Disclaimer: I do not own "Lord of the Rings" or any of J.R.R.Tolkien's original characters or ideas. I do own the original characters i.e. Laura and Janine

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Chapter 1; A Long-Expected Party

"Good everyone, very good. I think we'll wrap things up for today. Everyone put down the weapons and take a seat." I wiped a tear from my eye and looked at Mr. Woods. He added, "Lets get this done quickly, I have some things to talk about." I smiled and looked back to Janine whose hand was covering her mouth as she shook with laughter. I stood from the floor beside her and extended my hand to help her up; as she stood she said between fits of giggles,

"Your…face…oh dear God it was brilliant!" I laughed with her and said in a joking voice,

"Shut up Janine! I hate you!" we laughed together and she replied while shaking her finger at me,

"No you don't you see, because I bought you lunch yesterday!" She gave me a huge hug as we both laughed. I rubbed my forehead where there was a welt from where the oak stick had hit me; it had to be so red! God I hope this doesn't bruise…I thought to myself as we put away our sticks and sat on the blue floor of the Taekwondo studio. I dragged my bag closer to me so I could put my things away. Some girls' lives are in the purses, but my life is in my gym bag. As I shuffled through the items in my bag my fingers ran across a picture; it was of myself with some others on a trip to New York. Behind us was a large building and there were four other people standing beside me: my roommate, Gretchen, Emily, a girl who roomed across the hallway from me, some random guy who jumped in the picture, and a tall, tan, extremely attractive boy with black hair and blue eyes. I was in his arms and we were both smiling at the camera. I shook my head as I shoved the photograph to the bottom of the bag and threw my pads on top of the twenty million other things that resided there. Before I zipped up my bag I pulled out a compact mirror and flattened down a few stray hairs and tucked some of my light brown hair behind my ear.

"Okay everyone, good job today, before we go I have a few things to go over. The tournament in Denver is almost here! Now last time, we had Janine Carrey win first in weapons and third in sparring," There was applause from me and the other people in the class. "Greg Davis won first in both Sparring and Form for the boys," Applause again. "Macy Stuart took second in weapons, and Laura Barnes took first place in Form and second place in Sparring." There was once again applause and I smiled as he called off my name. The sole reason I won second in sparring was because the girl who I sparred was at least six feet tall, versus my own five foot eight inches. Mr. Woods continued. "Yes, well done to all of you, and I hope we can do just as well at our upcoming tournament." Janine then whispered,

"Laura, want to go get some ice cream after this? I can give you your birthday present there!"

"Yeah, that would be great!" Janine nodded with a smile and leaned away but before she got to far I leaned to her and asked, "So…what did you get me?" I smiled a big smile and Janine shook her finger at me while she said,

"Nope! I can't say! It'll ruin it!"

"Oh, and giving my birthday present a month late doesn't ruin it at all?" I asked suavely. She glared at me and replied with a smile.

"Hey, that's not fair. That fact is I got you a present; it's the thought that counts right? Besides it's not like you turned twenty-one!"

"Yeah, I'm twenty, another year older than I was! And I'm not a teenager anymore! It makes a pretty big difference to me!" I answered quickly with a smile. Janine raised her eyebrow and said,

"Listen, I've been 'not a teenager' for a good six months and it's seriously overrated. And moreover, I am the one giving the present; so really the fact that you are another year older doesn't mean anything! The outcome of you eventually getting the present is all that I care about." We stared at each other silently and with a wry smile I replied,

"Good answer, points for the originality, but not your best excuse. I think you're having an off day." At this she laughed quietly and I smiled.

The class ended and everyone packed up their things. Janine and I walked down the street in front of the shops laughing and poking fun.

"So, how have you been keeping yourself busy?" Janine asked me,

"Oh, you know…I go to the weight room in the morning, do chores for my mom for most of the day…"

"Reading anything good? Oh, I'm tied up in this incredible book by Earnest Hemmingway called, 'The Sun Also Rises'. It's amazing." Janine responded.

"Yeah, I just finished reading 'The Notebook' by Nicholas Sparks," At this Janine piped in,

"Nicholas Sparks is great. Every book of his I've read made me cry!"

"Yeah, he's great, I definitely had a box of tissues by my side. But now…" I laughed as I said,

"I'm actually re-reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy." Janine laughed at me as she said,

"Oh dear lord I can't believe you are actually reading those, let alone re-reading them! They are such teenager books."

"Yeah, I know I'm a dork for doing it, but so sue me! They're good!" Janine rolled her eyes and said in a drawling voice,

"I never read them, and I figure, if you didn't read them before you turned sixteen there's no use in wasting your time." I laughed at Janine's ideology as she asked, "So, have you've read them all before?"

"No," I replied, "I've read the first two books, but because of timing I never got the time to read the last book." I answered earnestly.

"I saw the first movie." Janine said, "and There was a LOT of things that I couldn't get into." She then added with a wink, "but I could get into all the cute guys, even if they were wearing tights, waving around swords, and or had big hairy feet."

Janine and I were the best of friends; we knew each other since our first year of high school, and even though we attended two separate colleges we were constantly in touch with each other. And since we were home over break, we both came home to our families and attended our Taekwondo classes. We enrolled in it our junior year to keep us both semi-fit. Janine was going into pre-law at CU Boulder; I was in Malibu, California; I attended Pepperdine University where I studied to be an oceanographer. I had always loved the water, and having been near it most of my life proved a big factor in choosing that major. I lived in California for 14 years before moving to Colorado, where I lived until I graduated from high school. My younger sister, Jenna, and my mom still live there and my dad is buried in Washington D.C.

We finally came to Maggie Moo's and went inside. "Come on!" I whined, "Tell me what his name is at least!"

"Nope, nope, nope. That wouldn't be fair." Janine said with a smile.

"How wouldn't it be fair? I don't know him!" I said. Janine simply smiled and shook her head.

"Never mind. And I'll buy." I approached the counter and said to her,

"No, it's okay." I pulled out my leather wallet from my bag and Janine placed her tan hand over my wallet as she said,

"No, consider it a…super late birthday party." I smiled with fake enthusiasm and laughed as I added with a smile, "Thanks! That'll go great with the super late birthday present!" Janine and I laughed. She was a really pretty girl; she had dark brown hair as opposed to my honey brown and the prettiest face I had ever seen.

"Your welcome." She replied. As Janine ordered her ice cream, I thought about how many times I had been jealous of her. She always had multiple boyfriends; she was the one who got guys on the knees begging to date her…among many things.

"Umm, Laura? What do you want?" her voice brought me out of my thoughts and I laughed.

"A strawberry cone, with strawberry pieces please." The guy serving us nodded as he looked longingly at Janine with a goofy looking smile.

We sat down in the booth and ate our ice creams happily. Janine was driving back up to CU boulder tomorrow and this would be the last time we'd get to hang out. "God," she complained, "the guys at CU suck so much! They aren't even guys! They're stupid…boys!" I laughed at her and said,

"Well, I dunno, the Pepperdine guys aren't that bad…actually, they aren't bad at all!" She rested her arms on the table and gave me a smug look.

"Well, one is bad, that Ryan jerk who you went out with for how long?" at this my stomach dropped. Janine obviously caught this because as a recovery she said, "Oh well, forget it, this will make you feel better!" She reached into her into her Taekwondo bag and pulled out a gift wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. She held it out to me and I took it.

"Thank you, and it was 7 months!" I pointed out.

"What?"

"Ryan and I went out for seven months."

"Blah blah blah, hurry up and open it already!" She said with a smile. I untied the twine string and pulled off the brown paper. Sitting in the wrapping was a medium sized black book.

"Isn't it great? It's a blank book! It's lined so you can write whatever you want in there!" I looked at the book with a smile. I loved big blank books; they were so welcoming and open. I laid my hands on either sides of the book and picked it up; I flipped through it's pages excitedly, scanning each and every lined page. As I scanned it, the edge of one of the many pages sliced through the inside of my index finger and I gasped in surprise.

"Owie!"

Janine laughed as she asked, "What happened?"

I smiled as I shook my hand and replied, "Paper cut. Damn I forgot how much these things hurt!" I looked at the page and saw a thin red line on the edge and a few scatted drops of blood on the page from shaking my hand. I laughed as I disregarded the cut and flipped over the book. Engraved in golden letters on the front was "There and Back Again." I smiled as I looked at Janine and said, "Do you know what's written on this?" Janine nodded and said,

"Yeah! Some cute little quote, I thought it was cool!" I decided not to tell her that it was associated with the books she disliked; I then said as I reached to give her a hug,

"Thank you so much Janine. I love it!" She laughed at me and was about to reply when a clap of thunder rolled across the street and into the shop.

"Oh, boy. We'd better get home before it starts raining hard." She said with a thoughtful look. We stood, threw away our bowls and exited the ice cream shop.

It wasn't that far of a walk to our houses, so it was a cool and refreshing walk home. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for the neighbors, the ice cream put us on a bit of a sugar high.

"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! I want 'ya in my ROOM! We'll spend the night TOGETHER! From now until FOREVER! TOGETHER in my ROOM!" we sang at the top of our lungs, laughing hysterically. We were in a park that we passed through to enter our neighborhood; we collapsed on a bench laughing then let out a great sigh. Our sugar high was diminishing and all that was left were the smiles on our faces. At that moment, small raindrops began to fall. Janine laughed and stuck out her tongue to catch some raindrops, and I stood up and danced. Janine saw me and danced with me, and we spun around with our bags pulling around our shoulders. I stopped in the glory of the moment and looked up at the sky; Janine was still laughing giddily and spinning.

At that moment, I felt a plank hit my back, like a two by four that smacked me leaving me dazed and winded. My hands went to my chest as I tried to catch my breath. Janine saw me and said,

"Uhh, hey, are you alright?" As soon as she asked that question, a strong dizzy spell charged right through me. It felt as if someone had given me a wallowing punch in the stomach and my head throbbed. I collapsed to my knees as I felt the walloping force on my body again. "Laura? Laura talk to me! Are you okay?"

"I dunno…it…hurts!" I gasped. Suddenly, all I felt was the intense burning and heat of pain; invisible tears and gashes all over me tormented me to tears. It was so all consuming that I fell to the wet cement, writhing. This was a pain that would never stop.

"Okay, I'm calling 9-1-1! Hang on for me Laura!" I could barely hear her speak, she was merely mouthing words, and it was only meaningless garble. All I understood was the pain. I heard a loud cracking noise as the lamp above us abruptly went out and all I was left with was wet, cold, cement. "Oh my god, I can't see!" I heard Janine whimper.

The book. A nasty little voice said in my head in that moment. Retrieve the book. I moved to my bag and opened it, there was the black diary Janine had given me. Retrieve the book! I reached for the book, but it seemed so far away. After what felt like ages I held it. As I held the journal a prickling feeling filled my entire body; I looked at the book in my hand and my eyes widened in shock as it slowly became deathly, greenish pale.

"What?!" I exclaimed. What little control and focus I lost immediately. "What's happening?!" I screamed. Suddenly my hands and head dropped to the wet cement and I couldn't feel the cold or the rain on my body any more, just a prickling sensation that alleviated dome of the pain.

"It's okay Laura, I'm talking to them now, hold on!" I heard Janine yell then with the sound of a large rip the world around me disappeared into blackness. I couldn't see anything, but the sounds I heard of rain falling on wet cement and Janine speaking frantically into her cell phone were clear. "Laura? Laura! Where are you? LAURA!" I heard Janine scream out. I opened my mouth to say, 'I'm right here Janine. Hurry! Something weird is happening!' but as I spoke the sound then disappeared. No more rain drops, no more Janine, only a black silence. I was in an absolute darkness that seemed to pass through my skin as if I didn't exist. I gripped onto myself feeling my clothes and my bag; I could feel that I still existed but I couldn't see it. At that moment, I heard a loud groan and sound came back to my ears. I fell to my knees and closed my eyes as I covered my ears from the earsplitting noise. After a few moments, I felt heat on my back, extreme heat as if I was too close to a fire. I looked behind me and there was a massive wall of flame. It was mammoth and dark, I could feel that it was more than just fire; it was evil and made my heart freeze. I scooted backwards but it seemed to follow me; as it came closer I saw that it was a great eye with a black smoking pupil. "Get away from me!" I screamed, "Get AWAY!" there was a deep, malicious laughter and then a resounding voice that jeered at me,

"I see you." I looked in horror at the eye and screamed again,

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" it then said in a menacing voice,

"I have you." At that moment, I saw the eye vanish and the darkness depart. I awoke on cold, black tile.