As we walk through the first few miles of the dark forest of Mirkwood, I notice it isn't supposed to look this way, so dark and evil feeling, the older elves that have been here before are whispering amongst themselves, I overhear one say that it never looked that way when he came last. We follow the path for hours, finally we decide to take a short break, we munch on some bread, and dried fruit. Elladan has never left my side, trying to cheer up the other elves in this gloomy dark forest.
We hear chittering, and fear strikes all of our hearts. There's only one thing that makes that sound in this forest, spiders.
I pull out my weapons, and all the others do the same, we form a circle. There's more chittering and shuffling. Suddenly one jumps out behind me and the elves on the other side of the circle kill it quickly. The other spiders I can see pause, then all of them pounced at once. Another elf and I take care of one, we leave it whining without its legs.
I look over to see how Elladan was doing, he is fighting a very large one, his arrows are spent, he is fighting with his long knife. I try to help him, but I am encountered with another spider, it tries to stab me with its front claws, I miss it barely, but it's so fast. I nock my arrow but it's stabbing again, I dodge it, falling when I do. I draw my long knife, and when the spider's stinger is poised above me, I cut it off. The spider squeals, and jumps and I get trampled upon.
I am dazed, but I sit up and see the spider go off to die, then I look to my left, where Elladan was, and I see him under a spider too. "Elladan!" I cry, the other elves are calling his name too, trying to help even though they are trying to not get killed either.
I pick up my bow and check to see how many arrows there are in my quiver, there are four. I run to get a better view of the huge spider, there are so many arrows buried in it, it looks like a big, ugly pin cushion.
I quickly draw and shoot for its eye, I miss it, I get closer, shoot and miss again, it's moving around quickly as Elladan tries to stab it. I aim for its chest as it jumps out of Elladan's reach. It hits where I want, but it doesn't affect the ugly thing.
I yell, frustrated, and I pull out my knife again, leaving a single arrow in in my quiver, and get close and slash at it's legs, but my knife buries itself in the leg, I can't pull it out. The spider notices me, and ignores its prey.
Elladan rolls out from under and tries to help me, but it's too late, the spider hits me in the jaw with its leg, I am down. All that I remember is its belly above me.
Then I knew no more.
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