A Light From the Shadows Shall Spring

Upon hitting the ground, a sharp pain shot up through my right knee and I cried out in pain. My back hit the ground hard and I felt the wind knocked out of me. I felt tears begin to slide out of my eyes as I laid on the ground, gasping for breath and clutching my knee. Looking up I realized something was very different and very wrong here. The sky was dark and it was not the same sky I had been walking under. I twisted my head from left to right, quickly trying to take in as much of my surroundings as possible. Since it was dark out now, I couldn't see much, but I did gather that somehow, I was now in a dense forest, and the white tree was nowhere to be seen.

Everything felt so surreal, and I wondered if I actually was asleep, but the pain in my knee was too urgent for it to be imaginary. My breath had started to regulate now so I forced myself to sit up. I listened for a stream and heard nothing. In fact, this forest was a little too quiet to feel right. I pushed myself backwards with my arms and good leg so that I was up against an embankment.

I suddenly realized that my backpack was nowhere to be seen. What had happened to it? And better yet, what the hell had just happened to me? I was starting to panic and I could feel the involuntary hot tears begin to form in my eyes. Where was I? How had this even happened? What was I going to do?

As I began to cry I scolded myself. Now was not the time to freak out. Yes, this situation was so incredibly alarming that it wasn't even funny, but the fact of the matter was I could do nothing right now. I began rubbing my knee and slowly extended and retracted it. It was painful but it was not excruciating, so I decided it most likely wasn't broken. If only I had some ice to put on it, I would feel so much better, but something told me I wasn't going to find a bag of ice laying around here anywhere.

Casting an alert look around me, I scooted myself as far into the embankment as I could and pulled my jacket closer around me. I knew I would need to sleep if I had any chance of figuring out what had just happened to me, and I needed to let my knee recover a bit before I tried to go anywhere. I closed my eyes and fell asleep quicker than I would have imagined, and for a long time I did not dream. I would wake up every once in a while and look around, not only to be on the safe side, but also to see if this was in fact, a dream. Near the early hours of the morning, I dreamt of a black cloud hanging over an ominous mountain. As I looked closer at the mountain, I realized that perched on top of a narrow tower was an enormously daunting eye that seemed to be on fire. I didn't want to look at it, but I was drawn to it for some reason. I stayed close to trees and shadow, trying to be as quiet as possible. I just needed to get a closer look at the eye. And then suddenly, my foot stepped down on a twig, and the sharp cracking noise it made drew the attention of the eye straight to me. As I looked into the eye, I felt as if my insides were burning, and there was a low, eery voice whispering my name. Finally, the pain was too much and I jumped awake, only to hear the sound of cracking twigs and rustling leaves nearby.

It was light outside now, so I slowly got to my feet. To my dismay, I was still in the forest, and another surge of panic rose up in me. My heart began to beat faster and I could feel my palms begin to turn clammy. All my weight was rested on my left leg and I gingerly began to put more weight on my right leg. My knee was tender, but I found I could put a decent amount of weight on it. I looked around once more to see if my bag was anywhere to be seen, but there was no trace of it. I felt the tears rise up again but pushed them down, looking for the source of the rustling leaves. A few yards away was a rather small clearing and I saw what looked like four children walking through it.

My heart sped up as I walked a few steps and called out to them.

"Excuse me! Excuse me, can you help me?"

They all turned, looking somewhat alarmed, and cautiously took a few steps towards me. Upon seeing their faces I realized they weren't children, although they could very easily pass for it due to their height.

I spoke again, softer this time.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, but, well, I'm very confused and I need some help. I don't know what happened to me, but… could you just tell me where I am? Is there a town nearby, with a phone I could maybe use?"

They had begun to make their way over to me, looking at me strangely, and I quickly became aware of the fact that I must look awful. I glanced down at my clothing and saw that it was torn in some places and I had leaves all over me. I brushed myself off as best as I could and then glanced up nervously, hoping they would help me.

"Are you alright, miss?" The slightly stockier one with blonde hair asked.

"Well, no, not really" I answered sheepishly. "Something really strange has happened to me and I just need to know where I am."

The one with piercing blue eyes and dark hair answered, "We're in the Old Forest, ma'am. We are headed to the town of Bree. It's not terribly far from here."

I gave a sigh of relief, even though I had never heard of the town he spoke of. But an unknown town was better than no town at all.

The stocky one spoke up again and said, "If you don't mind my askin', what happened to you, miss? You look like you've just seen a ghost an' you're all beat up."

I lowered myself back to a sitting position on the ground and said, "Well, I'm not really sure, exactly. I was backpacking through New Zealand for the past week and I saw this really bright tree. It was pure white and almost glowing. I got curious and went over to it, and as soon as I touched the tree, the ground started shaking and then began falling away from the tree. And then I fell with it and landed here and now I don't know where here is and this whole thing doesn't make any sense and I just need to get home!"

The little men exchanged glances and the stocky one murmured something to the dark-haired one. "That sounds like some sort of sorcery to me, Mr. Frodo. You think Gandalf would be able to help her?"

The dark-haired one shrugged passively and murmured back, "Maybe." He then looked directly at me.

"We're on our way to the town of Bree where we're meeting a wizard there. You're welcome to come if you want. He may be able to help you."

I had no idea what they were talking about, but at least they were heading to a town, so I agreed to join them. Before we began though, they all decided to turn and introduce themselves.

The stocky one said, "I'm Sam, by the way" I shook his hand and then the dark-haired one said, "I'm Frodo." I smiled at them both and then turned to the two who looked as if they could be related. The blonde one stepped forward and shook my hand and said, "I'm Merry, and that's Pippin." I smiled at them all and said, "I'm Cecilia. But you can call me Cissy if you'd like. It's nice to meet you all."

We walked through the forest all day and I walked quietly behind the four small men. I chuckled to myself at Merry and Pippin's antics with each other, and I was grateful that they didn't walk too fast because my knee was still sore.