Keeper of Light

*Note* First chapter has nothing whatsoever about LOTR.... yet i wrote it on the sake of explainations in future chapters...( i kinda got carried away on the details (^ ^) You may skip to Chapter 2 where the action starts.



Disclaimer: I do not own any of Tolkiens Characters or his language and i wrote this with the intent of LOTR Fan













Fantasy: Every person’s dream to live in a make-believe world of magic, wizards, and lords. A place parallel to reality, World made of dreams and miracles. A war between good and evil that ceased to happen in reality. Until now….

My name is Eviyona. I am 24 years old and attended college for six years now. My current task: working towards an M.D. As of today, I never would've imagined what happened to me in the last few thousands years, in a world that was never meant to be……."

Before it all happened, I was a completely normal student attending U.C.S.F. Working towards my desired goal (completing studies and join the medical field in Texas), I stationed myself in an old Victorian house rented by closest friends: Doria, Sarina, and of course myself. It was a charming house, about a century old. You can pretty much tell that it used to be a magnificent house when it was painted in purple and brown and the roof was intact. But up till the present, the roof has been unstable and had fallen apart, nearly killing it's inhabitants. It was eventually rebuilt right after the family moved out, fearful that the house was once haunted. By the time my roommates and I rented the house, the roof had been hastily fixed and the front and back yard had been producing a forest of weeds up to the chest. Most of the lovely purple paint had been peeled through the years leaving the tan color of the wood beneath. The previous owner abandoned it for at least a decade. Sarina found it on biking her way up the hill-like roads, huffing and puffing all her might against the gravity pulling her down. She seemed convinced that it was a perfect place for us to stay and just needed a bit of cleaning and maintenance. Doria and I had objected to it at first, but then realized that we had no choice, since all of the best places were booked. And so we moved in with the expenses paid to the next door neighbor, Miss Laure. Miss Laure had in fact been given the property as soon as the owner left. She quickly gave her consent without a single word (she thought the house needed someone to take care of it).

Life in San Francisco was always bustling with new events and filled with tourism. From our house, biking up to China Town only lasted 10 minutes if you are in shape of running over the steep hill-like roads in S.F. Our school was within 15 minutes away and that was just biking. None of us had cars except for Doria, who owned an expensive Volkswagen bug, refused to drive in fear of wasting gas and a possibility that an accident might occur anytime to her perfect little car.

The winters were ice cold, and the summer was always bearable. Every year there seemed to be an increase in tourism visiting the Golden Gate Bridge.

Living in S.F. had always been a pleasure for me. My school was biking distance away and so were the places I went after the school day ended. I took Kendo classes every Monday after being intimidated by stories of criminals in the city. I wasn’t exactly skilled, but hey, it was self-defense and gave me exercise for the week. But the main reason took classes for that specific martial art, was the fact that they taught the usage of a sword (more like sticks since I’m an amateur, only pros use real swords). I also worked at a nearby café along side with my roommates serving Cappuccinos and warm hot tea (specialized by Sarina who took a class especially to brew tea, which I thought was completely useless). Doria specialized in making the yummy baked goods to go along with Sarina’s herb tea or our homemade delicious coffees. Every morning, she would bake fresh batches of raspberry pastries, blueberry muffins, fresh chewy oatmeal cookies, and a fruit pie (a different flavor every 2 days). These would be displayed in the clear counter awaiting the customer's choice. I for one, didn’t really specialized in anything, but standing behind the cashier with a warm welcome to anyone who enters the café. We named our place: The Yum Yum Shoppe, hoping to attract customers to taste the muffins, pies, and cookies made by Doria's special ability to bake the best pastries (Sarina objected and wanted it to be called The Tea House Brewery specializing with teas brewed by herself).

Back in the Victorian house, each of us was allowed to own her room without having to share with anyone else. The house was actually large enough to fit at least 2 families at maximum. Due to the thought that it was haunted, no one ever step foot into the house in terror to find a ghost lurking inside. But I never regarded the house as haunted. It was actually quite peaceful having the noisy neighboring children avoid passing the house in the daytime. The insides were fairly tidy with the work of nearly 3 months to get it clean enough to house 3 college students.

Sarina, having found the house, had the first choice of which room she was going to stay in. She chose a spacious circular room and able to have a full view of their street on the first floor. She filled it with shelves of books, CDs and pictures of her favorite boy bands. Sarina always had a great obsession for these 16-20 year-olds whom she desperately adored, with autographs pasted on all the windows apparently collected from all the concerts she attended.

Doria had chosen a room on the second floor, right next to mine. Her room would've been described as the standard rooms we all have today. It wasn’t spacious and circular like Sarina's, but rectangular shaped with only 2 windows to glimpse into the outside world without a problem. Her room had a strong aroma of fruit. As soon as I step foot through the doorway, I had a slight feeling I was entering an orchard. Doria had an obsession of collecting fruity perfume. Whenever we had a chance to go shopping, the first store we would always stop by was Bath and Body Works. But for some reason, she rarely uses them. She was only addicted to the smell and the colorful bottles the perfume was placed in. But unfortunately, she never really had time to use any of them, except on special occasions when she spots a hot guy in campus. She also had a huge supply of nail polish collected ever since the beginning of summer. But for some reason, all her belongings were collections of some sort, gathering dust on the shelves. From time to time, either Sarina or I went up to her room and ask for a spray of her perfume or a dip at her polish.

As for me, my room had been the room in which the roof had once fallen. Even though it's been fixed, there was still a hole centered on top. I was able to peer through the starry sky every night. And every time it rained, I’d slid a piece of hard plastic to prevent my room from flooding. My room was the second story up from Sarina's room and bore the same circular and spacious feature. Apparently, my friends thought the room was haunted, hence the broken roof, but without further ado, I moved in without a word of complaint. Unlike my other roommates, I did not decorate my wall w/ music idols nor possess collections of makeup, but instead, I hung crystal mobiles on the mended parts of the roof. It reflected the colorful specks of light on the walls which was the whole purpose of them being there. I decided to hang wind chimes next to my open widow. It had the constant sounds of relaxing melodies that helped me deal w/ all the stress from my nightly homework. My room was tidy, with all the books stacked neatly on the shelves and all personal belongings sat in a glass cabinet. Candles with incenses all stood by my windowsill creating a sense of a zen-like atmosphere.

That was my life, before it all changed. It was on this typical hot day that I was forced to believe that there's more to reality that meets the eye.

It was during this summer when all three of us decided to take an actual summer vacation, not a summer school vacation. We were now faced with the hardest challenge of choosing the hotspot

` ”How about we use our earnings for a getaway to some exotic country? Hmm… somewhere like Mount Fiji. No, even better! Hawaii! I always wanted to go to Hawaii! Or let’s say we take a cruise to the Caribbean! Ohhhh… I always dreamed to relax on the warm beaches w/ nothing but a bikini on….And oh my god… maybe we’ll find some hot guys there too…… oh yea and wouldn’t be neat if we………… ”

Beside her obsession of hot boys, Sarina always fantasized traveling to some sort of tropical world. It almost always had to be a place near the ocean.

“You know what Sarina? This is like the third time you’ve forgotten all about our compromise. Our earnings from the shop are NOT for spending on extravagant journeys to humid places where all you do is strip into a bikini to attract the natives! Besides, I’m not wasting 1000 bucks from all that hard work making my baked delicacies. I propose we go explore the city we live in now. I mean, we’ve never really gone touring around this place ever since we moved in right? Let’s go and discover what this place is really about.”

That was Doria. She never wanted to spend a single penny from the salary we made back at the Yum Yum Shoppe. All she really worried about was paying for our rent, our tuition and of course enough money to go shopping. Doria always turned down Sarina for all of her wild ideas. So I decided to give my voice in the argument.

“ Alright, so I know Sarina wants to go somewhere “out there”. As for you Doria, you seem to want to go somewhere local. How about we escape the city atmosphere and go into the country. It’s both local and out in the country. I say we would probably discover something new on the way. Hey! We can really use a ride on your bug, Doria….” I explained

As soon as I mentioned the word “bug” Doria’s smile quickly faded. Sarina was gleefully pushing toward the subject.

“That’s a great idea! Better use that baby or else it’ll start rusting. We can probably get a tent and start exploring the wilderness. We’ll travel from one place to another exploring as we go.” chortled Sarina.

After long hours of thinking, Doria reluctantly agreed the use her beloved car. After finals where over, all of us were hastily making plans for the trip. Sarina made sure we had all the supplies needed and went for a shopping spree for camping supplies (Doria was enraged after she brought home a room full of camping supplies and forced her to return two thirds of it.) Back at the shop, we sold all the tea and pastries we could and left the shop with nothing but a sign saying “Closed. Be back in a week”. We stuffed Doria’s car full of supplies for our exploration of the countryside to which Doria frowned in disgust after Sarina made the finishing touch of dragging along her inflatable raft. All three of us squeezed into the tiny bug and away we went.

We made our way through the bustling cars until we reached the rolling hills and blue skies. From time to time we would stop at a small town refueling. Beside all that, we drove nonstop until nightfall. Sarina begged Doria that we should camp in a nearby field rather then finding some local hotel to stay in. Camping under the stars was one memorable nights to remember. The air was warm with a frequent cool breeze sweeping across the dry fields. The sky, that night was clear as crystal. I didn’t see a trace of the moon, but the twinkling of the stars was enough awe for me. The night was full of tranquility. Doria and Sarina were both snuggled safe and sound in the tent. It was me, who was most inspired by this night so much that I slept outside our tent. It was in the morning when things started to get strange.