­Disclaimer: The Wizard of Oz belongs to L. Frank Baum. Wicked belongs to Gregory Maguire and his publishing team. I don't own a whit of any of it and am in no way turning a profit.

It was said that, before death, the entirety of one's life replayed itself as quick as lightning within the dying one's head. Never having died, she had no idea if this was true, but it always seemed to happen in books. Kings and magistrates and the like unfailingly left the world immediately after saying something deep and inspiring, even if they were plague-stricken or gushing blood from a dozen open wounds and, Elphaba had always thought, should therefore have been either unconscious or too distraught to utter anything but screams. She was never sure how many accounts were real and how many were fabrications, but regardless, the kings and officials must have been thinking of their lives as they had lived them in order to know what they wanted to leave behind. It was a revoltingly pretty idea, but in her own way she wouldn't have minded being able to leave the world with something poignant and thought-provoking before departing from it.

And now here she was, remembering everything, the opportunity waiting to be seized, lightning-fast. It was cliche and she hated it, but she had no say in the matter; there were so many things she would have chosen to leave unremembered, so many things that had been left half-done.

A book never understood, a sad green bottle of who-knew-what, forgiveness never attained, Animals still not free, far too much work left unfinished. Had she ever completed anything, ever been good at anything but sticking out like a sore thumb? This was the adolescent in her, calling out questions no one wanted to hear. Moving on, then. So many left behind; Fiyero dead on her account, mad Nor a prisoner; Nessarose, dead as well, using sorcery to compensate for her lack of physical power, and still fulfilling more than her own life of half-fulfilled endeavors could dare to to boast of. Horrible Morrible killed again after she had died. Even the Clock of the Time Dragon had left her story unfinished. It was fitting to die alone, incomplete as ever, no one to call out to. Fiyero dead and gone, the Scarecrow empty; Nanny in a heap at the bottom of the stairs; Glinda off coming into her own on a perfumed cloud of glory; the Wizard still alive. A pawn till the end?

Is this all there is?

The Witch wondered this as she screamed, sinking into nothingness, life replaying up until the girl was there again, pigtails quivering, jaw set in juvenile determination, asking

--is this all there is?--

for I could never forgive myself

--and there was no time for her to choose any moving last words, for the girl's supplication never ceased to echo through her skull, and so she shrieked what was on her mind, characteristically, with no one but the wind and Dorothy Gale to hear.

What a world, what a world