So, I'm sure you've seen a few of these around! I figured I'd try my hand at throwing a character into the Hobbit Movieverse! Hope you like it, and let me know! Obviously, I don't own any of the characters or the general story plot, I'm just borrowing it from Mr. Tolkien!

A Very Unexpected Journey

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning, I barely know what's going on and I've been here from the start, so I can't imagine how you'd manage without a bit of explanation. Firstly, my name is Rachel, Rachel Jayne Harker, nothing special. In fact, I'm about as normal, as dull as it's possible to be. Well I was anyway.

Here, I'll just tell you from the start, how I remember it at least:

I was heading back to my dads house after a week at mums. Yes, they're divorced, have been for the past few years and they still expect my sister and I to drag ourselves backwards and forwards between the two of them. Well me anyway, my sister got married a year ago and moved into a place of her own.

My car is broken – well, not broken so much as empty of petrol – so I'm on foot, which isn't a problem because I'm bringing Malik along with me. Malik, for clarification, is my dog. He's a German Shepard, a big one at that, he comes up to my hip and has already entered into the bad ass stage of his life.

Mal comes everywhere with me, and has done ever since I got him. My parents actually got him for me when they split, hoping it would make the separation easier for me – I'd also like to take this moment to point out that I'm 23 years old, and not a complete idiot. I knew they weren't happy together, the divorce was a long time in coming and to be quite honest I was relieved when they finally went through with it – they're both a lot happier now and I got a dog out of it.

So anyway, I was heading home, Malik trotting along at my heals. I had my headphones in, mumbling along to whatever song my Ipod had shuffled onto, my backpack slung over one shoulder and my fathers baseball bat wedged through the straps. Oh, the bat? My dad is under the impression that if a zombie apocalypse ever happens, I'll probably be at mum's, the bat is a safety precaution.

Yeah. He's a nerd.

I heard Mal bark and turned my head slightly to look at him, only he wasn't there. Something you should probably know about Malik is that he is the worlds best behaved dog, honestly, sometimes I think he just knows what I'm saying and does what he's told. He never wanders off – he doesn't even chase cats!

I panicked and I remember spinning round to find him, my eyes as wide as dinner plates when I saw him in the middle of the road. He barked again, his head down. I didn't think about it, I just stepped off the pavement and onto the road. I live in a small town and while traffic isn't London heavy it's still not a good idea to go meandering up and down the roads without looking – lucky for me and Mal there wasn't anything coming round the corner.

In a matter of seconds I'm beside him and clamping my hand down on the back of his collar, he looked up with deep brown eyes and gave another bark before pawing at the ground. That's when I saw it. A small golden coin, but it was weird, certainly not a pound coin or any currency that I recognised.

With a frown I stooped down and picked it up, keeping a firm grip on my wayward dog. The coin was heavy and warm in my hand, as if it had been out in the sun all day, though it had been cloudy since the early morning. It was strange, I remember staring at it for a few seconds, like I couldn't tear my eyes away – and that was when it happened.

The car was definitely going over the speed limit as it bombed round the corner, and of course Mal and I were standing directly in it's path. I'll admit I didn't react as I should have done. I just stood there, looking dumb as it hurtled towards me, not even trying to move. At the last second my mind started to process what was happening and I dropped down, throwing my arms around Mal and closing my eyes tight. A horn blared, Mal yelped and I went flying.

It's all a bit hazy to be honest. I remembered the car, and I remembered falling, though it took a lot longer to hit the ground than it should have. When I woke up - and between you and me it was a surprise that I woke up at all – I was nursing the worst headache of my life. Even worse than when my cousin had convinced me that Jaeger bombs were a good idea. I groaned, pushed myself up into a sitting position, despite my bodies protests and massaged my eyes with the palms of my hands.

"Ow." I muttered, dropping my hands into my lap and blinking my eyes open. That was a shock, I can tell you. I sprang to my feet, tripping over my boots in the process with a shout of distress because I was not where I should have been.

I suppose I was expecting to wake up on the side of the road, or perhaps in a hospital bed but I certainly hadn't expected to wake up in a forest. Can you blame me?

As I'm looking round I see a black and tan lump lying a few meters away, and that can only be one thing, so I rushed over.

"Mal!" I said, half kneeling half falling to the ground beside the dog. I placed my hands on his side and shook him gently, relieved to see his chest rising and falling. "Mal, come on boy, wake up!"

It's at this moment that I realised just how big he was. As I said before he's always been a large dog, but as I looked at him, with my hand on his chest, I realised that he wasn't just big, he was huge! My hand looked more like a dolls against him.

I can recall the sinking feeling in my stomach as I turned my hands palm up and looked at them. My gaze travelled to my body, to my perfectly fitted Game of Thrones 'Nights watch' t-shirt, which now looked several sizes too big. My skinny jeans which were almost down around my ankles and the fake fur boots my sister had bought me last year practically hanging off my feet.

"What the fuck?" I ask to no one in particular, pushing to my feet and patting myself down, frantically. "No, no, no, no, no!"

I turned, staring wide eyed into the trees as if they could explain to me why I had shrunk! They didn't answer, thank God, I don't think I would have been able to take a talking tree with everything else that had happened. I shook my head and spotted something dark out of the corner of my eye. My bag!

I waddled over, cautious of tripping over my ridiculously sized clothes and snatched up my bag, checking it over quickly. Apparently I was the only think that had been miniaturized during ... whatever had happened!

Another thing you should probably know, is that there are some things I never leave home without, all of which can be found within my rucksack. The first, and most important to me, is my sketch book. The second is my Ipod. Other items include a book (One of Brandon Sandersons MistBorn trilogy in this case), my purse, a pair of aviators and a pair of glasses for driving (The glasses I need, the aviators just make me feel cool), along with a pocket knife and torch that my father had given me last year before we went camping.

Nothing that would actually help me, of course, but I felt a little better knowing that I had some of my belongings. And look, there's my bat! I picked up the bat, and that was a lot bigger than I remembered it being too.

I'm not overly sure that I want to tell you what happened next, mainly because it made me feel stupid, but I suppose I did say I'd let you know the full story.

I was mulling over my peculiar short problem when I heard a savage snarl behind me. My first thought was that a wolf or something equally as unfriendly had found me and was about to make a swift meal out of me. So I span around, bat in hand to confront my would be attacker – only there was nothing there – nothing except Malik.

And he was snarling at me!

"M-mal?" I stammered, shocked. He'd never bared his teeth at me like this before, and I'm ashamed to admit that I was actually a little scared of him. He was, after all, almost as big as me at this time. "Mal, what's wrong?"

He snapped his teeth, growling as he prowled towards me, his eyes dark. I took a step back, and of course tripped over my own damn boot, the motion startled him and Malik leapt at me. I hit the ground and he landed on top of me, knocking the wind out of me as he did so. He stood, snarling over me.

"Mal, come on," I whimpered, his saliva flecking my face. Something was digging into my back and it took me moment to realise it was the bat. It hurt. I didn't know where I was, why I was suddenly 4 foot instead of 5'4, and now my only companion was threatening to tear my throat open. I don't like admitting it, but I couldn't stop the tears that started to leak from my eyes. Though I think it was justified, considering. "M-M-Malik! Please!"

There is only so much sobbing you can do while cowering from your supposedly faithful friend, and let me tell you it's actually quite a lot. I lay there for what felt like an age, waiting for him to bite me or do something, little river still streaming down my face. I could barely see straight through the tears so it came as a shock to me when something warm and rough rasped across my face, licking a line through my tears.

"Mal?" I questioned. He gave me a pitiful whine, as if he had no idea what had come over him. He licked my face again, and I wrapped my unfamiliarly short arms around his neck and buried my face into his fur, still crying.

I'm not sure if it just took him a while to recognise me in my little body, or if he knew me from the sound of my voice, or my smell, or if he had just been frightened by our sudden change of location, but I can tell you I was more than glad to have him back.

"Oh Mal, don't scare me like that!" I hiccuped, pulling away from his now damp fur. He sat back and tilted his head to the side, the way dogs do sometimes. "As if things aren't weird enough as it is!"

I pushed to my feet, wiping my eyes on my stupidly long t-shirt sleeve and took a ragged breath. I don't usually cry, honestly, and I knew I shouldn't have told you about it. Whatever, it happened, you can't blame me under the circumstances.

"We've got to find out where we are," I said determinedly, sniffing. "and what the hell is happening."

I nodded to myself, bending down to roll up my trouser legs and tighten the straps on my boots and belt. I wasn't going to get anywhere if I fell over every other step! Next I picked up my bag, adjusting the shoulder straps on that too so it didn't keep slipping off my smaller frame, and lastly I took up the bat.

"Alright Mal, which way?" I asked, he snorted, which wasn't very helpful, but I hadn't been expecting much from him to be honest. I headed off to the left, following a deer track as it twisted through the trees, hoping I'd find something that resembled civilisation where I could puzzle out what was going on.

I've been on regular camping trips with my dad since I was a kid, so I'm not completely lost in a forest, thought I wouldn't have said no to a map. As it was, I eventually found my way out of the forest after a few hours, though purely through luck. When I emerged from the leafy fortress, Mal at my side, I was more than a little surprised with that I saw.

"No. Fucking. Way." I gasped out, my eyes wide. I knew where I was. I couldn't possibly be where I thought I was but I couldn't think of any other place it could be, which really narrowed down my options on location.

I looked out over a series of grassy hills, each one with a small, perfectly round door set into the side. Each door was painted a different colour – blue, red, yellow, orange – and each one boasted a picturesque little garden full of flowers and shrubbery. I had seen it a few times before, though only through a television screen.

"The Shire?" I questioned to myself. That couldn't be right. "...Shit."

There you go, first chapter down! I hope you guys liked it and I'll try and make the next one a little longer - as I'm sure you've guessed we'll be meeting our Company in the next chapter so stay tuned!