" There was a small pause as nobody spoke and Merry recalled the scene in his mind.
He then heard a sound: gollum gollum and a different, higher pitched, softer and more joyful voice spoke,
"Nothing, my precious"
"O ho!" Hissed Grishnákh softly "That's what it means, is it? O ho! Very ve- ry dangerous, my little ones."
"Perhaps," he heard himself say. "Perhaps; and not only for us. Still you know your own business best. Do you want it, or not? And what would you give for it?" He found himself walking towards the two and sitting himself next to Pippin, with Grishnákh inbetween them. Just as it had been that night.
He now noticed that Grishnákh was searching Pippin, he had not yet started on Merry though he remembered the feeling of the cold claws groping at him.
"Do I want it? Do I want it? What would I give for it? What do you mean?" Grishnákh tried to act puzzled but he knew perfectly well what the two hobbits meant.
"We mean," began Pippin, but he never finished, instead of carrying on, as he should have done, he reached under his cloak, drew out a sword and slashed Grishnákh's throat. The Uruk-Hai fell to the ground dead, black blood gushing from the wound.
"Right then," started Pippin as though he'd done no more than wash the dishes "What shall we do now?" he finished in a more menacing tone. Merry looked up from the dead body at his cousin.
"You have it don't you?" said Pippin accusingly and then he added: gollum gollum. Merry smiled at Pippin, thinking he was still playing at being Gollum but before his eyes Pippin began to change. His body grew thinner, his skin paler and his eyes larger. Merry stood up and began to back away.
"What's the matter Merry dear?" hissed the half-Gollum half-Pippin crouched in front of him. Merry didn't answer and continued to back away. "You have it! I knew it! You have it! You have the precious!" Gollum screeched. Merry still backed away. "We knows you have it, we do! You cannot hides!"
The creature now in front of Merry was hideous, how it could ever have been a hobbit, Merry couldn't fathom. He had never seen the real Gollum but from the stories this was exactly how he had imagined him to look. The way he spoke was almost identical to the way Bilbo used to when he imitated him in his tales.
"Give it to us!" the creature yelled at him and in Pippin's own voice, it finished "My dearest cousin."
Merry finally turned and ran. He ran flat out but behind him he could always hear Gollum, screeching insults and curses at him.
Merry was tiring and Gollum was gaining and before Merry could do anything about it, Gollum had leapt onto his back. He could feel cold hands reach their way around his neck and they began to squeeze. His throat burned as he fell to the ground choking. There was less and less space for air to get through as Gollum continued to squeeze. Each struggle and even breath became a labour. Shadows enveloped his world; he could no longer see a thing. He could only hear the triumphant yelps of his attacker and feel the weight on his back and the fingers still round his throat.
All of a sudden the weight was lifted from him and it seemed as if Gollum was dragged from off his back. Merry rolled over and with his last effort he opened his eyes. The light was nearly blinding but there was no Gollum in sight. A figure was standing over him, smiling at him. Merry's eyes adjusted to the light and he could now clearly see who it was.
Boromir knelt down beside him and stroked his forehead tenderly, he bent over and gave it one final kiss before Merry closed his eyes and his body gave up the fight.
Merry was trapped. A foul tunnel, slimy and sticky, was his prison. He has ventured both ways but found no exit only walls. The walls were wet from something seeping through the ground from above; perhaps he was under a river. The walls glistened in an unknown light and Merry was so thirsty, he'd drink anything. He ran to the walls, the smell of stagnant ponds hung round them but Merry didn't care. He cupped his hand under a running stream of liquid and collected it in his hand. Without stopping to check it he drank deeply from it and swallowed. He went to get more until he tasted the traces of liquid in his mouth, it had a familiar coppery taste, like blood. Merry spat out anything in his mouth that wasn't attached to him, he looked at his hands and to his dismay, they were red. He was loathed to wipe the foul liquid on his front but there was nothing else he could do.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped and turned.
"Mr. Merry, come back to us won't you?" Merry couldn't believe his eyes.
"Oh Sam! How ever did you get down here?" He said as he flung his arms around Sam's neck. Sam did not return the gesture though. Behind Sam was the interior of Bag End, the sun was shining and the Shire outside was the greenest it had ever been. Merry pulled Sam away from him, to point out the beauty of it, but then he looked at Sam's face. The eyes were sunken and almost completely gone, his skin was dry and hung off the bones as there was nothing inbetween. A horrible smell of rotting hung around Sam and Merry immediately let him go; he dropped to the floor like a stone. Sam's clothes slowly deflated, wrapping only Sam's skeleton now but that soon turned to dust and was blown away by a draft from an open window. Merry stared in wide-eyed horror as he fell to his knees and clutched Sam's dusty shirt to him. He lost all track of time sitting in that sunny room, holding the clothes of a hobbit that was once dear to him, but he knew that he must move on.
He rose and took a handkerchief from Sam's shirt pocket and tucked it into his own, he needed something to remember him by. He walked to the door and put his hand on the handle but paused there, what horror was awaiting him there? And why hadn't the sun gone down yet?
He pushed the door open and knew strait away that he was no longer in the Shire. The smell was more wild and there were trees all around. But the place was familiar to him nonetheless. He could remember what happened here so very clearly and he could hear a horn blow, as if out of a memory. The horn call blew louder and got closer, there was no mistaking it, it was the horn of Gondor.
Merry turned towards the sound and he could clearly see Boromir running towards him, his sword in one hand, his horn in the other and his elven cloak billowing out behind him. Merry could now hear the footfalls of the Uruk-Hai, he knew what was coming next and he glanced around for Pippin but he was nowhere to be seen.
Boromir faced the oncoming hoards and stood, preparing to fight to the death as Merry knew he would.
"Run Boromir! Run! Save yourself! Please!" He yelled in vain. Boromir merely looked at him and shook his head as the first of the Uruk-Hai charged towards him. He fought well, he deflected all of his attackers and none of them survived. Merry stood on and watched, he had no weapons other than his fists but he was dreading what was to come.
Boromir slew another foul creature and right on cue, the first arrow struck. Merry was distraught, he was going to lose Boromir all over again and there was nothing he could do about it. But there was something else he could do; he could be there for him this time. The second arrow hit and Boromir fell to his knees.
"No!" cried Merry as he ran to Boromir's aid, "Please stop! Why are you doing this?"
"Because I must." answered Boromir looking deeply into Merry's eyes before pushing him out of the way of the third arrow. Merry rolled across the ground and stopped himself in time to see Boromir struggle to get up, then fall back down. He ran over to him and knelt by his side, Boromir gripped his arm and tears poured freely down his face.
"Goodbye Boromir, and thankyou." He said quietly. Boromir managed a small smile and he gripped Merry's arm harder.
"Good luck to you and your kin, my friend." He said before his grip failed and his body fell limp. Merry knew what he would do now, tears still coursing down his face, he stood over Boromir's body and faced the oncoming army to defend Boromir as Boromir had him. His fists were balled up and he held them before him, ready to attack anything that came close enough. All he could see charging towards him was the filthy hilt of a sword, he screwed up his eyes and braced him self for the impact. It never came.
"Come on now Merry love" said a distinctly female voice. Merry opened up his eyes and looked all round, he was back in the Shire, on Bagshot row. Now, whose voice had spoken? It had sounded like Estella, how much he wanted it to be Estella. But no, Estella's voice was softer than that and she never called him 'love'.
"Merry!" said the voice again and Merry recognised it easily as Rosie's voice, from somewhere around his feet strangely enough. He looked down and he found that a huge hole had opened at his feet and at the bottom of it was Rosie. Merry opened his mouth to say something but Rosie got there first.
"Wake up Merry!" she said firmly.
"But I am awake!"
"Oh no you're not!" A voice from over his shoulder made him jump. The voice was deep but it wasn't smooth, it was the kind that grates against your ears when you hear it. Merry shuddered, he knew perfectly well whose voice it was, but he looked over his shoulder to check, hoping against hope it was someone playing a trick on him.
But no, it was just whom he had feared, Grishnákh was standing behind him, twirling a filthy knife. Merry spun around and stepped backwards, momentarily forgetting there was a hole behind him. He realised it too late and fell backwards onto the hard ground. The hole had disappeared! Were Grishnákh not standing over him, he might have started trying to dig Rosie out but Grishnákh was standing over him, so he scrambled up and ran for his life.
He glanced behind him after a while of running to find that Grishnákh hadn't been following him and he had run to a completely deserted part of the Shire, if it was a part of the Shire. The fields grew wild and some trees were dotted here and there, there were wildflowers aplenty. This place had a calm peacefulness about it. All Merry wanted to do was flop to the floor and sleep but there was something nagging in his mind that he knew he had to do. Yes! He remembered, he was going to find Frodo and Pippin and get them out of this place, it was already too late for Sam and Rosie.
A scream shattered the silence. To Merry's relief it wasn't a scream of pain or fear, but a baby screaming for food. His relief was short-lived when he realised whose cry it would have to be.
"Elanor!" He moaned, "Please don't say you're here too." He followed the direction of the screams to a tree, where the screams started coming from directly above him. He looked up and saw Elanor cradled in the branches. A new voice that Merry had never heard before was carried to them both on the wind and it soothed them.
Rock-a-bye baby, On the tree top, When the wind blows, The cradle will rock, When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall, And down will come baby, Cradle and all.
The wind began to pick up once the nursery rhyme had finished and the branches holding the baby began to sway and bend. The weight of the baby was becoming too much for them and they were at breaking point, they began to creak and one of the snapped, it was now only holding on by the bark, Elanor wouldn't be up there for much longer.
"How are you today Merry?" Merry looked down from Elanor up in the tree, the weather immediately reverted back to its original state and when he looked up into the tree again he could see only leaves and birds. He looked back down at the speaker.
"Frodo! I've been looking for you! You have to get out of here!" He ran towards Frodo, wanting to grab onto him before anything came between them, but he was too late. A young lad stepped out from behind the tree, directly into Merry's path and Frodo turned and began to walk away.
"Please move, I need to get to Frodo!" Begged Merry.
"I am Frodo!" said the lad indignantly.
"No you're not, that's Frodo!" said Merry, pointing to the figure in the distance, which was getting further and further away from him.
"I AM Frodo Baggins!" shouted the boy, stamping his foot. Merry studied him and after a little while he realised the lad was telling the truth. He was looking at a Frodo exactly as he had been on his thirty-third birthday, though he didn't sound like Frodo.
"I want to see the old Frodo though, please let me pass."
"You shall not pass!" Said Frodo, doing a very child-like impression of Gandalf. Merry sighed and looked down at Frodo, but Frodo wasn't there anymore, he was now just a ten year old and he was growing shorter all the time.
"I AM Frodo Baggins!" He yelled again, and then he began to cry. Soon enough he was a small baby crying on the floor in a bundle of clothes. Merry picked him up and tried to soothe him, rocking him gently and humming to him but still he cried and still he shrank. Before long Frodo had become lost inside his own clothes and when Merry shook them out he found nothing.
Merry was too shocked to cry or grieve, but he did take Frodo's shirt and tie it around his waist, he would have worn it but it was far too small.
"No! I won't leave him!" The sky darkened as clouds quickly blew over. The land dried and the trees died, becoming hollow pieces of rotting wood stuck in the ground. Merry faced the new voice, a voice so familiar to him he knew it almost as well as his own.
"I want to be here for him!" It shouted again. Shadows were flying above and they brought back horrible memories, which he pushed out of his mind for the moment. He strove through the darkness until he found his beloved Pippin.
Pippin was standing proudly, brandishing his sword and wearing the uniform of the citadel guard. The white tree shone out brightly against the black and each star looked as if it were real. Merry began running towards Pippin, until he saw who Pippin was brandishing he sword at. Pippin was stood before the great eye of Sauron. Merry couldn't help but use Gandalf's phrase.
"Fool of a Took!" He muttered to himself. The ground began to shake as a laugh began, almost like the world was laughing at his predicament. It was an evil and mirthless laugh from one who takes pleasure in other's pain. The entire world seemed to be shaking from fear of this laugh. Merry looked up at the eye again, tendrils of fire were reaching towards Pippin, he longed to tell Pippin to run but he couldn't move for fear. The fire twined itself about Pippins arms at first, pulling him in, then it reached around his body, drawing him in quicker. By this time Pippin was screaming hysterically as his body was burnt away.
Merry was fixated with horror, his mouth opening and closing uselessly. Suddenly a black object dropped from above and cut out his view. At first Merry was thankful until he realised what was standing in front of him.
The Witch-king sat atop his terrible beast, staring down upon Merry. The blackness where his face would have been was filled with hatred and revenge.
"You can't be here! You're dead! Eowyn killed you!" screamed Merry in his confusion. The leader of the nazgûl merely laughed. A laugh very similar to his master's. The sound filled his ears until it drowned out even Pippin's screams. He clamped his hands over his ears and sank to the ground, trying to think of anything but what was happening to him. When would this nightmare end?
After who knows how long, he took his hands away from his ears and listened. Silence. It was bliss. He opened his eyes, the darkness was gone. It was still night-time though, and it was overcast, but the moon peeped out from her hiding place and a handful of stars shone down. But it wasn't quite silent, he could hear footsteps. Then another voice, he'd already heard it here, deep and harsh.
"Find it? Find what? What are you talking about little one?" There was a small pause as nobody spoke and Merry recalled the scene in his mind.
He then heard a sound: gollum gollum and a different, higher pitched, softer and more joyful voice spoke,
"Nothing, my precious"
"O ho!" Hissed Grishnákh softly "That's what it means, is it? O ho! Very ve- ry dangerous, my little ones."
"Perhaps," he heard himself say. "Perhaps; and not only for us. Still you know your own business best. Do you want it, or not? And what would you give for it?" He found himself walking towards the two and sitting himself next to Pippin, with Grishnákh inbetween them. Just as it had been that night.
He now noticed that Grishnákh was searching Pippin, he had not yet started on Merry though he remembered the feeling of the cold claws groping at him.
"Do I want it? Do I want it? What would I give for it? What do you mean?" Grishnákh tried to act puzzled but he knew perfectly well what the two hobbits meant.
"We mean," began Pippin, but he never finished, instead of carrying on, as he should have done, he reached under his cloak, drew out a sword and slashed Grishnákh's throat. The Uruk-Hai fell to the ground dead, black blood gushing from the wound.
"Right then," started Pippin as though he'd done no more than wash the dishes "What shall we do now?" he finished in a more menacing tone. Merry looked up from the dead body at his cousin.
"You have it don't you?" said Pippin accusingly and then he added: gollum gollum. Merry smiled at Pippin, thinking he was still playing at being Gollum but before his eyes Pippin began to change. His body grew thinner, his skin paler and his eyes larger. Merry stood up and began to back away.
"What's the matter Merry dear?" hissed the half-Gollum half-Pippin crouched in front of him. Merry didn't answer and continued to back away. "You have it! I knew it! You have it! You have the precious!" Gollum screeched. Merry still backed away. "We knows you have it, we do! You cannot hides!"
The creature now in front of Merry was hideous, how it could ever have been a hobbit, Merry couldn't fathom. He had never seen the real Gollum but from the stories this was exactly how he had imagined him to look. The way he spoke was almost identical to the way Bilbo used to when he imitated him in his tales.
"Give it to us!" the creature yelled at him and in Pippin's own voice, it finished "My dearest cousin."
Merry finally turned and ran. He ran flat out but behind him he could always hear Gollum, screeching insults and curses at him.
Merry was tiring and Gollum was gaining and before Merry could do anything about it, Gollum had leapt onto his back. He could feel cold hands reach their way around his neck and they began to squeeze. His throat burned as he fell to the ground choking. There was less and less space for air to get through as Gollum continued to squeeze. Each struggle and even breath became a labour. Shadows enveloped his world; he could no longer see a thing. He could only hear the triumphant yelps of his attacker and feel the weight on his back and the fingers still round his throat.
All of a sudden the weight was lifted from him and it seemed as if Gollum was dragged from off his back. Merry rolled over and with his last effort he opened his eyes. The light was nearly blinding but there was no Gollum in sight. A figure was standing over him, smiling at him. Merry's eyes adjusted to the light and he could now clearly see who it was.
Boromir knelt down beside him and stroked his forehead tenderly, he bent over and gave it one final kiss before Merry closed his eyes and his body gave up the fight.