Dimensional Reality: Oz (Chapter 7)

Dorothy groaned and slowly opened her eyes.  Everything looked tilted at an odd angle.  She tried to correct this by rolling over but found she couldn’t.  Then everything that had happened came back to her.  Her eyes opened wide as she really looked around her.  She found that she was tied up and hanging on her side.  She saw the majority of her clothing lying in a dirty pile nearby.  She was able to move her head but that was about it.  The place around her looked as if it had once been beautiful, but had not been like that for a long time.  Dirty and broken houses were all around her.  A path with faded and cracked bricks was nearby.  She could see piles of rubble all around.  Nearby some long unused flower beds lay broken and crumbling.  She groaned again.  She saw movement nearby and wasn’t sure if she should call for help or not.  A creature stepped out of the rubble of a nearby shack.  A few more followed it.  They were small, the size of children.  Her rational mind told her they must be midgets, but some voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that they were called munckins.  The only munckins she had ever heard of were in that old Wizard of Oz movie and these definately didn’t look like them.  As they moved closer she saw that they were all deformed, many with scars, other seemed to be missing limbs, fingers, or eyes.  The group walked over to her.

“Please, you have to help me.  Please, get me out of these ropes.”

They looked at each other for a few moments and then laughed.  She saw more and more munckins walking over and soon there was a large crowd surrounding her.  Soon they started to poke and prod her.  She tried to struggle but couldn’t move.  Many of them grew bolder, grabbing at her and scratching her with their dirty long nails.  She started to scream.  Then she heard a bellow above all the noise.  All the munckins stopped and a path cleared in the crowd.  She saw a munckin there, taller and bigger than all the rest, looking more deformed and evil than any other.  He walked over until he was right in front of her.  He smiled cruelly at her and spoke.

“So you’ve returned.  It has been a long time since we’ve seen you Princess.  But you have come too late to save us.  We are all damned.  We called for you, but you did not answer us.  Yet, here you are again.  Your tastes in clothes seemed to have changed much.”

  He gestured to the only items of clothing she had on, a bright red bra and panties set.  The munckins all laughed and jeered.  The leader let it go on for a few moments, then raised his hand for silence.

“You have come back.  And this time we are going to make sure you don’t leave us.  We will keep and mark you as our own.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I don’t know how I got here.  Please, just let me go. Please.”

  He smiled at her again and reached into the rag he was wearing.  He pulled out something that looked similar to a syringe, but organic.  It was short and fat.  Without warning, he stabbed it into her thigh.

“Hush little one.  This will fix you up just right.”

Dorothy felt drowsy, but she felt sick, like she was going to throw up.  Her vision kept blurring in and out, but she saw that the leader had turned toward a munckin near the back, doing something in a big pot.  He handed something to the leader and the leader turned back to face her.  He smiled and she finally saw what he held.  It was a brand.  There was a circle with two letters she couldn’t make out, glowing a dull red.  She tried to scream or cry for help, but she couldn’t.

“Don’t worry little one.  This won’t hurt us a bit.”

He laughed as he advanced toward her…

-Damien