тнε Scarecrow and Dorothy walked briskly down the Yellow Brick Road; their arms entwined, their blood trailing behind them. With each step forward, grey smoke seeped through the cracks in the path, transforming the beautiful Oz into a dark and dreary place. The yellow bricks crumbled, their color fading. The sky became dark, as ominous clouds rolled in and the trees and plants along the side of the road shriveled and died.
They walked for hours, deciding to rest only when they had reached the beginning of the forest, where the apple orchard had been. Where the feisty trees once were, there were now only a few charred stumps and rotted apples. Laying down behind the stumps, Dorothy and the Scarecrow fell asleep, hidden from anyone who might walk down the road.
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The Scarecrow woke to a crow's sharp cry in the middle of the night, the full moon making it easy to see. Once he was certain that Dorothy would not wake, he stood and walked over to the crow in the middle of the road. Cawing again, the crow flew to the Scarecrow's shoulder, whispering in his ear. Two more crows appeared, handing a package to the Scarecrow before taking off. Unwrapping the package, the Scarecrow threw the paper to the wind, letting it fly away, and draped its warm contents over Dorothy.
When she wakes up, she will have a nice surprise.
The Scarecrow smiled inside. He trusted the crows. They were his friends and had never once led him down the wrong path; following them after Dorothy left Oz six years had gotten him a brain. Well, another brain, a new one. One that was much better than the half witted one given to him by the Wizard. He had even gotten a family- brothers and a mother who loved him very much. He would always trust them.
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The sun rose and Dorothy woke with it, pushing her blankets away and stretching, the pale morning sun warming her face.
What a horrible dream! She thought.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she called for Toto. When she did not hear his little nails clicking against the wooden floor as he ran to her, she sat up and opened her eyes wide.
It wasn't a dream.
Tears threatened again and Dorothy reached up to wipe them away, shocked by the state of her hands. Dried blood covered her hands and arms, the tips of her fingers a lighter red from when she had rubbed her eyes. Her clothes were covered in blood as well, from the collar of her dress to the worn tips of her shoes.
Her blanket was also covered in blood and Dorothy reached for it quickly, hoping to find a clean spot that she could use to wipe the blood from her eyes before waking the Scarecrow up. Rolling the blanket over, she screamed and pushed it away, waking the Scarecrow.
Her "blanket" was no blanket at all. The Jitterbug from Munchkinland had shed Glinda's skin, dropping the bloody mess onto Dorothy while she slept. The Scarecrow backed away from her, his eyes widening in shock at the site of Dorothy covered in blood. As she sat in shock, staring at the blood coating her, the Scarecrow stood up, snatching the skin from her and holding it up to the sun, a look of admiration briefly on his face before he cast it aside, helping Dorothy to stand. Tearing a sleeve from his shirt, the Scarecrow began to wipe some of the blood from Dorothy's face and arms, hugging her as she wept quietly.
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When Dorothy finally calmed herself down, they stood up and flicked some of the now dried blood off of her dress, and began walking once more down the ruined Yellow Brick Road. They continued through the orchard, passing the time by kicking rotten apples down the path, keeping their eyes mainly on the ground. The grimy yellow ground was more still more cheerful than the ominous clouds above them, reminding them of their happy days singing and dancing through the forest.
In no time at all, they could see the start of the wild part of the forest up ahead, the silhouette of a man standing on the path, an ax in his hand. A large smile lit up Dorothy's blood covered face as she started running, pulling the Scarecrow behind her. The Scarecrow looked up from the apples that he had been kicking along the path and started struggling, trying to pull away from Dorothy. She just pulled him harder. "Come on Scarecrow! It's the Tinman!" She let go of him once they reached the Tinman, wrapping her arms around his rusted and dented body.
"I've missed you so much!" She let go of him and took a step back, seeing what this twisted Oz had done to him over the years. All of the things she had seen so far, even the Scarecrow's transformation, could not prepare her for what she saw, as she had imagined seeing the Tinman as he was six years ago.
Now he stood before her, dented and rusty, his cone shaped hat bent at a wrong angle. His eyes no longer sparkled in the sun, dulled by rust and grime, and a golden plate was nailed over his mouth, keeping him from speaking. A thick iron handle had been welded to his torso, close to what would have been his collarbone had he been human, along with an iron plate. Overall, it looked as if someone had created a door on the Tinman's body.
This little door was crusted with blood and now and again a few fresh drops of blood would spill out across his chest. His left foot was almost severed, held on only by a thin sheet of metal on the right side of his ankle, giving a sort of lopsided appearance. His trusty ax, once so bright and sharp, was dull, the blade coated in dried blood, the handle melted to his hand.
Dorothy's jaw dropped and she stammered, "C-come with us Tinman. The W-wizard of O-oz can help you." The Tinman didn't move, he just stared at her blankly. Scarecrow began pulling on Dorothy's arm, gesturing urgently, trying to make her walk around the Tinman and keep going. "I'm not leaving him here! Stop pulling me!" The Scarecrow kept pulling and the Tinman raised his ax, the dull blade looking sharper now than it had a moment before, his eyes bright once more as his ax swung quickly towards Dorothy's head.
Reacting quickly, the Scarecrow stopped pulling Dorothy, pushing her instead and jumping into her place. The ax met his face with a sickening thud, embedding itself in his cheekbone and splitting the threads on his mouth. Finally able to speak, the Scarecrow's voice came out raspy with only one word, "Run." Dorothy backpedaled as Scarecrow collapsed and Tinman attempted to pull the ax from Scarecrow's face.
She ran as quickly as possible, looking back long enough to see the ax leave Scarecrows face and the Tinman reach down, thrust his hand through Scarecrow's chest and pull out his heart. He then opened the little iron door on his chest and dropped the heart inside. She kept running and didn't look back.
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Dorothy ran for hours, tears making tracks in the blood on her face. First Toto and now Scarecrow! Everyone was dying in this cursed land and now the Tinman, who had cried so much when she had left Oz, was trying to kill her. She couldn't handle anymore death! All of those years wishing to be back and now all she wanted to do was go home.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her and she felt the now familiar sewn fingers of the Scarecrow on her shoulder, stopping her from running. His face now had a gaping wound that was still bleeding, coating the side of his face. Part of the bone had splintered, giving his face a spiked look. His shirt was coated in blood and there was a large hole in his chest where the Tinman had shoved his hand through.
Scarecrow hugged Dorothy as she began to cry even harder. "I thought you were dead!" His voice, still raspy from lack of use, was barely even a whisper-- "I can't die, remember? I'm a Scarecrow. Sure I have skin and bones now, but that's just magic designed to make me feel temporary pain. These wounds, why, they don't even hurt anymore. I don't feel a thing!" He smiled down at her, the stretched smile gone now that there were no threads sewing his lips shut.
Dorothy smiled back, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Can I ask you a question?"
He nodded and she frowned. "Why didn't you get someone to cut your threads? Or why didn't you ask me somehow?" He sighed and the buttons on his eyes dulled for a moment. "I couldn't. Only the Tinman could have cut me free." He looked at his still sewn hands. "And he never would've done it willingly."
The Scarecrow and Dorothy sat down on the side of the road, a brief moment of calm; the first one since Dorothy had arrived in Oz yesterday. After a long silence Dorothy finally asked, "What's wrong with him? Why is Oz this way and why are you like this?" Scarecrow stretched and stood up, rummaging through his pockets.
"Well, as I told you earlier, the Wicked Witch did this. She never did die like we thought. That explains the way I am and the way Oz looks." He pulled a piece of red thread from his pocket, the same thread that had sewn his mouth shut hours before.
"As for the Tinman, well the same thing is wrong with him too. Except I wouldn't really call it wrong. We were fixed after the Wizard left in his balloon. A woman came and fixed us."
Dorothy stood, nervous now, as the Scarecrow took a step towards her, the thread held tight in his hands. "Who? What's wrong with you two?"
He paused, the stretched smile back on his face even though it was not sewn. "Wrong? Like I said. Nothing's wrong. We were just fixed is all. Now we work for her."
Dorothy's face crinkled in confusion. "Work for who?"
"Why the Wicked Witch of course!" He said with a smile. And with these last words he lunged forward, grabbing her neck and choking her until she passed out.