He hit the stone floor of the chamber with a thud, hardly daring to move.  Desperately, he tried to muster his thoughts and assess the situation calmly.  Too late, he thought.  Any dwelling on the predicament he was in would only make things worse.

            The floor was cold, cold as he lay there stripped, yet he could not tell if he shivered due to that or due to the strain of his muscles, from climbing those stairs.  How many days ago was it?  It felt like months, but he knew it could not be that long.  And a new pain troubled him, fresh and sharp as a hot knife, on the back of his neck.  Where was he?

            Captive.  The word seemed to echo in his brain.  He could taste the blood, fresh on his lips—he had refused to give them the joy of hearing him scream when they had questioned him.  He had held out, but who knew how long he would next time?  How long would it be before he went mad?

His heart told him he had lived in this nightmare forever, but his head said it could not have been that long.  He remembered, before the dreams had come on, running—running down a tunnel, yearning to be free of the stifling air of that cave.  Then… Sam had cried out, but before he could react—

Sam.  He took a sharp breath.  How could he have forgotten about Sam?  Where was he?  A million answers sprang into his mind, and none of them were hopeful.  Oh, Elbereth, he thought.  Please, please, let him be alive.  Let him be safe.  Safe?  He nearly laughed at himself for daring to think such a thing.

Of all those who had tried to help him, they were either dead, now, or caught up in a war he had been too late to stop.  And now, Sam, too, was lost— dead, stranded on the edges of Mordor, or captured as he was.

He forced himself to breathe.  He could not banish his despair, but perhaps he could distract himself from it.  He closed his eyes and did what he used to do in the early days of the Quest, when homesickness had plagued him and he had still had a hope of return.  He brought back his memory.

He had done this so often, just before he had set out—on his long rambles throughout the Shire, he had treasured up all the images of his favorite haunts, unsure at the time if he would see them again.

He let himself have a small smile, and called up his memories of home.  Frowning, he paused for a moment: the familiar image of Bag End had not sprung into his mind.  Home, he thought again.  Sleeping late on a Thursday morning.  Nothing was there.

He frowned even more.  This was strange indeed.  He tried another image.  The Water.  Sitting, letting my feet be washed by the cool stream as I hear it running through the Mill.  No image, no sound, no feel of water came into his mind.  He tried something along the Quest—meeting the elves of the Woody End.  Gildor Inglorion.  The fair feast they prepared for us.  The wholesome bread.  Hearing the beautiful language they spoke rolling of their tongues.  Nothing.

Desperate, he cast about for a sad memory, one that had been with him for many years—perhaps he could remember grief. The Brandywine.  Hushed whispers, cousins’ tears, cold earth and cold comfort and—

Nothing.

Mother!

Father!

Nothing.

He tried to remember so many things, to bring them in his mind, but each time he failed.  At last, defeated, he wept, barely shaking so nobody could see him.  You have already taken so much from me, he thought to the Ring.  You cannot take my memory as well!

Where was it?  Not round his neck, nor in his pockets, surely not that, not my precious—

They’d stripped him of everything.  Of course.  Everything, he thought dimly, the word echoing in his mind…

No wonder he felt so empty inside.

He heard yelling and fighting below him.  They had gone through his possessions, then; and they had found it.

It was the end.