Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings or any of its characters. I only own Natasha and Emily and maybe other new characters along the way.

Chapter 2: Lost

"Natasha! Natasha, please wake up! Natasha!" I heard a frantic screaming in my ears. I was being shaken roughly and more a few times I felt someone tapping my cheeks. My eyes fluttered open and it took me a few moments to realize that it was Emily who had woken me.

"Oh, thank God! You scared me!" she screamed as she hugged me tightly. I quickly pushed her away and stared at her in confusion.

"Calm down, Emily. I'm fine," I reassured her. She nodded and wiped the tears off of her face. "Why are you crying?"

"Why are you not crying? I have no idea where we are!" she answered.

"What are you talking about? We're at my hou-" but I stopped when I saw Emily shaking her head. I looked past her and instead of seeing the purple walls of my bedroom, I saw green. Lots and lots of green, in fact. My eyes widened instantly. I wondered why I hadn't noticed my surroundings before. We were in a forest, and I knew that there weren't any forests close to my home.

"How did we get here?" I asked fearfully as I sat up. Emily shook her head quickly.

"I have no idea. I don't even know where we are," she replied as she back on her heels. I suddenly stood up and reach down, pulling Emily to her feet.

"The last thing I remember is walking into my bedroom, seeing this bright light, and then passing out," I said thoughtfully.

"Me too," Emily nodded her head sadly. "And this big fiery eye."

"Yeah," I responded, "I saw that too." Neither us spoke for a while. We stood there, further taking in our surroundings. It was broad daylight, birds were chirping, and the sun was beating down on us harshly, despite the cover of the trees.

"So…what do we do?" I asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," Emily shrugged.

"Do you think we should call out for help?"

"No. We don't know what kind of animals could be out her," Emily said. I nodded; that made sense.

"Well…I say we find a water source and follow it in one direction. There's bound to be some people along it. And that way, when it gets dark, we camp by if we haven't found anybody by then," I suggested.

"It's the only plan we've got," Emily sighed. I nodded and began walking, in which direction I'm not sure, with Emily on my left. We walked for what seemed like hours. We finally came upon a small stream, but by then it was nearly dark. We decided to make a small camp, but it became more of a problem than we originally thought it would be.

"Where do you think we should start?" I asked.

"We could make a fire."

"But I don't know how to make one."

"Neither do I," Emily moaned. "I was never a Girl Scout."

"Well, in the movies, people always made them by rubbing two twigs together," I said. I quickly stood up and gathered two sticks and began my "plan" to build a fire. It didn't work.

"Let me try," Emily said. "It can't be that hard." By the time the sun had finally set, Emily had managed to make a small fire. However, we had to blankets to sleep on or cover up with, we couldn't catch any fish, and we were getting colder by the minute. As we were both still in our pajamas from the night before, which consisted of flannel pants and tank tops, and all we had on our feet were thin slippers, we got as close to the fire and to each other as we could. Things were certainly getting worse by the second.

"I'm scared, Emily," I whispered. She turned to me and smiled slightly.

"Me too," she responded.

"What if we die out here? What if we never see our families again and we don't get a chance to say we love them one more time? What if we never get the chance to do all the things in life that we've dreamed of doing for so long?" I ranted on. Tears were beginning to come to my eyes for the first time I had woken up.

"I'm s-scared of a-all t-that stuff t-too!" Emily sobbed. And for that night, Emily and I both cried ourselves to sleep. We both feared what the next few days would bring, or if we'd even be alive to see them.

The next morning, I woke up to fin Emily missing. Frantic, I sat up and looked around. I was relieved when I saw her washing her face by the creek. As if sensing my presence, Emily turned to me. I said good morning but she just began to laugh.

"What?" I asked.

"Your hair," she laughed, "and your face." Confused, I walked over to the creek and gazed at my reflection. My long dark hair was in complete disarray and smudges of dirt decorated my face. Giggling, I splashed my face with the water and wetted my hair down and got it to look as neat as possible. If we did find people, I didn't want to scare them off by looking like I hadn't had a bath in years.

Emily had managed to find a small patch of berries and we ate as many as we could. We hadn't eaten in over a day and if we wished to continue looking today, we needed to at least have a small amount of food in our stomachs.

Once we were ready, we began walking along side the stream. We walked for what we thought was about four hours and there was still no sign of civilization. The sun rose high in the sky and beads of sweat clung to my forehead and the back of my neck. Our steps became sloppy and we both managed to stumble from lack of food and a good night's rest. It was around five, or at least figured it to be, when we decided to camp for the night. Without even bothering to make a fire first, we both sat down on a large rock, exhausted. Suddenly, my stomach growled loudly. Emily turned to me and couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm so hungry," I said sheepishly. She nodded.

"Me too."

"If we don't find any more food, I don't know if I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow," I said dejectedly.

"Same here," Emily replied. "I just want to go home, sleep in my bed, take a shower, and have some fettuccini." I laughed slightly at the last part.

"I would do the same. Except I would have chicken fingers from Chili's. They're my favorite food," I sighed hungrily.

"And maybe some Dr. Pepper," Emily added.

"And cookie dough ice cream."

"Natasha?"

"Hmm?"

"This isn't making the situation any better. In fact, I'm just getting hungrier."

"Yeah, me too."

"Maybe we should talk about something else other than food," Emily suggested.

"Like maybe how ridiculous it is that we're in the middle of nowhere, with no food, a slim chance of survival, and we're talking about our favorite foods," I offered. I glanced at Emily, caught her eye, and suddenly we burst out into laughter simultaneously.

"Why a-are we e-even laughing?" I asked breathlessly.

"I d-don't know," answered Emily. Before either of us could comment on the stupidness of the situation, a large roar sounded somewhere out in the forest. I immediately stopped laughing. I looked over at Emily, fear written on my face. I scrambled to my feet.

"What the hell was that?" I nearly screamed. Emily opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, all I heard was another roar, and this time it sounded as if it was coming closer.

"Where should we hide?" I asked frantically. Emily's eyes quickly darted around the forest.

"The trees!"

"What?"

"Climb a tree! Hurry!" Emily screamed.

"Climb a tree? I can't! You know I'm afraid of heights!" I objected, my voice coming out in a high squeak towards the end of the last sentence.

"You might not have a choice, Natasha!" Emily said. After another loud roar, I decided that she was right. I nodded and began climbing the tree nearest to me. I heard Emily scrambling up behind me. My hands were shaking so badly that twice I slipped and Emily had to climb up above me and help me the rest of the way up. Once all the way up, I took a glance down. I became dizzy and I was tempted to climb back down. However, Emily grasped my arm tightly, stopping me as if she knew what I was thinking. I glanced up at her and with wide eyes, Emily shook her head.

For the next few minutes, the roars and growls continued, each one obviously closer than the previous. It wasn't long before we could hear talking as well. I couldn't understand them, but their language sounded harsh and their laughter even harsher. Suddenly, the creatures entered our sight.

Beside me, Emily stifled a gasp. I couldn't blame her. Even though the setting sun offered little light, I could see them quiet well and they were completely hideous. Their skin was dark and scabby looking. Few had small patches of hair and many, if not all, had severely deformed features. They all carried long swords, knives, shields, and a couple even had what appeared to be bows and arrows. They then seemed to stop and one, who I guessed was the leader, surveyed the area.

He suddenly barked out in his harsh language to one of the others. Another creature stepped forward and handed him a bow. He quickly notched an arrow and shot one up into a nearby tree. He repeated this action a few times and seemed somewhat pleased. However, when he aimed an arrow in our direction, my heart froze. The creature let the arrow go and it flew towards us in a slow motion. All of the sudden, a searing pain erupted in my shoulder and Emily quickly covered my scream with her hand. Tears clouded my vision as I looked down at my left arm. I noticed that the arrow, while having gone past us, had slashed deep in my arm on it sway. Blood already began seeping out of the wound and I immediately tore my eyes away from the horrible sight.

"We shall came here tonight, boys," I heard one of the creatures say and this time I understood him. My eyes widened as I stared at Emily. Her expression mirrored my own. However, the sting in my arm quickly reminded me that while it was horrible that we would have to stay in the tree for the night, my arm needed to be tended to. Emily seemed to understand as I saw her mouth the word "shit."

She then ripped off a piece of her flannel pajama bottoms and motioned for my arm. Emily grimaced at the sight of the torn flesh. My eyes watered heavily as I tried to choke back the sobs that wanted so badly to escape my lips. I bit my tongue till it bled while Emily wrapped the cloth tightly around my arm. She mumbled a quiet "sorry" as she tied the knot. Once finished, she hugged me, careful of my arm, and whispered in my ears that we could be okay; that we would find a way to safety. I nodded numbly and the pain soon overcame me. I passed out.

"Natasha. Natasha wake up," I heard someone whispering in my ear. My eyes opened and I quickly remembered our situation. I looked over at Emily who was pointing down to the hideous creatures.

"They're leaving," she whispered. I quickly looked down and noticed she was right. The sun had risen and the creatures were moving about their camp, packing up their items, and putting out the fire they had built. A few even picked up a dead deer they must have killed while I had been asleep.

"After they leave, we should wait for an hour before going back down. We need to be sure that they're gone," Emily said quietly. I nodded mutely. However, before I could so much as look back down at the creatures, a loud screech echoed throughout the forest. I looked down and immediately realized what had caused the commotion. One of the creatures had a large arrow embedded in its chest. It fell to the ground, dead.

At first I thought that it had been shot by one of its own kind, for it seemed that they would be the type of creature to kill each other when irritated. However, I hurriedly revised my conclusion when a huge swarm of arrows headed towards the creatures from my right. Several more fell down, their black blood staining the grass.

A group of people rode in on horses from my right and began attacking the creatures. Some continued to use their bows while others used swords to slash down at their enemy. Emily and I watched in both amazement and horror as the battle raged on beneath us. It was a blur of both grace and harsh movements as they fought each other. It did not take long, however, ad the people on horses greatly outnumbered the others.

Once it was all over, we watched as the people burned the carcasses of their enemy. No one of their own had been killed, and I as I looked closer, I realized that only a few had small scratches and the rest were completely unharmed. The soldiers talked together in another unknown language, although theirs seemed to flow beautifully as compared to the other.

Suddenly, one soldier looked straight up in our direction. He had blond hair that reached his mid-back and his grey eyes narrowed. He swiftly turned around and walked over to two black haired men who had their backs to us. He said something and they nodded simply. I found myself dreading the thought that he had indeed spotted us. However, the soldiers soon got back on their horses and rode away. Relief immediately swept through me and as I looked at Emily, I realized she felt the same way.

We agreed to wait an hour as we had originally planned as we did not know who those people were or if they would help us. Emily climbed down the tree first and helped me down as I was careful not to damage my arm anymore. Once on solid ground, I collapsed into a heap, excited beyond belief to be out of the tree. We began making our way to the creek but after a few steps, a voice stopped us.

"No dhinen!"

Gasping, Emily and turned around. My eyes widened as I found myself face to face with the soldiers who had killed the creatures. I gulped as I noticed the arrow at my chest ands the angry expressions on their faces. One single thought passed through my mind as I analyzed the situation: we're screwed.

Thank you so much for reading this chapter. I'll have the next one up soon. I will not tolerate flames but I do accept constructive criticism. Please review!