Blog Assignment #1 - Lord Sauron Returns to Power: The Fellowship was Broken, The Two Towers Remained Upright, and the King Never Returned

“Get off him, you filthy maggot!” a voice booms, as I feel myself torn off my quarry.

The fat hobbit has grabbed my shoulders and is dragging me backwards, his nails digging into my flesh.  But I cling, determinedly, to the other – the one called Frodo Baggins – who I must dispose of to claim what is rightfully mine: the Ring.

“Pesky hobbitses, let go of us!” I exclaim, wrenching myself away from the fat one – Samwise Gamgee.

I scuttle back to wear Frodo lies, but he has drawn his sword and I am without a weapon.  I glance back at the fat hobbit; he is still struggling to his feet after I knocked him over in my haste to get away.  The bags on his back – laden down with cooking tools and other necessary provisions – cause the hobbit to continually lose his balance, so he is slow in standing up, thus giving me time to grab his dagger from its sheath at his waist.

“Sméagol!  Give that back to Sam right now,” Frodo says, stopping me in my tracks.  “Do as Master says, Sméagol, please.”

“Yes, Master, as you wish,” I say, a sly grin creeping over my features.

I step back to where the fat hobbit has gotten to his feet and is trying to pull out his own sword, but I’m too cunning and reach him before he has a chance to defend himself.  I plunge the fat hobbit’s own dagger into his chest, leaving it there as he staggers backwards.

“Sam!  No!” Frodo – who I once called Master – yells, his pain for his soon-to-be dead best friend evident in his cries.

“Frodo, don’t listen to Gollum – he only wants the Ring for himself; he doesn’t really want to help you destroy it and save Middle Earth; he’s just making you believe he does,” the fat hobbit whispers, gasping for his last breath.

“We don’t listen to Master anymore,” I say, grabbing Sam’s sword from his hand as he lies bleeding on the rocks, dying.

I hop over to Frodo, who’s in his ready-to-fight stance and I take my own place before him.

“Don’t do this, Sméagol,” Frodo says.  “You don’t have to fight me.”

“Of course we have to fight you,” I hiss, lunging my attack, but I don’t penetrate my mark.  Instead I scurry up onto a boulder – the better to see the hobbit with the Ring.  “But, we wants to fight yous; we must fight yous; we wants the precious!”

“You won’t destroy it, will you, Sméagol?”

I don’t answer him, though, just leap off the boulder, swinging my sword in front of me.  I finally hit Frodo in his leg as I fall to the ground.  He gasps in pain and shock, but retaliates, catching my wrist with the tip of his blade.  I keep going at him, finally managing to knock his sword away from him, but not before he stabs me in the shoulder.

He falls to his knees as I draw his death blow, then the life leaves him.  I take the chain with the One Ring from around his neck where he has kept it for the past few months on his journey to Mount Doom to destroy it.

My Precious has been returned!

Lord Sauron is growing stronger.  He has been since the day the Ring abandoned me.  Again.  The first time being so long ago, that Bilbo Baggins – uncle to Frodo Baggins – found it deep within the Misty Mountains and stole it from us!  The second being not a year ago, after I killed the wretched fat hobbit and my once-Master, Frodo himself.

My Precious has abandoned us!

Everyday Middle-Earth gets a little darker.  I believe the Ring is near to its master, the great Lord Sauron.  I have no regret for my decision to kill those pesky hobbitses, but I do feel contrite for letting my Precious slip away from me.

Some days ago I passed by Fangorn Forest, but it is not as vast, nor as frightening as it once was.  The trees, and the Ents, have all been chopped down or burned.  Now I am fleeing through the Mines of Moria, trying to escape the orcs which run unchecked through the lands, killing all: the men, the women, the elves, the dwarves, and even the hobbitses – which, at some point in my past, I was just like.

The Shire grows near; this was where the fat hobbit and Frodo once lived.  Now no hobbitses survive – the orcs have killed them all, on order of the Lord Sauron who is back in power.

The sky is dark with smoke and ash: Middle-Earth is burning.  Lord Sauron’s army grows stronger day by day, trampling all those who resist him.  No men can stop Sauron now, for he has the One Ring in his possession.  They don’t even try anymore.  Men are weak, just like the hobbitses I had to eliminate to regain the Ring.

Master didn’t want this.  Frodo wanted to annihilate the One Ring to save Middle-Earth.  But my Precious made me kill him, destroying Middle-Earth’s chance to regain peace.  Soon I’ll be gone, too.  Sauron is a great force – unable to be stopped since I killed our hope – turning the world Dark in his wake.