The vision of darkness was all she saw for what felt like an eternity, as if her mind had woken up hours before her body, yet she could not feel, hear, nor see anything. Then, when she least expected, blinding visions of blurred light entered her sight, as Dorothy slowly awoke from her deep slumber. The blinding light slowly focused into a pair of lanterns with flames so dim they barely lit the corner of the room, yet offered enough light for Dorothy to see slightly around the small space. Dorothy murmured and stirred slightly as she took in the room around her, unable to recognise the location, nor any of the apparatus and objects.
Dorothy’s body slowly arose and as it did, so too did her body as the toned muscles in her legs awoke and she attempted to stand up.
Where am I? Thought Dorothy with her dizzying thoughts. She went to place her right hand on whatever she lay on to support herself as she went to stand. She was taken by surprise however as she quickly leaned further far more than she thought she would, falling onto the wooden floor and crashing her face bluntly with a loud crash, before collapsing against the ground.
Pain spread through her face, but only the amount that would leave a small bruise. Dorothy was more concerned by why she fell, her natural instinct of getting out of bed all her life had trained her to rely on her arm without even thinking about it. As she lay on the floor, she found the reason why she fell, a reason that made her scream in horror at the top of her lungs. Her scream echoed through the small, cluttered room and she began to breathe at a rapid pace, unable to think rationally as she looked down at her missing arm. Where she expected to see her right arm, was now only the view of a piece of cloth attached to the bottom of her shoulder where her arm now ended, held together with tan leather straps.
“No!..No! No! No! No!” Dorothy screamed some more and panicked as she scurried on the floor, with her back soon meeting a cabinet that shook and rattled the glass from the impact of her body. She lay on the floor with her heart feeling like it was going to beat out of her chest, tears ran down her eyes from the amount of anxiety she felt. Dorothy felt like she could pass out at that very moment.
Among her panic, she saw a full-length mirror on the other side of the narrow room. The mirror reflected back the image of the cluttered room and Dorothy, confirming what she didn't want to acknowledge. She screamed once again, like a young child who was shown their worst fears. That was, until her screams were interrupted by a loud crash.
Dorothy’s head snapped to the source of the sound, that which was the wooden door to the room crashing open, someone Dorothy couldn’t believe, or rather, something she couldn’t believe. An abnormally large cricket stood in the doorway, roughly a little larger than Dorothy herself. The creature twitched and jerked his head rapidly like a regular size one would, but with the larger size of the creature and thus, more clarity, it freaked Dorothy out to no end. She curried to her feet and struggled to hold her balance now with her asymmetrical weight, but she managed. She watched the creature carefully as her breath and heart rate slowed slightly, watching the creature slowly patter around the room unfocused, struggling to do so due to the busy nature of the room. Dorothy cautiously walked around the creature as it made its way through the room, not paying Dorothy any mind as it was distracted across the space. A creak in the old floorboard changed that however, and the creature's bulbous black eyes met Dorothy’s. A fear rose in her and the creature slowly paced towards her, its spindly feet snapping across the ground and its movements remaining erratic.
Despite her fear, Dorothy’s instincts kicked in as she entered the fight or flight, unburdened by the fear that was coursing through her body as she was unsure if the creature meant harm to her. She broke into her familiar stance, her left foot forward and her feet squared off against the creature, followed by a quick step forward towards the cricket with a graceful movement. Before the creature had time to take another action, she stepped forward and delivered a powerful front kick to the creature's face, the impact knocking the insect down and crashing against the wood-panelled wall loudly. The creature collapsed against the floor in a jumble, slowly trying to pick itself off from its feet sloppily.
Dorothy was certain she felt the bones in its face break from her perfect technique smashing into the cricket's soft head, she had the thought of whether this was a regular insect that had somehow been grown to this abnormal size, but that wasn’t important right now. She couldn't decide on making a run for it, or finishing it off here. So much so, that the creature had time to make its way back up to its small feet, accompanied by horrible noises. Dorothy spotted a pair of scissors lying on a desk close to her point of slumber and impulsively decided upon the latter. She ran and grabbed them with her remaining hand, but the cricket was faster and recovered from its fall, ramming into Dorothy head first and knocking her to the ground, with her scissors falling out of her hand and sliding a short distance away. The creature rushed down the girl as she fell to the ground, it was becoming more violent as the fight went on. Dorothy felt sluggish without her other arm, like she couldn’t perform at her best, but she spotted the scissors next to her and reached over for them in a hurry.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
She fumbled and grabbed them just in time for the cricket to be on top of her, its beady eyes and uncanny face were fully focused on her now, trying to bite out of the girl before it had even reached her. Dorothy panicked and smashed the scissors into the cricket's eye, with only one arm she could only focus on pushing the blades as deep within the frail skull of the creature. The large cricket writhed and screamed with its strange sounds, as it tried to break from the grasp the blades had on him. Despite only having one arm, Dorothy didn't relent and dug into the beast's skull as far as she could. She screamed and put all her might into opening up the scissor handles while embedded within the flesh. The scissors opened up slowly and as they did, the darker blood of the creature began to spurt out, its movements became more panicked and erratic, and then after what felt like a few minutes to Dorothy, it stopped. Dorothy felt no resistance from the creature and it ceased its attack on her. Dorothy rushed out from underneath, eager to get away from the creepy aura it gave her, looking away as it flopped on the ground with a small sound.
Her breathing was once again erratic, her heartbeat was through the roof, and she had never been more scared, even despite winning the fight. She was brought back to reality however when she caught herself in the mirror she found in the corner of the room, grounding her back in reality. She was still wearing her training outfit for kickboxing practice, a black sleeveless tank top, over-knee socks, and the short black leather skirt her father hated, in contrast to being her favorite. Her short black hair was a mess, her toned muscles looked paler than ever and she looked exhausted. Suffice to say, she looked like a wreck. Out of all these features, however, the one that stuck out to her was…everything. Dorothy looked like she had no colour to her, only consisting of black’s and whites, just like if she was on television. She had to take a second look and even got closer to the mirror to be sure of her thoughts, but it was real. It was as if she had lost all her colour.
She turned from the mirror quickly, the sight of her missing arm, above all else made her sick and vomiting was the last thing she wanted. Now that things had settled slightly, Dorothy took in the room around her, the furniture, the apparatus, the way everything was laid out.
“Where am I?” she said silently. She thought the place looked strangely old-fashioned, she had never seen any room with this type of wood paneling. She quickly put together that this place was some sort of clinic, from the old blood-soaked sheets and the sharp objects plastered on a nearby desk, it certainly had that musty smell that old-timey rooms like this gave off. The place began to give her a horrible feeling, in addition to the giant cricket corpse that lay in the middle of the ground, she decided to leave through the doorway it had barged through.
Dorothy was met with a long hallway, made from the same wood paneling the previous room was, though there were no lights through the hallway. Despite that, she could still see well enough, she hadn’t noticed it up until this point, but everything around her looked…brighter, more colourful, almost like a painting. Even despite the fact she was in a room devoid of windows or light sources, it didn't feel that way, thanks to the strange colours the room had for its wood. As she took a second look, however, it wasn't just limited to the wood, all the small objects, all the paintings, everything looked far more colourful. It felt like ever since she had woken up, the world was trying to one-up itself for how much it was trying to creep her out with new surprises. Her next surprise, however, was something she could never have expected.
At the end of the hallway, scraping could be heard against the wood-panelled floor, followed by a small dog rushing towards Dorothy. The young woman stopped walking and broke into her defensive stance once again.
“S-stay away from me!” She shouted down the hallway, at this point, she couldn't handle anymore of this, she was too mentally exhausted and just wanted to be left alone.
“Woah woah hey! Calm down!” said the dog with a cute voice that matched its small appearance. Dorothy’s face immediately turned to confusion. Did that dog just talk?
“You're okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” said the dog as it stopped in front of her.
“Who is speaking to me right now!” asked Dorothy, still unable to believe the dog was capable of talking.
“Well…I am,” said the dog, as if it should have been obvious to Dorothy.
“N-no you are not,” she said pointing down at the dog. “N-none of t-this is real! It can’t be!”
“It obviously is, we might need to save this for later though, it isn't safe for you here, we need to bring you to OZ,” said the dog in perfect speech.
“What are you talking about!?” Dorothy asked, her voice completely exasperated at this point and it sounded like she was begging for someone to make sense.
“C'mon there's no time, this way!” said the dog as it nodded its head for the door at the end of the hallway, running loudly against the wood and leaving Dorothy on her own.
“Hey, no wait! Tell me what’s going on!” Dorothy demanded as she chased after the small thing.
As Dorothy burst through the wooden door, she was met with the chill of the night. She stood in what looked like a small, run-down village in the middle of the woods, only the owls could be heard in the dead of the night. From the looks of the other small houses that were situated around her, the building she woke up in had the better end of the deal when it came to whatever happened to this place. Small wooden houses had holes burned within them, some were even burnt to the ground. It was as if someone let a child go wild with fireworks and no one was around to keep an eye on him.
“This way! Come on, hurry!” Shouted the dog as it looked back to make sure Dorothy was still following it, before running off once again. This time, out from the village and further into the deep woods, so deep that the dog looked to have disappeared as he entered within.
“Hey, wait up” yelled back Dorthoty. God, what is going on, please let this be a dream please Dorothy thought to herself again, the same thought that crossed her head ever since she had found her arm to be missing.