Dorothy Gale hadn’t been back to Kansas in over thirty years. The farmhouse was still there — barely — weather-worn and sinking into the tall prairie grass like it was too tired to stand. She stood by the rusted gate with her suitcase and her secrets, wondering if the wind still whispered through the corn the way it used to.
She hadn’t come back for nostalgia. She came because she was starting to forget which side of the rainbow she’d really lived on.
Inside the house, the furniture was coated in dust, the air thick with silence. On the mantle, an old black-and-white photo of a little girl with braided hair and haunted eyes looked back at her. The girl who once flew through a tornado and landed in Oz.
But Oz wasn’t how she remembered it. Not anymore.
It had changed. Or maybe she had.
🌪️ The First Cracks Appear
It began in dreams.
The yellow brick road was cracked now, weeds pushing through the seams. The Emerald City flickered like a dying light bulb. The Scarecrow sat in a field, straw spilling from his seams, whispering nonsense to crows. The Tin Man had rusted shut. The Cowardly Lion prowled the shadows, his eyes wild, his fur matted.
"You left us, Dorothy," he growled in her dream. "You promised you'd remember."
She woke up in cold sweat, hearing the wind howl outside her Toronto apartment. But it wasn’t just a dream.
The peeling started next. Not of her skin, but of reality itself. At red lights, she’d glimpse flickers of Munchkins in alleyways. Her reflection in the mirror once wore ruby slippers. Once, she opened her fridge and heard distant, echoing laughter — the kind the Wicked Witch used to make before the house fell on her.
Was she going mad? Or was something calling her back?
🌈 The Return Through the Rainbow
The sky over Kansas had turned greenish. Not storm-green, but Oz-green. She felt it before she saw it — that slight tug in the chest, like the moment before sleep or the final drop on a roller coaster.
She walked into the barn.
There was no tornado this time. Just stillness. Then a faint hum, like old gears winding. The hay around her rose slowly into the air. Time folded inward. And suddenly, she was falling up.
🧠The Other Side
Oz was sick.
The colours were too sharp, like the world had been over-saturated by grief. The Yellow Brick Road now shimmered like cracked glass, and the Emerald City was no longer a beacon, but a prison of green light — always glowing, never warm.
At its gate stood Glinda, the once-beautiful sorceress. But her eyes were tired, and her dress had lost its sparkle.
"You came back," Glinda said. "You never truly left. Part of you’s always been here."
Dorothy looked down at her hands. They were cracked like porcelain. She was breaking — from the inside out.
“What happened to this place?”
“You abandoned it,” Glinda said gently. “This was your mind, Dorothy. Your escape. Your sanctuary. But you locked the door and threw away the key.”
Dorothy remembered now — Oz wasn’t a dream. It was the part of her that helped her survive a life she couldn’t understand. A life of disappointment, hidden pain, and longing for somewhere over the rainbow.
She had forgotten who she was.
🪞 The Truth Behind the Curtain
Deep in the Emerald Palace, behind the curtain once used to hide a fraud of a wizard, there stood a mirror. Cracked. Silvered. Glowing faintly.
Dorothy approached it.
Her reflection was her, but also not. Braided hair, ruby slippers, wide eyes filled with fear and wonder.
She reached out, touching her own image. The mirror rippled.
"You don’t have to choose," said the reflection. "You can be both: the girl who escaped and the woman who lived."
The world around her began to dissolve — Oz folding into itself like a dream finally letting go.
🌾 Back in Kansas
The wind rustled the fields. Dorothy sat on the front porch of the farmhouse, the morning sun casting long shadows. In her hand, she held a small, cracked compass — green, gold, and faintly humming. A gift from a dream, or a memory, or maybe a part of her that had always been real.
She didn’t need to go back again.
Oz wasn’t a place anymore.
It was her.
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