Dorothy Gale was pedaling as fast as she could to her little farm.
Toto pocked his head out of the basket, "Not now Toto!" She cried over the winds. A twister was coming, coming fast and Dorothy wasn't ready.
"I'm comin' auntie Em, I'm comin'."
Auntie Em shut the doors to the storm shelter.
"She'll be fine. I can sense it."
"Wrong before your senses have been." Said a voice in the shadows. Everybody else in the shelter froze. They all turned and bowed to a glowing shape in the corner.
Auntie Em shook her head. "Not this time, this time I'm certain. She's finally going home. We all knew we were never going back, but I felt in my bones that she was the one. The chosen one."
"Poor is our luck with chosen ones. Very poor indeed."
"But her heart is pure, much more pure than… Him."
"Hmmm… perhaps. Perhaps not. One thing you were right about, going home she is. Sense it now I can."
Em Gale knelt on the cold dirt floor. "I pray she will be safe."
"Find someone to guide her I will. Safe she will be. Of all but herself."
"I have no fear of that. She is strong, our Dorothy. Strong."
"For every strength, a weakness there is. Old she is."
"Not half as old as you. Not a tenth as old as you."
"This I know. But still old. Older than allowed. And Naïve. Have to learn fast she will, and luck she will have to have."
"She is ready."
"… Hope so I do. Yes. I do."
"May the force be with her. May the force be with us all."
Dorothy screamed as the tornado hit the house.
This was it she thought. No more Auntie Em, no more Toto, No more safe little farm, no more friends or family.
She was too young to die.
She collapsed onto the bed and struck her head against one of the post. She clung to Toto desperately, as if he could save her. This was all so cruel and horrible, like some dream except too real.
The house rose into the air, and Dorothy screamed as the window shattered. She looked out of the window, and there to here astonishment, was her evil neighbor who had threatened Toto.
She hid Toto's eyes but couldn't hide her own. She was sure that whatever was going to happen to her bike riding neighbor would be horrible.
And she was right.
The cackling grew more and more intense, more powerful, more cruel and wicked and empty. Her black dress growing longer and covering her face. What was left of that face grew wrinkles, and somehow managed to sneer through the laughter.
Dorothy knew through the sneer that she was alone, helpless, that everything good in the world was gone.
No, she realized, I still have Toto. She clung to her pet dog and the laughter stopped, the nightmare frowned, and Toto courageously barked at it.
The Nightmare sneered and raised its boney clawed fingers. Lightning stuck, and gathered around. She didn't know how she knew, but Dorothy Gale knew that the lightning was going to hit her.
She remembered when lightning had hit the tree near her window and started to cry. The Nightmare started to laugh again, when suddenly; a mailbox flew out of the wind and hit it in the face. It gave a startled cry and disappeared.
Dorothy looked out of the broken window. She knew she shouldn't be glad when somebody got hurt, Auntie Em would say it was cruel to be happy when somebody else was pained, and the Nightmare was once her neighbor.
Dorothy didn't care. She was terrified and alone and if she never saw that thing again it would be too soon.
Suddenly, the house stopped spinning and fell. Dorothy tightened her grip on Toto as she fell through the sky.
There was a thud, and then there was nothing.
Dorothy walked out of the house hesitantly, wondering that she was still alive. She hesitated at the door. What if she didn't like what was beyond it.
Trust your instincts a kind old voice whispered.
She spun around but there was nobody there.
"H-Hello?" She called out. "I-Is anybody there?"
There was no answer.
Dorothy was scared. Then Toto jumped out of her arms and started scratching at the door.
She didn't know what instincts were, but she knew she could trust Toto. She opened the door and walked out.
The first thing that struck her was the colour. The whole world was green. Too green to be real, like the green icing that Auntie Em put on her tenth birthday cake.
Then she realized she was surrounded by trees. Lots of them, and they were bigger than any trees she had in Kansas, or even the world she thought.
But then what got her attention, were the little Teddy bears looking at her. These weren't ordinary Teddy Bears she realized.
They're alive.
"Eeech-y Bubbum?" One of them asked.
"Toto" she said to her dog. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
She fainted on the doorstep.
A LONG TIME AGO...
IN A GALAXY FAR FAR
OVER THE RAINBOW
