Not the time, Bob

Journal of Rowana, daughter of Rowetha
25 / 04 / 2120 of the Fourth Age, final entry

Slipping back into the cold, the wet, the dark. My chest hurt with every breath. I traded pistol and blade for the Deathdealer, the familiar weight in my hand, against my shoulder. Memories came back to me. Other missions. Other nights. Scared. Hurting. I almost pulled the trigger a dozen times, at the memories of faces that came out of the darkness.

Was it just my imagination that the ring burned on my finger, a lance of pain as though it shrank into my flesh? Clinging to me in the water, Bob began to squirm, roving paws squeezing my breasts. I think it was happy to be wet again.

Then Bob began to glow. A soft phosphorescence that expanded outward, over the water.

Something skittered ahead of me. I saw the pale, semi-translucent bodies of the guardian spiders. Drawn to the light.

"Valar damn you, Bob," I whispered, to myself, cursing the Nameless Thing as I turned my body, aimed at the nearest one, and fired.

Its cephalothorax exploded in pale gore as a tightly-grouped three-round burst blew its brains out through its ass. The recoil against my shoulder felt like that bastard stabbing me in the chest with each shot. Waist-deep in the freezing icemelt, and it was almost everything I could do to move forward. They didn't wait their turns, but came at me all at once, in a wave. I went full auto, and the shots rebounded across the cavernous ceilings and made me temporarily deaf, a high-pitched whine in my ears that hid my own scream as I poured lead into each of the pale bodies.

I felt, more than saw, the one that jumped on my back, legs scrambling for purchase on my shoulders, pedipalps caught in my cap. I felt the stinger slash across the backplate of my armor. There was a column nearby. I slammed myself into it, and the thing squirmed against me. I ignored it, still firing as its nest-mates closed in.

Out of ammo, I quickly changed magazines. I had one left after this. The squished spider had ceased moving. I held the Deathdealer one-handed, braced against my hip, and pulled out the Elf-blade. I reversed the grip and stabbed at the chitinous body between me and the pillar, then pushed a couple of holes into it's head for good measure before I moved. When I did, the body just slipped from me. Bob clung to me, holding itself just below the waterline, away from the ****, glowing softly. One tentacle was trying to slip past my waistband and down the crack of my ass.

"Not the time, Bob," I muttered under my breath.

I was breathing hard as I pushed myself forward, against the current. Pale bodies floated, but there were no more songs, no more singing, no skitter of stealthy feet on ancient stonework. Not that I could have heard any of that right now anyway.

Everything was dead. That just left the tunnel.

Fifteen miles. Uphill. Against the current. There were days I could run that in two hours and change. Wounded, exhausted, uphill...five hours. If I was lucky.

My chest was agony now. Constant, and yet it felt like the fucking knife was working itself in deeper. Pulse pounded in my ears. Every step I had to brace myself against the flow of water. Every breath brought a wet gurgle from deep in my chest. Wasn't sure how much blood I had lost, but the shiver I felt had less to do with the icy water than the life ebbing from my body.

When you're on a long run or march, they taught us how to focus on something to keep going. An image, something that would make you take the next step, and the other. Your own front door. The real beefsteak you were going to eat when you got in. The hot wet pussy you were going to dive into the moment you got back to barracks. It didn't matter what, as long as the image was strong enough that you would crawl naked over a field of barbed wire to get to it.

A great green pair of tits seemed to hang in front of me. Azzie's goodbye gesture, and her promise of what awaited me. There at the end of the tunnel were the softest, most perfect plump pillows ever created, the nipples made for my mouth as though Ilúvatar himself had crafted them for no other purpose. Whatever genetic engineer Drake Industries had that designed those teats deserved a complimentary handjob and a cold beer and all the raises in the world. I pictured those bouncing breasts in front of me and step by step, I climbed through the ancient aqueduct, leaving a trail of blood behind me.

Weirdly, the closer I inched to ****, the sharper the world looked. The ring on my hand had ceased burning, but it felt heavy. It throbbed in time with my slowing pulse. The shadows kept pace with me, and every moment they became clear. I saw the faces of Men, old and worn, the lines carved deep in the flesh like the old soldiers I had met, who had seen so much **** that a part of them lived forever on old battlefields. After Aedre died, I'd felt a part of that myself.

The last one, though, the smaller one, was different. A Hobbit? Something like that. Small, wizened, eyes too big, mouth too wide. It seemed always right in front of me, watching with terrible curiosity. It almost seemed to beckon me. Away from the darkness. Toward the light.

Azzie...Precious...I'm narrating this in the hope that you can read these words. I've killed a lot of people, Men and Orcs, in my life. I fought for my fellow soldiers, I killed for ****. I never...never thought that killing would lead to a better world. No **** made things better, it just meant somebody's story ended. I never wanted that for you. Ever since I first met you, all I wanted was for your story to go on. I wanted you to live. Free. I wanted you to be happy. Maybe I didn't know it then, but I needed you more than I needed the pipe-weed farm.

I needed someone to love.

Can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but my legs won't work right anymore. The shadows have clustered close around me now, and that icy cold is piercing straight into my heart. I can almost feel the ice-water in my veins, the Deathdealer so heavy in my arms that only decades of habit keeps the barrel above the level of the water. Bob has its tentacles around me. Stronger than it looks. Ahead of me know, as I stumble on my knees. Half-swimming, half-dragging me toward the light.

If I don't make it, I need you to know you made my life worth living. I may have said this a thousand times, but I wish I had said it more.