The Guilty – Part Two

Disclaimer: I don’t own Lord of the Rings, or any characters, places, or events associated thereto.

Chapter 1
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Two hobbits lay quailing on a small rock amidst the earth’s destruction. Smoke, fire, and brimstone ate away their crumbling foundation, and one clung to the other as though to protect him from their inevitable fiery end.

“Are you afraid to die?” the weaker one asked, voice so harsh only his companion could understand. The other shook his head, smile lighting up his face while tears streaked brilliantly through the ash searing his face.

“No, sir, I ain’t, but I’m goin’ to be sore put out to not see Rosie or me Gaffer again.”

The dying hobbit hung his head.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t have let you come. You don’t deserve an end like this.”

His companion caught him in a fierce embrace as a particularly large section of their perch crumbled away into the boiling mass of molten rock streaming by them, waiting patiently to claim their bones forever. They lay that way for a while, until oblivion stole them away on sweet eagles’ wings to a far green country.

~*~

Pain. Voices.

“How’s….hand…..not….stop bleeding…he’s fading, my lord!”

“Stop that….”

“Stand aside…knife…”

“…fire….heat it up…”

“He’s awakening!”

Silence. He couldn’t open his eyes. They seemed to be sealed shut by the lashes. He couldn’t breathe, so great was the pain in his throat. His lungs burned for oxygen, but the fumes of Mordor had finally accomplished their purpose, sealing his airway with swollen tissue.

“He can’t breathe!”

A long, cylindrical object was forced into his mouth, snaking towards the back of his throat. The tube grazed the tender flesh blocking his airway, sending ripples of piercing shock waves to his brain. A throbbing pulse in his shoulder echoed the re-awakened Morgul Blade wound. Nothing existed but pain.

‘Orcs,’ he panicked, remembering the torture at their hands. ‘The Tower.’ He could be no other place.

He tried to fight, but no strength was left in his limbs, lying loosely at his side. Pain shot up his arm from a hand that felt as though it was no longer there. The cold tube prodded the swollen mass in his throat, searching for the opening to his esophagus. Each individual jab forced tears from his eyes, but he couldn’t cry out for want of liquid. He gagged on the intruder, forcing his tormentors to withdraw it.

“I can’t find it, my lord! His throat is too swollen.”

He could feel himself beginning to fade as his lungs drew the last vestige of oxygen from the supply trapped in his isolated lungs.

“He’s suffocating, sire!”

Cool water was poured into his mouth, but other than wet the parched cavity, it could not be swallowed.

“I feared it might come to this,” said a sad but familiar voice.

“Think carefully, my friend. What is the greater anguish, to live at the will of another or a merciful end to suffering?”

‘These can’t be orcs,’ the hobbit thought, but the brief moment of insight was pushed away by a sudden stab in his windpipe, between the larynx and the collarbone. A cold metal blade punctured his airway and withdrew as quickly as it had come. Almost before he could register the shock, a tiny tube was inserted into the small opening.

It was a strange sensation, breathing involuntarily through the tube rather than through his mouth or nose. He would have wept if there was any more liquid left in him, ashamed at his own helplessness.

He didn’t know where he was, or what was happening to him. Hot sheets pressed on him from above and below, encasing him in an inescapable tomb. Other than that, he was aware of nothing but a sense of failure and terrible weakness. Something had happened to him, and it had been the cause of a death, in fire. Had he died? Fire was all around him, the fires of the Mountain, the great chasm of fire in a place beneath the earth, the fire raging in his own body. Why did the fire not consume him, too? He had failed. He longed to give in to the fire, but dastardly cold rags were constantly wiping his face and neck, cooling his burning skin. Why were they doing that? Couldn’t they see he deserved to die?

As the immediate want of oxygen faded, white hot pain took its place, coursing through his body, a tormented spirit trapped forever in an old haunt, doomed to linger for all eternity. There was no relief, until a gritty liquid was poured into his throat and he was forced to swallow. Only then did the pain fade, and with it all minute traces of awareness.

~To be continued!~