Author's Note: Thanks for reading! This chapter is very short, but I really don't like this scene with Gollum. I don't like his character, so I didn't include much of him. Sorry folks, but I couldn't bring myself to write much about this scene...

Chapter 5: Within the Mountain

When Bella opened her eyes, she wondered if she had; for it was just as dark with them shut. No one was anywhere near him. She could hear nothing, see nothing, and felt only the stone floor beneath her. Dried blood was stuck to the side of her face, and she suddenly remembered falling from that small cliff. The dwarves! Where were they?! Did they escape?

Very slowly she got up and groped about on all fours, till she touched the wall of the tunnel; but neither up nor down could she find anything. Her head was swimming, and she was far from certain what direction she had been going when she fell. Crawling for a long time in a random direction, her hand suddenly met a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. She put the ring in her pocket, ready to look at it if she ever got out of this blasted mountain alive, and kept moving for a while until she sat back to think.

Bella could not think of what to do; nor could she think about why the company never found her. Did the escape and abandon her? Or were the captured? Or worse… She suddenly thought of her sword and how Gandalf's and Thorin's had lit up when Goblins were near. Perhaps hers would too. She drew it out, and smiled when it shone pale and dim before her eyes.

"So it is an elvish blade too," she thought, "and goblins are not very near, and yet not far enough." Yet, despite this, she was comforted. It was rather splendid to be wearing a blade made in Gondolin for the goblin-wars of which so many songs had sung; and also he had noticed that such weapons made a great impression on goblins that came upon them suddenly. With new hope, Bella stood up and trotted down the stony tunnel, eager to find a way out of the blasted mountain.

The tunnel seemed to never end. It went straight down, and had twists and turns every couple of yards, and sometimes new passages would appear on the side, but Bella looked over these, intent on the path she was headed. After what seemed like over a day of traveling, Bella was shocked silly when she splashed into icy cold water. The sword was hardly shining here at all, so she couldn't tell if it was an underground stream, or came from a river flowing into the mountain.

"Bless us and splash us, my preciousss!" came a voice, startling her immensely. Jumping up, she held her blade in front of her. "I guess it's a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it'd make us, Gollum!" When it said Gollum, it made a horrible swallowing noise in its throat.

"Who are you?" she said, eyes locking on a pair of gigantic pale ones.

"What iss he, my precious?" whispered Gollum.

"I am Ms. Bella Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and wizard I travel with, and I don't know where I am."

"What's he got in his handses?" said Gollum, looking at the sword.

"A sword," Bella said simply, not going into further detail.

"Praps," Gollum said, "ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It likes riddles, praps it does, does it?"

"I don't have time!" Bella said, throwing back her head. "I've got to find my way out of this cursed mountain!"

"It must have a competition with us, my preciousss! If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? We shows it the way out, yes!"

Bella pretended to think for a moment (she was quite terrible at riddles), and snatched Gollum by the back of his neck and pointed her sword at its throat. The thing threatened to eat her; she was not going to entertain it. "How about," she said, "you tell me the way out, and I'll let you live?"

At the blade poking its neck, Gollum looked at her fearfully. "Alright! Alright!"

So, the cursed creature began to tell her the directions to get out of the mountain. She listened closely and memorized his directions. When he finished, she thanked and released him. As she turned to leave, something hit her back hard and knocked her to the ground. The retched creature had tackled her! Rolling over, she smashed him in the face with a rock she picked up off of the ground.

Stunning the thing, she stood up and scrambled away from it, holding her sword out in front of her. Gollum began to hiss and mutter nonsense, but Bella tuned it out as he suddenly lunged at her again. Teeth snapping, he bit her shoulder and drew blood, causing her to let out a scream as she bashed him over the head with the hilt of her sword. The creature dropped to the floor unconscious.

Not wanting to wait around any longer, she turned and left the cavern, following the paths that the creature had told her, and she prayed he hadn't been lying. At the end of Gollum's directions, she was practically squealing with joy when she came to a door. Pushing it open with all her might, her face was greeted with warm sunshine. With a skip in her stride, she darted down the stairs and out of that blasted mountain.