Deemo's Unforeseen Destiny

The room was dark. The air was silent except for the sound of someone sniffling quietly. Then, a small orange light lit up in the corner of the room.

The boy groaned and turned away from it, rolling onto his side. Then he froze. Something hard had jabbed him in the ribs. Slowly, he wrapped his hand around it and pulled it out of his blankets. A rectangular object with a small screen flickered to life in his hand. He could make out an orange icon on its face.

"Play message," the boy mumbled, rubbing his eyes sleepily. His voice sounded strange to him, raspy and gravelly like he'd been screaming all night. Or crying tears of blood.

A woman's voice spoke through the device, low and urgent: "James, where are you? We've been looking for hours! Please call me back." There was a pause, and then she asked quietly, "Why did you leave?"

The boy nearly dropped the phone when it started ringing again. He looked at it in confusion for a moment before answering it. "Hello?"

"James!" a man's voice shouted into the phone, clearly relieved. "Thank God! Where are you?"

"I don't know," James said slowly, running one hand over his face as if trying to smooth out his skin. "I'm... I'm in my bedroom..."

"Oh thank God," the woman on the other end said faintly before clearing her throat loudly and saying in a firm voice, "we'll be right there." The line went dead before James could say anything else. He set down the phone with a sigh and turned back onto his side, facing away from the bright orange glow. Another jab poked him in the lower back and he reached behind him again to pull something else out of his blankets--this time a heavy black book with gold lettering on its cover: A Hero's Journey Across Middle Earth: The Life of Frodo Baggins.

He sighed and flung it across the room angrily before curling himself up into a ball and going back to sleep.