It didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to end like this. Actually, it was more accurate to say it shouldn't have been this way. He shouldn't be alone. His life's plan didn't include all this silence, all this pain.

The world had changed; good no longer prevailed over evil. Light was not to be found in the darkness. Bitter pain coursed through his veins; as his heart beat at a steady pace, he cursed the Gods because he was left on this earth, by himself, with no one around to joke with, laugh with, cry with or just to be with.

Black as night, it was, as he made his way through the trees. On his way home, for the first time in...he couldn't even remember how long it had been. Too long it had been since he'd last seen the sun rising over the hills and the hobbits coming out of their holes, checking their crops and surveying their land after a monsterous storm.

He was glad they hadn't seen the storm he had been a part of; he'd barely made it out alive himself, and almost...almost wished he hadn't.

The smell of home hit his nostrils as he sat atop a relatively large hill, gazing down at his old world. People went about their business, their lives, as if nothing were different.

Well, he thought, nothing is different for them.

They hadn't been to hell and back. And they weren't the the only one left to tell the tale.

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