The storm seemed like it would never stop. It was kinda nice to just sit there and rest after all we had been through. All of a sudden Merry bursted upright, almost knocking into my jaw, and yelled,

"Stop!"

"Merry?" I asked concerned.

He looked at me, eyes wide open. They had turned a pink color now.

"Sorry... bad dream,"

"Are you feeling better?" I asked.

"A little, but my stomach hurts, my head, and I'm still really tired. The neck pain is gone,"

I dug into both our bags and gave him an apple and a loaf of bread.

"Thanks, can I have my water please?" he asked taking the food and crunching loudly into the juicy apple.

I had put both our water jugs out in the rain so they could refill with more water. We had both already dranken our jugs. I explained this to him. He nodded, then took another munch of his apple. I walked out to where I had placed the jugs. They had fallen over from the fierce winds, but they still were about halfway filled with water. I handed Merry his and took a long sip of mine.

Merry turned his back to me and asked how his neck looked. I told him it was less swollen, but still a little red. After that, he ate in silence.

I had just remembered about my arm and examined it. There was silvery gooey stuff coming out of the gash. It looked pretty gross. I scrubbed my whole arm off with the rain water. Hopefully if we saw Aragorn sometime soon, he could heal it. Like he tried healing Frodo after he got stabbed by the Witch king of Angmar.

All of a sudden, a long loud horn bellowed in the distance, making us both jump. Full fright washed over us. Merry could barely move. We weren't ready to flee!

"We are going to have to leave our things here, I'm already a big enough burden for escaping," Merry said plopping the last bit of bread in his mouth. I stuffed two apples in my pockets and took one long last drink of my water.

"Wait..." Merry paused, "Go without me. You will get farther."

I looked at him confused and said, "I'm not leaving you. We are getting away together," I started helping him to his feet. Merry put one of his arms around my neck.

"I'm already feeling dizzy," Merry stated holding his other hand to his head.

"You are going to be fine. We are doing this together," I said confidently.

"Okay..." Merry whispered, "take us to that forest," he pointed to a nearby forest of very tall trees.

Another horn blew in the distance, this one sounding a lot closer than before. Through the pounding rain storm, we jogged at a slow pace to the forest. Merry tripped a couple times and we both fell once in an enormous puddle. His arm gripping tighter onto my shoulder and around my neck.

As much as Merry wanted to rest, I told him he couldn't until we reached the forest. I didn't want him falling asleep in the middle of a massive storm in a field. We were getting super close to the forest now. And we were also getting super soaked.

"I have to stop. Everything is spinning," Merry coughed.

"Okay, okay, we are here. Let's go inside and then you can rest,"

I entered the forest and sat down Merry in-between two large tree roots. I sat down next to him as well and looked around the forest. It was spooky because I could hear noises and strange moaning sounds. I looked back to Merry and he was shaking. I wrapped his cape securely around him and tried to calm him down.

"Shh, shh, we are safe," I said. Even though I was thinking "I hope."

Putting my arm around Merry, I continued, "You made it! We did it together. You are going to be fine,"

He probably didn't hear me, because he had already snuggled up close to me and gone directly asleep.

A/N: 2 chapters left! :-(