Trapped Mind

Trapped Mind 6














Disclaimers: Everything is Tolkien's - thank you, dear. ;) However, Cecilie and her world is mine.

It had broken Sam's heart to see his master crawl on all four. So much that the already highly weakened Hobbit had lifted up his Mr Baggins on his shoulders. Even if he could not walk, he would still make it to the fires of Mount Doom. It was his destiny. It was their destiny.

Sam looked up, smoke and a rain of ashes getting in his eyes. After blinking rapidly he could see the outline of the mountain.

If only it wasn't so high and they weren't so small.


*


Sweat was stinging in her eyes. She saw light within the cabin in front of her. She recognised it. It had been increasingly harder to control Ronja. The beast was shaking violently and could hardly suppress its guttural snarling despite its master's strict order. At some point the old man would hear the telltale growling, so it had to be soon. She blinked. Provided he didn't have a horde of orcs in there, it should be a piece of cake. Her only concern was the door. It was in pieces – would the rest of the hutt come tumbling down if she kicked it in?

It didn't.


She didn't even notice the deformed and twistedies ies of young girls lying everywhere and hanging like meat on hooks on the walls. Instead she went straight for the perpetrator as she burst through the door with a vengeance and a vicious kick. She had done these raids often enough. Usually with human backups, but her dog did just as well. In effect, it did better as it instantly located its enemy No. 1 and went for his throat. A high pitched squeal rang through the dusty air so heavy and sated of his victims' blood and tears. She knew that squeal.

Her weapon drawn and ready, Detective Inspector Skoubo Poulsen warily stepped forward, one leg stretched out in front of her all the time like a pro boxer. Her eyes were alert on any kind of movement on the sides, and her ears were strained like a dog's. Securing one inch at a time finally brought her to her destination: the spot where the Evil Wizard, the Goon, the Al Capone, the Buy Suy Supreme had fallen prey to Ronja's sharp and strong predator teeth.

The dog hadn't ripped him open. Good. She needed him. Instead the dog was holding him by his throat in a tight grip, snarling ominously every time he tried to move.

"Good girl," Cecilie said in a low voice. The man who was stuck in these ferocious jaws didn't even dare to blink.

She smirked.

"Hello again, Master Yggve."

A blink at last in surprise at her knowledge of his name.

"Ronja, release him," she signalled. She didn't wish to risk shooting her dog. The big beast slowly let go of the tender flesh. And then licked its lips for effect. The fallen man shivered.

"Get up!"

Master Yggve very slowly complied. He looked awful.

"Well, good. Do you know what this is?" she indicated her gun that she still trained on him.

When he finally spoke, his croaking voice was hoarse and raw from dust and shaking from fear.

"A weapon?"

She nodded. "A very good one too. Need a demonstration? You have no use for your right foot anyway."

Never had anybody been shaking his head this quickly. She nodded again.

"Good. So we understand each other. Now, go face the wall on your left and let yourself fall over till you touch the surface with your outstretched hands. Thaaaat's fine. Spread your legs. Wider! Wider!"

She approached him carefully, checking his position.

"Good. Now, know this: if you as much as move an inch, I will let my dog attack you, do you understand?"

He nodded again. Then courageously asked, "what do you want?"

Her expression hardened, and her voice was deceptively calm when she answered him.

"I want to rip your entrails out and make you eat them one by one. Nothing would please me more to see you choke in them…"

She paused to see the reaction her words stirred. She wasn't disappointed. He visibly paled and his limbs started shaking painfully.

"However," she added with sincere and visible regret, "I need you for a little assignment first. In fact… do you understand that your pliance to this assignment is the only thing that can save your puny life?"

He nodded eagerly.

"Oh, good… it is very simple: I want you to undo what you did: I want you to make me into a human again."


Busy fingers, shaking hands, face wild with fear and pure undiluted hatred. She had really managed to motivate him. Ronja was watching the dirty wizard intently, and Cecilie let her eyes wander to the walls that were so full of horrors. Young female decomposing bodies on hooks like meat in a slaughter house. Even with her seasoned experience, having seen half a dozen decomposing hooker corpses and torn child bodies, this still made her stomach churn.

"Failed experiments?" she asked rhetorically.

"Yes," he admitted nervously.

"Why the preference for females?"

"Not sure. The book says so," he murmured, "must be female. Must be source of life."

She pondered about that. One thing was the mythical element of Gaia, the Mother of Earth and all living beings. The woman as source of creation. Another element was facts as such. Would female hormones have something to do with it?

"Why didn't it work?"

A clang and the sound of something falling to the floor; Ronja tensed and Cecilie watched him carefully.

"They… they weren't right."

"What do you mean? Right?"

"It didn't work," he sounded out of breath. Evidently the stress was getting to him.

"I said that already. WHY didn't it work?"

"They were not like you."

Cecilie cocked an eyebrow. Apparently her distinguished origin as being from a completely different world was the cause of success. This sorry excuse of a mage had not realised that and had kept experimenting with young local girls with a disastrous result. She felt sick.


He worked intensely and concentrated for about an hour, assurring her that the process could not be rushed. She knew that there was a risk that he was bluffing, that he was stalling for time and/or awaiting his chance to overcome her. Yet she could not let this chance pass her. She had travelled too far and gone through too much – and given up too much.

After ample time of setting up a weird looking table, removing the straps on her authority, concocting a vile looking fluid and taken out old yellow sheets that were virtually crumbling in the old man's hands, the scene was finally ready. He made a nervous nod with his head.

"On the table," he said timidly.

She eyed him suspiciously.

"You realise my dog will rip you to shreds if you try anything?"

A series of short frantic nods. He knew.

She hooked her gun in her belt – he was more afraid of the dog anyway – and approached the table.

Perhaps it was the sudden, subtle but visible gleam in his eyes, perhaps it was just the realisation that he must have known he had nothing to lose – or perhaps she was just getting psychic. Either way, she sensed his move in the nick of moment. As she was taking the final step towards the table and was about to place her body on the surface, he sprang. And so did a raging dog quick to react with a predator's instinct. She managed to avoid the vicious lash he did with a very sharp knife that came out of nowhere, but she couldn't withstand his weight as they both fell onto the floor, dog and all. He was tall. Of course. She was still a Hobbit. And he was heavy. Ronja had buried her teeth deep within his arm, but he kept using it and seemed oblivious to the pain. Desperate people were sometimes immune to pain inducement, her cool police brain concluded, as she felt the air being squeezed out of her quickly deflating lungs.


BANG!


She had had no choice. She just hoped she hadn't wounded him fatally. The body on top of her went slack, something warm and wet seeped through her clothes and tickled as it made contact with her skin. She knew what it meant, of course; he was bleeding heavily and quickly. This wasn't good.

As she managed to roll away his body, she was forced to use all her remaining strh toh to get to her feet. The whole thing – the anticipation after all these months, the planning, the preparation, the hope – had drained her emotionally as well as physically. But she still had something to do. She stooped and got hold of his collar, lifting him up in a half sitting position with a huge effort. Glinsing eyes peered back at her. Still alive.

"Don't you die on me, you son of a bitch," she snarled, her anger unleashed, "you will perform the chant if I have to hook you on the wall together with all your victims."

A weak grin with teeth bathed in blood.

"You… want so bad… to be what you were."

She hesitated. What the fuck was he babbling about? Where was he going with this? This wasn't the time for him to get philosophical. Or was it just a dying man's feverish ramblings?

"But you can never go back – literally."

A cold feeling spread through her entire being, starting with her feet and continuing to her spine. She began to shake him, causing little droplets of blood to spinkle the floor.

"What do you mean? What do you mean?"

A soft chuckle.

"I have no knowledge – no means of restoring your species. You were an unexpected success that I have never been able to repeat or to comprehend."

And at this he suddenly looked infinitely sad and unhappy. His cruelty striped away from him and his fiasco life on display made her almost feel sorry for this man who was nothing but a pitiful existence. It appeared to be the tragedy of his life that the one thing he had actually mastered, - he had known nothing about.

"- and so," he finished, "I couldn't even do it if I wanted to."


The Darkness was darker than ever. Hopelessness stronger than Fear. Cecilie felt the world crumble around her and her soul being ripped apart. It had all been for nothing, but she did not understand. Did not understand.


*


His clear voice rang uncharacteristically through the vault of Mount Doom, shaking the old evil mountain in its base. He chose not to do what he had come to do. He chose instead – the Ring, the One Ring – for himself, claiming to be its master, demanding to serve it. As he disappeared with the Ring, the Nazgûl suddenly screamed and left the killing fields, turned round sharply by the call of the Ring.


*


Suddenly something happened she understood even less. The world really did crumble. Or they were experiencing an earthquake. Whatever it was, the cabin had started shuddering, the blinds clattered loudly, her dog was howling, the wooden walls were trembling and about to come down and the man in front of her convulsing. She saw him open his mouth to scream, but no sound left his parched grey lips. Then there was a rattle; his eyes bloodshut and bulging looked as if they were about to pop. Had this been her own world, she would have estimated this man to be suffering from the effect of high pressure in space.

And then he managed to squeeze out one last line:

"MASTER! YOU ARE FALLING!"

………….


*

As he squealed 'Oh, precious, - my precious', dancing his dance macabre on the edge of the burning volcano while holding the trophe high in his hand, the finger still in it, it really look like it was made of pure fire. Sam gasped and hesitated when he saw how the figure suddenly tripped…

"MY PRECIOUSSS…..!"


*


Master Yggve became dust just as the trembling settled and the walls and blinds fell silent once more, their voice stilled for the last time.


More convulsion.

This time herself.

Thoughts were shooting through her brain in a fervent attempt to make sense of a crazy world of unfathomable events.

The wizard creep had called out to a master. The master had fallen. Frodo? Frodo? Rationale left her and pain took over her mind. Oh, the agony of darkness, the suffocation. Something stretched. It was unbearable. Something tugged. Her skin. It hurt beyond belief. Death. She was dying. Little sister - Father, I am joining you. But she couldn't reach them; this was not their world, not their death. She was dying alone and in empty nothingness in this alien and unfriendly world. Her heart fought for its right to live to the extent that its beating was pure torment.

One last pain.

And there was nothing.

…………….

And there was something. Oh, the intense agony of light, the suffocation. Being squeezed out a tight, too tight tunnel. Slick and wet. It hurt. Lungs inhaling. Birth. She was being born, and it hurt like hell. Something she recognised. Something she had gone through before. The pain would not stop…


… and it was still there when she woke up, bathed in steaming transpiration, dust glued to her shiny wet skin. Every bone in her abused body hurt; her skin felt as if it had been stretched to cover three Hobbits.

And that's when she realised.

The effect had been reversed.


*


Learning to steer and control her human body proved just as difficult as getting used to her Hobbit body. In fact, more, she realised, as she stumbled over the field to reach her pony. Magpie. There was another problem. Would she be too heavy for him now? Well, one thing at a time. So far Ronja had accepted her just as easily as she had her Hobbit form. A bit of sniffing and the dog had licked her old face welcome back. The next thing was her clothes. They had burst open, of course, ripped to shreds; no longer the perfect fit for her considerably increased body volume. She tripped again, like a gangly foal that was just beginning to learn how to walk. Ridiculous, yet understandable. Her senses felt extremely dull on top of it all. She strained to hear even the loudest sound, her olfactory sense was like having cotton balls stuck up her nostrils and her feet were like walking on shattered glass. Very uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable returning to humanhood. Uncomfortable thinking of what she gave up. Uncomfortable to think of the next step: trying to find a way home. Uncomfortable that she might meet Frodo again.

Uncomfortable.


She had hoped that Master Yggve had known something about the portal. Had known how she had come to this world and more importantly: how she could get back. However, her encounter with the mad wizard had more than convinced her that he had had no clue. He knew that she was not local – that she was from some place special. But other than that he was completely ignorant in the complicated matter of crossing dimensions.

Her best bet was probably Gandalf. Now, where would he be?


When she reached Magpie, she sank staggering into the grass, not even noticing that the pony, now considerably smaller in relative size than before, easily recognised her and greeted her with enthusiasm, its perky little ears erect.

Cecilie feebly reached out for some food from her bag when her hand brushed the 44. that was still hefted to her now painfully tight belt. She loosened it with stiff clumsy hands and gingerly switched the safety catch. She now dared handle it with her shivering hands.

It was when she reached for the water canteen and poured the water into a cup that she got the biggest shock.

Her reflection.

A gasp made it to her parched lips but died before reaching audible levels. A tremble started with the chin. This wasn't her! This was someone else! Where was the round oval face, the large eyes, the thick wavy hair and the slim neck? Who was this stranger that was looking back at her?

However, when the shock abated, she understood what she had known all the time. This was her as she had looked like as a human. A long oval face with average size eyes, an average size neck and normal hair that would be considered wavy for a human.

She was just… human.


The dam burst and Cecilie broke down and cried all the tears she hadn't been able to afford for the past 2 years.


*


Golden leaves and frisky winds, a grey sky with cobalt blue stripes and fat little clouds dotted spontaneously here and there. Animals of the woods seeking shelter for a temperamental shower of rain and old trees rustling in their eagerness to shed their dying garment.

The seasons had shifted again. Autumn had prevailed. Cecilie inhaled sharply to the point of hyperventilating. She knew that smell. The Shire was just round the corner.

Sadness and joy appeared to engage in a mutual fight within her as one corner of her mouth rose whereas the other dropped. She wasn't sure how she felt about all this.

The now reversed human-Hobbit-human was riding a horse and had Magpie on a lead. She deeply valued the lessons Mags had given her, for the horse she had found owner-and-riderless had not been easy to break in. She had chucklingly named him 'Gandalf' on account of his arrogant temper and dapple-grey colour, nick-name of 'Gandhi', so he was the best of both worlds. His former owner had been dangling from a stirrup, shot dead by a black arrow. And he hadn't been the only one. She had had to run almost the gauntlet among dead bodies and charred buildings on her way back south. While she had had her collision with Yggve, clearly the rest of this world had been busy too.

The few survivors she did encounter had been able to tell her that 'the Ringbearer had completed his mission and saved the world' – whatever that meant.


And now she was here. The landscape looked as depressingly war raped and scarred as the rest of the places she had been to. The Shire had not been spared. She felt like crying. Again.

Gandhi tiptoed through the debris on the ground with a trotting Magpie right behind him and a tired Ronja at his side. She, too, felt the mood of her mistress.

Cecilie chose the road into the Shire that she had used for her departure. It was quite clear. Once in a while she saw the odd Hobbit peek out from a shelter, but other than that the road was painfully empty for people. Her heart sank.


She quickly made her way through depressing debris and scorched gardens to the one Hobbit residence she would never forget the location of. And this is where she found the rest of the town. This explained the empty streets and deserted homes. It seemed that all the Shire Hobbits were gathered round the once upon a time so impressive looking Bag End that now sadly looked like a fix'R up'R. Cecilie gasped and halted Gandhi at the top of the hill roughly 200 metres from the main entrance of Frodo's old home. She narrowed and shaded her eyes to enhance their vision. She still couldn't get used to the fact that she no longer enjoyed perfect long range vision. She had to strain her ears as well, being virtually deaf after having regained her inferior human hearing.

There was a raucus and much commotion. She faintly recognised Boffer, Master Brandybuck – and … where the hell were Pippin and Merry? Who were those two very tall… she couldn't believe it. But it was… they were Pippin and Merry – dressed in armour and grown several inches at least. Cecilie slowly dropped her shading hand in disbelief. Well, well. There had been other transformations than her own, obviously.

Her horse started stamping with his front leg impatiently, and so the reset human decided to sneak a little closer. Now only 120 metres from Bag End, half hidden by a felled tree, she could see much better. Her sheltering tree was not the only one that had been felled she concluded with a sad heart. The tall proud birches and beeches round the Baggins home were all gone, leaving gaping and bleeding holes behind as an prosecuting reminder of what had once been. Her throat felt thick. However, the absence of the majestic trees helped her further to see what was happening. And with a small cry of surprise, she realised that there were other humans in the crowd of angry Hobbits. No… one of them was Gandalf. No, no. It wasn't Gandalf. But someone very like Gandalf. A crawling magician that the Hobbits appeared to hate. Angry yelling and flying stones were aimed at this man and his cowering aide, a pale being with dark eyes and slimy thin hair that hung down in unattractive tresses. An arm was lifted and was able to hold the vengeful and blood thirsty Hobbits at bay with great and natural authority.

Cecilie murmured softly under her breath.

The arm was Frodo's.


And suddenly things happened incredibly fast. The old crooked man and his sick looking minion appeared to be on their way when suddenly something flashed in Frodo's chest as the man passed the Hobbit. Cecilie cried out, a dull fear and shock rippling through her body until the last nerve. She urged her horse forward, but was stopped by the realisation that Frodo was still standing, apparently unhurt by the vicious attack. Then some confusion. The perpetrators left again. Then a quarrel. Cecilie gasped. The slimy figure jumped the old mage and… slit his throat. The killer managed to take precisely five steps – then hll oll over with five Hobbit arrows firmly imbedded in his sorry body. Cecilie barely had time to understand what it all was about when the Hobbit archers noticed her, being in the direction that the killer had leaped. She cried out to stop their eager hands, but it was too late. Two arrows sang through the air, spooked Gandhi, who jumped to the side and made her lose her balance and fall heavily to the ground with a loud thud.

She swore. What a great way to announce one's home coming, she thought as she prepared to get up.

That's when she realised she had been hit by both arrows.


She felt quite silly lying there staring dully at the two sleek spikes that were sticking out of her shoulder and her thigh, respectively. It really didn't hurt. It just felt numb. She turned her head to look at the one that posed the biggest threat. Had it grazed her lung? That would be fatal. It hurt when she breathed. But she didn't breathe pink or reddish air bubbles. Coldness began to spread throughout her limbs. Oh, hell. She was going into shock. That was fatal.

And then the Hobbits reached the spot where she had fallen. Two of them still trained their bows and arrows directly on her, watching her every move with keen eyes and ears. She looked at them without really seeing them and then she giggled. What a stupid way to go.

Breathing was getting more painful. She wasn't sure of the bubbles, but she had never felt his cold before and the Hobbits made no move to help her – quite the opposite. Just as she thought she was about to lose consciousness, the crowd stepped aside and a familiar and yet completely alien face looked down at her.

Frodo's eyes met hers.

His glance was gentle, yet old and stern – and frighteningly adult. He had grown. He had grown beyond her completely. And there she was; having outgrown him by 5 inches – and still she didn't reach his ankles. A frown appeared in his once so smooth forehead. She tried saying his name, but her lips could barely shape the word. He slowly stooped, never letting go of her eyes. And then he mouthed the one word she so longed to hear from him.

Cecilie!

He had recognised her.

*

TBC