Whispers in the Dark

A Lord of the Rings crackfic

By

EvilFuzzy9

Ssss.

A low hissing noise echoed throughout the dark, twisting caverns. Sickly green pinpricks of light flashed from the shadows, like twin lamps staring out from the mouth of Hell.

Ssss.

A creature like a hound, stripped of fur, or else perhaps a man of twisted shape and naked flesh, ran headlong through the dark tunnels on four, long, misshapen legs. Its forelimbs ended in gangling, thin, razor-sharp talons, hands like slim, articulated rakes scrabbling at the worn smooth floor as it ran with a bestial, loping gait. Its eyes, if eyes they were in truth, were black and hollow, like empty holes in its wild, leering face.

Blood dripped from its curled, sneering lips, black in the darkness, teeth like jagged rusty nails filling a shapeless, lopsided mouth. Its hide was pale, ghastly so, and there was a sense of terror about it. This was a fell, wicked creature of black, hateful repute – the dread that went before and about it like a tangible, enfolding mist of primal fear left no room for doubt to the contrary.

It was a hideous thing, its visage such as would be feared even by the foul things that lived in the endless dark beneath the earth.

Yet there was something else here. Something more hateful than it. Something meaner, crueler, wickeder.

Ssss.

The creature's pace quickened at the noise, which sounded nearer this time than before. It ran headlong through the darkness, barreling through the twisted, winding goblin-tunnels bored deep into the mountains in years long past.

It was running. It was fleeing.

It was being hunted.

The soft, scarcely audible slap slap of bare, flopping feet on cold, hard stone could be heard drawing ever closer as the creature ran and ran, terror filling it. The thing which hunted it was foul beyond reckoning, dark and evil and hateful. It seemed a living shadow, or perhaps a stalking, bloodthirsty ghost.

The creature feared for its life. Whatever it was that hunted it, it seemed able to vanish at will, to become as one with the endless Shadow. The creature could hear it – always hear it – no matter how fast, how desperately it ran it could not escape its hunter. Never before had it know fear. Never before had it know terror. Never before had it felt such ice in its veins, and weariness in its limbs.

It just wanted to sleep.

And yet – and yet – it knew that if it stopped running, it would die.

And so, the creature ran. It ran as fast as it could, as hard and long as its contorted limbs could carry it.

But it was not enough.

An invisible weight – astonishingly light, yet filled with an uncanny, hateful strength of limb – fell on the creature's back. Long, cold, clammy fingers curled around the creature's neck and squeezed. The creature's heart was gripped with terror, even as its throat was gripped in the clutches of its hunter. It tried to struggle, tried to resist its attacker with one final burst of desperate strength, but it was futile.

The creature slumped to the ground, lifeless, and its attacker's voice hissed in the darkness.

"Ssss. We's caught it, my Precioussss. Gollum. Gollum."

A/N: Maybe I've been listening to too many creepypasta, but man, Gollum could totally kick the Rake's ass. XD