Bandung, late afternoon. The rain drizzled softly, its scent of damp earth seeping through the uncleaned windows of a second-floor boarding room. On the screen of an aging laptop, a young man in a worn-out hoodie typed furiously, his brows furrowed in deep concentration. His name was Chandra. Thirty-something, a die-hard fan of The Lord of the Rings. And that day… his heart burned with frustration.
"Why did they turn The Hobbit into three movies? The book is thin enough, and they dragged it out unnecessarily. The first movie was fine, the second lost its way, and the third? Forget it. Smaug's silhouette looked like a mobile game boss."
His fingers danced over the keyboard, hammering the letters as if exacting revenge for his shattered expectations. Beside him, a cup of coffee had gone cold. Behind him, a Gandalf poster had started peeling off the wall.
He clicked "Publish" on his blog with a satisfied yet cynical smirk, muttering:
"Sorry, Peter Jackson. Tolkien must be uneasy watching you from the other side."
Suddenly—bzzt... krk!—the laptop screen flickered. A strange noise. Not from the speakers. From inside the machine. The temperature spiked. Chandra instinctively stepped back, his pulse quickening.
"Wait, seriously? Why does it smell like burning...?"
Boom!
A tiny explosion blinded his vision. Then—darkness. No, white. A flood of light overwhelmed his sight.
White. Silent. Void.
Chandra opened his eyes. Or… his consciousness awakened. He couldn't feel his body. But he knew he was.
Before him stood a colossal gate, intricately carved, forged from metal and light. On its surface, ancient letters were inscribed—letters he somehow understood:
"Those who seek meaning shall pay the price of knowing."
A voice—formless, without origin—spoke within his mind. Calm. Neutral. As if reading his very thoughts.
"You resent a world that does not understand stories. Thus, you shall be sent to a world yet to be written."
"You may choose. Forget and return. Or carry all that you know… and bear the consequences."
Chandra hesitated. He knew this voice was no joke. He stared at the gate as it slowly creaked open.
"If this is Middle-earth... I refuse to be just a spectator."
"I will rewrite Rohan. From the beginning."
Then—darkness. Cold. Silence.
Crying. A woman's scream. The scent of blood and wet earth.
Chandra opened his eyes—but everything was blurred. He couldn't move his head. Voices echoed around him. A foreign language. Yet he… understood?
"My son… my boy...""What name shall you give him, King Thengel?"
"Thalion. He shall be the new dawn for my people."
Thalion? Who?
Wait... King Thengel? Isn't that Théoden's father??
...Wait. That means I'm...
His hands were tiny. His voice only a newborn's cry. But his mind? Still Chandra. And now, he knew one undeniable truth:
He had been reborn as Artur, the older brother of Théoden. A prince never written in history.
And from that day forward... the story of Rohan would change forever.