So, I finally finished it! Wh00t. I hope someone is still interested in reading it, and that they will have the heart to review it...:D
Disclaimer: Thank goodness for not needing to own something to make fun of it.
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"Well, now that she's gone..." Bob said to himself.
"Are you going to follow the yellow brick road, too?" asked an eavesdropping Munchkin.
"Nope. I'm going to follow that red one instead!"
"But!" the Munchkin exclaimed.
"Yes?"
"That leads to!"
"What?"
"HORRORS BEYOND THE IMA--"
"Yeah, yeah, 'horrors beyond the imagination.' I know, I know," Bob interrupted, "And I'm still going." He headed for the curlicue of the red road, "Here I go!" He paused, waiting for someone to shout for him not to do it, that it was too dangerous, that they would miss him. But no one said anything, "Alright then, I'm really going now."
A cricket chirped.
"Bye?" he asked and started walking. To his surprise, no one even told him that he needed to skip. He just kept walking and didn't look back once.
"He's gonna die," said one of the Munchkins in the crowd he left behind.
"Yep."
The happy, bright cornfields on either side of the road had lasted just up until Bob had gotten out of sight of Munchkinland, and now the red road led into the depths of a dark forest. Bob walked into this forest hesitantly, remembering the tales he had been told of the lions, tigers, bears, and auditors that lived in the forests of Oz.
To keep his fear at bay, he sang a little song to himself. Only a few steps later, he heard footsteps in the darkness beside him and he froze. He slowly bent down, picked up a rock, and hurled it into the shadows. A voice exclaimed in pain and muttered something about shoddy financial records before shuffling away.
Bob grinned at his muscles and informed the forest in general, "Never mess with a Munchkin."
Just as Bob had gotten his confidence back, a very familiar orange cloud of smoke erupted in front of him.
"I'll get you my prett--!" the cloud started to exclaim before having a violent coughing fit. "Stupid smoke," it continued as the smoke blew away, leaving the green woman Bob had met earlier. She cleared her throat. "As I was saying. I'll get you my pretty!"
Bob leaped into the air. "You really think I'm pretty?!"
"Oh. Well. Sure. But. I thought you were someone else," the lady told him. "Do you happen to know where that stupid little girl with the shiny shoes went?"
Bob's face lit up in the memory of the shiny. "She went that way," he said, gesturing over his shoulder, "On the Yellow Brick Road."
The green witch looked down. "Oh, darn. Wrong road." She looked at Bob. "So, where ya headin'?"
"I'm just going to walk until the red runs out."
"Ooh, that'll bring you right out to HORRORS BEYOND THE IMAGINATION!"
Bob rubbed his head. "Yeah, I've heard."
An awkward silence ensued in which both parties stared at each other and the crickets had a field day.
"So..." the green lady said, "I'll just be going to get my shoes. See you." And she disappeared in another puff of smoke--
--and reappeared in an identical puff of smoke about ten feet behind him. She caught sight of Bob and the road and stamped her feet. "I have got to get the hang of this spell!" she shouted and disappeared again, this time more successfully since Bob could no longer see her.
He continued along his way, this time skipping for good measure.
After a couple of miles, Bob began to notice that the road was becoming increasingly less wide. In fact, it was now so thin that whoever was walking on it had to travel in single-file in order to stay on the bricks.
Bob was so occupied with noticing this that he didn't look in front of him until he ran into a pair of iron doors.
"Ouch," he said to himself and backed up to see what he had hit. In front of him stood an imposing building with iron doors (that he had run into) right in the middle of the whole façade. Every few feet or so, sharp iron spikes stuck out from the walls, and a sign above the doors said in red letters "HORRORS BEYOND THE IMAGINATION!". In fact, the red was the precise shade of blood.
Bob gulped.
"ENTER," said a deep, disembodied voice.
Bob gulped even louder and tried to hum to himself.
The voice sighed. "I said 'ENTER'."
Bob took a deep breath and pulled the doors open.
He stepped inside. Something was very wrong here. In front of him was what appeared to be a small, out-of-the-way diner. A bored looking lady smacked on gum behind the counter, and a janitor was cleaning the tile floor.
"Welcome to the HORRORS BEYOND THE IMAGINATION! Sandwich Shop. Can I getcha somethin', hun?" she asked.
Bob approached the counter. He could see all kinds of breads in an oven behind the lady, and all kinds of sandwich fixings in front of her. He noticed a pile of pamphlets advertising the sandwich shop by the cash register.
"Yeah," he said, "I'll have a ham sandwich and a beer, please."
THE END