Migitmoocow: You got what you wanted. Middle Earth, here they come!

Disclaimer: I do not own "The Hobbit."

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Chapter 2: Waking Up and Running

Sarah came to slowly.

She opened her eyes, and almost thought that maybe she hadn't. It was so dark. Her eyes eventually adjusted and allowed her to get a glimpse of her surroundings. Trees that were so dark they were almost black; any vegetation on the ground was just as dark; the canopy of branches and leaves blocked out most of the sun, leaving just the tiniest of slivers to let her see.

Sarah already had a bad feeling about this forest just from looking at it, but what terrified her most of all was that she couldn't hear anything. There was no wind, no animal sounds, no voices. Unless she had suddenly gone deaf, this forest was absolutely silent.

A groan sounded next to her. She wasn't deaf! Sarah looked and saw Edana lying on the ground next to her. She started shaking her cousin.

"Edana," she whispered, "wake up."

Edana's eyes fluttered before opening completely. She looked up at Sarah.

"What happened?" she asked. "Where are we? What. . ."

"Shh." Sarah held a finger to her lips and Edana stopped talking. "I don't know where we are," she continued, still whispering, "but I don't like this place. It's too dark and silent. I feel like something's watching us, waiting in the shadows for the perfect opportunity to catch us by surprise."

"Normally I would say that you're being paranoid," Edana whispered back, "except I'm getting that creepy vibe too."

The girls were silent for a moment as they looked at the forest around them.

"We have to get out of here," Sarah finally said after a minute.

"We don't know what's out there," Edana protested. "We don't even know how big this forest is. We could be dead before even getting close to the end."

"It's better that staying here and waiting to die of dehydration and starvation," Sarah told her. "We have to move."

Edana didn't argue more. She just nodded, and the two girls stood up. They picked a random direction and started walking. They held hands the entire way, not wanting to lose each other.

After walking for what felt like hours, the two girls sat down for a quick rest. They massaged their legs and feet, the latter of which were covered only by thin socks. About five minutes later they started walking again. A few more hours passed before they stopped again. They both were hungry, tired, and scared. They hadn't seen a single living creature, a splash of color of some kind to brighten the dark mood, or any sign of an end to the forest.

"I know I've said it before," Edana whispered, "but this place is seriously creepy."

"No arguments there," Sarah whispered back.

Just because they hadn't seen any animals or people didn't mean there wasn't any out there. Both girls could feel eyes on them. The eerie silence was just as bad. Even whispering sounded like a bomb going off in this forest that was devoid of all sound.

They were about to start moving again when a branch snapped somewhere. The two girls froze. The sound echoed around them, making it difficult to pinpoint where the sound came from. This was the first sound they heard in the forest, which made the girls feel like they had just entered a horror movie. Looking around, they couldn't see what had made the noise.

Sarah slowly lowered herself to the ground and picked up a thick branch, gesturing to Edana to do the same. Once both girls were somewhat armed, they grabbed each other's hand and slowly started walking again. They glanced into the trees as they walked, keeping an eye out for whatever was in the forest with them. Both of them were imagining what it could possibly be. They hadn't been walking long when they got their answer.

They heard two more snaps, one on their right and one behind them. The girls jumped and looked all around them. Nothing.

Since hearing the first snap, something had been tugging at Sarah's mind; a feeling of sorts, and it wasn't a good feeling. At first she couldn't tell the direction of the tugging, but now it pulled in the direction the snaps came from. She didn't know if that was just her paranoia or if it was something else. It pulled above her. Sarah looked up. . . and screamed.

A spider the size of a large pony was crawling down from the canopy.

Edana saw what Sarah was looking at and screamed as well. Sarah felt more tugging in different directions. Looking wherever she felt a tug, she saw more spiders just as big as, or bigger than, the first one she saw. Wasting no time, Sarah grabbed Edana's hand and ran in a direction where she felt no tugs. The chase began.

The girls ran, Edana following Sarah, who changed direction according to what she was now mentally referring to as her spider-sense. For a while the plan worked, but it wasn't going to keep them safe forever.

All of a sudden, Sarah skidded to a halt. Edana was only just able to stop herself from crashing into her cousin. Sarah looked around, concentrating on her feelings, double-checking to make sure they were right. They were.

The spiders had surrounded the girls.

Amazingly, their flight hadn't caused them to lose the branches they had grabbed. They held them up like swords now and stood back-to-back. They could do nothing but watch as the spiders closed in.

"Sarah," Edana said, no longer whispering since there was no point, "if we die, I just want you to know that you're the best cousin ever. You're like the sister I wish I had."

"And I want you to know that you're the best cousin ever," Sarah replied. "I wish you actually were my sister and my sister was actually my cousin."

"I know we probably aren't going to make it out of this alive, so let's just make sure these spiders remember us."

"See you in Heaven."

The girls prepared themselves as the spiders came into the clearing. They were ready to put their (nonexistent) baseball skills to the test when the spiders suddenly stopped advancing. Sarah and Edana looked around in confusion. The spiders obviously wanted to keep moving forwards, but something was stopping them. They started talking.

"The fire!"

"That one burns!"

"It hurts!"

The spiders kept talking about a copper fire burning inside one of their prey. The girls could tell they were referring to one of them, but they had no idea what they meant by a copper fire.

Thwack!

One of the spiders fell, dead, an arrow protruding from its head. More spiders fell, all from arrows that seemed to come out of nowhere. Something dropped from above and the girls turned around, raising their branches. They were met with a figure pointing an arrow right at them. New sounds were heard around them, and the girls looked to see more people pointing arrows at them.

They couldn't make out any details at first, but the tiniest sliver of light peaked through the canopy at that moment, making it much easier for the girls to see their saviors. It was basically all men, as far as they could tell, with long hair, pointed ears, and clothes that blended in with the forest. It didn't take long for Sarah to figure it out.

These were elves! They were in Mirkwood!

"Did you really think those twigs would do you any good?"

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