Hey guys,

So this is a story about how the Wicked Witch of the West became evil. I wrote it for a summer writing contest (which, by the way, did not win anything but a "thanks for entering"), and changed a few things and added a lot because we had a really small word limit. I also took the original and added and perfected it to it to give it to my friend Lily for her birthday, so happy very late birthday, Lily! Anyways, this is my take on how the Wicked Witch of the West became evil.

Disclaimer: I do not own the original story, The Wizard of Oz. All rights belong to the author. (This is a bit weird because it's mostly OCs, and I'm not really sure if Wanda would be an OC or not.)

"You let the fire out, And now it's right in front of me"

The Fire- Kina Grannis

"Wanda, come on. It'll be fun, and no one will find out."

Wanda was a Flame-Glider. All her life, she had been told to stay out of the water, never go near the water; water is dangerous. It weakens your life force, and it will kill you. Wanda knew that if anyone discovered that she was courting Kaelo, a Pond-Dweller, she would be thrown into the ocean and left to die. She shuddered at the thought.

"Alright, but I'll have to be home by noon." As she reached for her cloak, she called "and if anyone sees us, I'll come back to life and kill you." Kaelo bowed, teasingly, and said, "of course, Love."

It was the best thing she had ever felt. For the first time, she felt a salty breeze blowing through her raven black hair, and felt soft sand beneath her tanned bare feet. For the first time, standing on the fine, white sand of the beach, she felt free. Wanda had never realized how imprisoned she had felt. How her soul yearned to feel the ocean. Never, had she realized the beauty in that mysterious stretch of water that disappeared into the horizon. Wanda and her lover ran across the beach, laughing, and chasing each other across the white sand. At some point she looked over her shoulder as she ran expecting to see Kaelo running behind her on the sand, but instead, Kaelo was running on the water, tiny splashes erupting under his feet. Wanda skidded to a stop and almost fell over into the sand.

"What are you doing?" she yelled, surprised.

Kaelo skidded to a stop, the water rippling and spraying from under his feet. "What I do best," he replied. "Can't you do things like this with fire?"

"Of course I can," she replied. "But I thought fire was just as deadly to you like it is to me."

Kaelo shrugged his shoulders. "It is, but we can be careful."

A challenging grin spread across Wanda's face, and she extended her hands. "Okay, if you're sure." The ground in front of her lit up. She stepped onto her flaming terrain. "Ready, set, GO!"

They set off, this time faster than before. They were practically blurs of orange and blue, soaring across the sand. Each time one started to pass the other, they would speed up, so that they switched places, Orange and Blue neck and neck. Kaelo threw his head back as he ran, and let out a shout of glee. When they reached the brick wall of an abandoned beach house, they collapsed in the sand, their chests heaving, their respective element fading back into their skin.

"I think I won," Wanda said. Kaelo got up, and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

"Sure you did. I'm pretty sure I won." Then he backed up and started pacing the sand.

After a while Wanda looked up at her lover. "What's wrong?" she asked while he walked a trench in the sand.

He shook his head. "I have the potential to kill you. Why do you love me?"

"I could kill you too," she gently reminded him, "and I don't care. I love you, you love me, and that's all I need to know.

He nodded and kissed her before returning to his pacing. Wanda lay back down on the sand, and closed her eyes.

"Ow!" Wanda felt a sharp pain on her foot. When she got up to look at it, she saw that there was an angry red welt there. She looked up to see where it had come from, and saw Kaelo standing in front of her with a dome of water above his head. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in shock.

"What are you doing?" she screamed.

"Seeing how much you really love me," he said solemnly, and a curtain of rain began to pour around her. "If you love me, walk through it."

"Are you crazy? It'll kill me," she said, scrambling up against the wall to escape the fatal droplets.

Kaelo shook his head. "You really believe that?" he said, "It'll probably only weaken you to walk through that. They just tell you that to scare you."

"Why, though? Why can't you just take my word for it? Can't you just know that I love you instead of making me prove it? I love you! I do!"

"Then show me." He gestured to the fall of water surrounding her. "You're running out of time. You're not in any danger now, but if you keep waiting the water will start to pool and you'll definitely die."

She looked at her feet, stinging and red with blisters. The water was slowly but surely creeping closer. "Please, Kaelo, I'm begging you, let me go. This is crazy!"

"What's crazy is that I thought you loved me." He turned his back and walked away, leaving Wanda backed up against a stone wall with no way to get out.

When she could no longer see him, Wanda let a small whimper escaped her throat. She cast fire all around her, but it was extinguished by the flames. No matter how much she used, it disappeared into steam. Fear was gnawing away at her stomach. Her death would be slow and painful. The water had now reached her feet, and though she had never felt burns before, she realized that this is what it must feet like. She was going to burn to death in water. One thing was right, though no one knew that water burned, water did in fact weaken her. She felt her knees grow weak from supporting her own weight, and soon collapsed into the water.

"Help," she croaked. "Help." Her pleas for help was so soft, she wouldn't have been able to move a blade of grass with it. The light started to fade from her eyes and her breath came short when a pair of shiny black boots appeared in front of her. The water around her dried up even though the curtain still poured. Wanda looked up at her rescuer. He was a young man, but not handsome, and not someone she would want to come across on her own. He had saved her life.

"Thank you, sir! You saved me," she said and threw herself at his feet.

The man grabbed her shoulder and forced her up roughly. "Not without a price, I didn't," he said with a sneer on his face.

Surprised at his roughness, Wanda started to stutter out words. "N-No, of –of course not, S-Sir. A-Anything you ask."

He sneered at her. "Two options." He held up two fingers. "One, you come live with me and become my wife," he put one finger down, "and two, you take my place as Warlock of the West, and become the Witch of the West." He dropped the hand, "Which one?"

Wanda couldn't believe her ears. Marry him or take his place as chief Warlock? She had no idea what the chief warlock was, but she knew witches and warlocks were bad. So that wasn't and option, but she didn't want to marry this man. Despite the fact that he had saved her, he seemed like a very cruel person. It also seemed as if he had saved her for his own personal gain. She didn't know what to do. How could she choose between two things she didn't want?

"Hurry up, girl. If you don't make up your mind, I'll put you back in the water and leave you to die."

Making up her mind, she answered, "I-I'll become Witch of the West."

"Good girl," the man said, grinning. He waved his hand, and Wanda suddenly felt dizzy. Her vision doubled, and the man looked twice as ugly. took a small vial of chunky black liquid out of his pocket, uncorked it, and put a piece of his own hair into it. "Drink it all," he said.

Wanda took the vial, un corked it. and drank it. It tasted like pepper and burned just as much going down. As she doubled over, retching, and could feel the changes happening. The man in front of her began to melt, cackling loudly, and crying sweet praises to the sky.

As Wanda walked down the dirt road of her village, she smiled at her friends, but sneers met her. Other villagers scampered away in fear, and dogs growled at her and bared their teeth. Some had the nevre to shout things at her. "Witch," they yelled, pointing fingers at her. "Stay away from me, she devil."

Wanda headed straight to her parent's house, sure that at least the people who had raised her would accept her. Her mother answered the door.

Her mother answered the door with a smile on her face, but she saw who it was, the corners of her mouth fell.

"Mama? It's me, Wanda."

Her mother sneered at her and hissed, "You are not my Wanda. Not anymore. My Wanda was beautiful and proud; she would never have become this… thing! Now get out of here, Witch."

Wanda couldn't believe it. She thought at least her mother would be kind, if not the rest of the village. "No, Mama, you don't understand! I was-"

"I don't care what you have to say, Witch. Get away from my house before I make you leave."

With tears streaming down her face, Wanda ran from the house, and out of the village, until she reached the beach where Kaelo had tricked her. The tears stung her face and eyes, and traced angry red trails down her cheeks. She used her sleeve to wipe away the drops of water. Her entire hated her for becoming a witch. How had they known?

Kaelo. This was his fault. If he had just believed that she loved him this would not be happening to her. She would never have made the deal with that man, and would never have been turned away by the people she loved.

"Kaelo, you'll pay," she said to the ocean before she turned away and began walking towards the lake village.

The lake village was by the forest. It was a small village, with houses made of dried water reeds and mud. All that much easier to burn, Wanda thought to herself. Standing by the gates of the village, she raised both hands her body surged with power, and fire erupted from the ground surrounding the village. As she slowly brought her hands together, the ring of fire got smaller and smaller, gradually collapsing upon the village. Screams and cries of children, women, and men rang up through the air, but to Wanda, it was music to her ears. She walked into the village, and saw all the villagers clustered in a tight clump; All of them were trying to escape the deadly flames. When they saw her coming, they screamed louder. But they were not the screams she wanted to hear.

"WHERE IS KAELO AMUR?" she bellowed. "WHERE IS HE?"

More screams came from crowd. Shuffles people strted to puch and shove eachother, and a dark haired man was jostled throught the crowd to the edge of the and Kaelo was pushed out. The moment she saw him, she snapped her already extended hand, and the ring reformed so that Kaelo was no longer in the circle, but standing in his own smaller circle of flames. He looked around frantically, trying to find a way of escape. When he couldn't find one, he turned to his former lover.

"Wanda, you don't have to do this," he said, trying to calm both himself and her. "Stop what you're doing. This isn't necessary."

"No, it isn't necessary. But it is necessary that I get my revenge, and this is how I'm going to do it."

The fire inched closer to his face, forcing him to turn around to face his village.

"You brought this upon them. Now watch them suffer." She slowly began to draw her hands closer together, making the giant ring of fire smaller. The Pond-Dwellers inched closer together, trying to escape the inevitable; Then the first cry of pain from a small child rang up from the shrieks of terror. Kaelo's cries for her to stop grew louder. More cries of pain followed the first, as the villagers made contact with the deadly flame. Some people collapsed the moment they touched the fire, others erupted in flames and screamed before they collapsed. For a few minutes, the only sounds that could be heard were screams, crying, and the cackle of the fire burning its victims, but soon, Kaelo's entire village lay burning on the ground. Kaelo had fallen to his knees a long time ago, partly from grief, and partly from exhaustion. Tears streamed down his face, and his hair was sweaty and sticking to his forehead.

"Why," he sobbed, "Why did you do that?"

Wanda smirked at him. "I think you know the answer. But you're not going to live long enough for me to know if you really don't."

She watched as Kaelo's bloodshot eyes flickered to her now outstretched hand, and watched as the open hand closed into a tight fist before he was engulfed in flames. His cry of pain was better than the whole village crying and screaming. When his body slumped to the ground, unconscious, she let it burn until he was nothing but a pile of ashes; she stared at it for a while before turning around, and running into the forest.

Thanks for reading!

For those of you who read my Letters I Never Sent, I'M HONESTLY SO SORRY! I honestly have no excuse other than I had an exchange student at my house for three months, and I've been busy, and I am now in Quebec on and exchange for three months. But the next chapter is almost done, and I'm working on making it a bit longer than all the other, but it probably won't be... Sorry! (again)

Follow, Favourite, Review!

- DragonJade