Hmm, my first attempt at writing a serious story that makes half an ounce of sense. Well, so it begins, let's see how far I can get with this. Oh yea, before I forget, I just wanted to tell you that long chapters are definitely not my specialty. I'll be lucky if I can make a 1000 word chapter. On with the story. . .

My head swam. What had happened? I tried to draw a breath, but ended up choking violently causing a horrible pain in my chest. Then, I remembered.

The night. . . the night I ran out into the winter cold. The cold had filled my lungs and battered at them like a hammer striking my lungs. I coughed violently and the pain. . . The pain was the same as that I felt now.

One by one my senses came back to me. First, my feeling. I dimly realized that I was lying in shallow water, soaked to the bone. I laid there, to tired to move except to weakly shiver in the cool water. I gradually began to appreciate the water, it swirled around me, an easy distraction to keep my mind occupied.

When some water had drained from my nose and throat, I deeply regretted it. My throat and nose were raw and felt like they were on fire. The water had weakened my throat to the point where simply breathing took great care and precision to keep from choking and injuring my throat even more. Yet with this unfortunate event, my sense of smell returned. I found peace in the fact that it was calm here, and that it smelled like a forest. The warm summer breeze drifted around me, persuading me to open my eyes.

Slowly, I inched my eyes open, but the first thing I saw was a watery splash or random colors. I quickly shut my eyes and tried to squeeze some water out of them. I gradually began to open my eyes again, and I began to make out shapes, the trees above me, the deep orange color of the sky. It must've been morning or evening, I was not sure which.

I laid there for a while, slowly looking back and forth until I decided that I needed to try and move out of the water before I got hypothermia. I slowly lifted my head, a huge effort because every tiny bit I lifted my head a little water trickled down my throat, setting it on fire. It took every bit of my concentration to keep from choking. Eventually, I lifted my head enough to get it completely out of the water. My ears were drained of the water that sat in them, and I could once again hear. My head was filled with the sounds of a typical forest, the soft wind, birds chirping, the water of the stream running along.

I slowly began to lift myself out of the water, and I began to think. What was I doing here? Where was here? I finally was sitting up and beginning to crawl out of the stream before I began to remember. I recalled the fight I'd had with my dad, running away.

My whole body was out of the stream now, and I sat leaning against a rock.

I remembered coming to my hiding place, falling into a void between consciousness and sleep, then I remembered. I had killed myself. At least, I thought I had. For sure this was not heaven, nor was it hell. What was this then? Some cruel twist on the afterlife?

My head fell limply, my chin resting on my neck. My shoulders slumped as I tried to forget all that had happened. I'd tried to erase my past, yet here I was. Then I realized, I didn't know where "here" was.

I glanced around, and this place surely wasn't my hiding place. But then I remembered something I'd once heard. Sometimes when someone was under the spell of shock, such as from an injury or something stressful, sometimes they could forget things. Maybe. . .maybe that was what was happening to me.

I tried to get up, but my limbs felt weak and I couldn't stand. I collapsed into a heap, not having moved an inch from the spot I sat. Then, I heard the quiet hoof steps of a horse. I looked up to see someone, he was on a horse looking down at me, then he spoke.

"What are you doing down there, are you alright?" I tried to answer, but I found that I couldn't make any noise. No matter how hard I tried, not a sound would came from my waterlogged throat. I simply hung my head, knowing that the stranger wouldn't understand.

"Why don't you speak?" He asked, looking at me curiously. I once again opened my mouth to speak, but I closed it and shook my head. He spoke again, but this time it was in some language I couldn't understand. I quickly looked at him with questioning eyes, not having the faintest clue what he was saying. He sighed and said quietly to himself,

"This is very odd, I'd best let Elrond see what is wrong with her. . ." I wondered who he meant by "Elrond". Was Elrond his father maybe? Or was Elrond a doctor of some sort? While I was wondering he started to say something.

"Can you get up? We aren't far from Rivendell, but it's best if we rode." I shook my head, obviously answering that I couldn't get up. He got off his horse and walked towards me. I realized that he was going to take me to someplace I didn't know. At first I shrunk back, remembering to not go anywhere with strangers, but then I realized that if I didn't go with this stranger, I wouldn't be able to find my way home, since I had forgotten where I was, and how to get home.

He crouched down next to me, offering his arm. I held onto it and both of us managed to pull me up. My legs felt wobbly and I clutched his arm even harder, so he put his arm around my shoulders to support me. Slowly, we began to walk towards his horse. I noticed that the horse had no saddle, and I had no clue how I was going to get on.

Then as if reading my mind, the stranger lifted me up onto the horse's back, then jumped on behind me. I sat in front, clutching the horse's mane and he sat behind me, easing the horse into a walk.

" We aren't far from Rivendell, maybe a half hour walk from here." He said behind me. I gasped when I realized where we were going. I knew of no place named Rivendell anywhere around where I had been. 'Maybe it's my memory again. . .' I thought.

We sat in silence for a few minutes before my mind began to wander. I thought of all the hatred I'd had in my life. I thought of how I'd tried to leave my sorrows behind me, yet I ended up here. I closed my eyes tight, as if I could block out the world. I felt my muscles tense up, but I jumped slightly as the stranger spoke.

"We are nearing Rivendell." He said. I didn't even make an attempt to answer him. It may have appeared that I wasn't answering because I hated him, but that was far from the reason. It was more because I knew my voice would not come no matter how hard I tried to summon it.

"In case you were wondering, my name is Elladan" The stranger, no, Elladan said, once more breaking the silence. "When we get to Rivendell I'll take you to see Lord Elrond, my father. He is very wise, he'll know what to do."

So I had been right, Elrond was Elladan's father, and perhaps he was a doctor. I sat wondering as we came around a bend and stepped out of the trees, the sight in front of me was amazing.

I gasped as I saw Rivendell, and then I suddenly knew. I wasn't anywhere I knew, nor was I going to be going back.

Ok, so the story begins to form a slight bit of direction. I thought very hard about this during study hall today, except I kept loosing my train of thought, which was when I invented the quote, "He made me eavesdrop!!!" I'm such a genius. . .