The cracked wasteland stretched to the aching birth throes of the red sun on the horizon, the deep, pulsing crimson-orange streaking the scorched landscape as the tendrils of the glowing orb lashed out at the horizon as the dawn slowly asserted its grasp over the fading twilight.

Icelus stood in the midst of smoldering wreckage, twisted trees burned free of foliage sprouting from the ashes at the behest of his lifted arm. He did so enjoy basing his dreamscapes on happy memories of childhood, there was something indescribable about the sensation it brought him.

Marlowe fluttered in out of a gap in existence, one he would be sure to figure out before he brought his current charge in.

“Master! Master!” she shouted, out of breath as she landed lightly next to him, “She’s falling asleep!”

Icelus almost cackled, clapping his hands together, “Right on schedule…” he laughed as he followed her in a leap through that hole in the world, sealing it up behind him. The scene was set for Anna’s arrival.

It appeared to be the result of a horrifying bombing campaign, an idyllic village reduced to ash, the fires now embers, the very road beneath one’s feet appearing to have melted and congealed into a yellow-black mess.

Sleep. It's the one, colorful luxury afforded to her in the dark gray monochrome of this hell. Curled tight under her covers, stuffed tiger held to her chest, she's grateful for the shift in color, the fading of black and white to the color of her childhood. It's only as her mind is crossing that last threshold that she realizes something is terribly wrong. There's a smell of charred ozone, a brief awareness of terror before it all washes into pastel.

She wakes to the harsh, garish carnival color of memory. Her childhood fondness twisted into a dreamscape Chernobyl. Red heels click through still-warm cobblestones, ruined trail leading to the wrecked village: the rubble of houses built for children, the stench of burning flesh. She wants to turn away, but she knows this is the only path to walk. She couldn't turn away if she tried. The road is all that there is. She is a parody of childlike innocence, ruby slippers tipped to brutal stiletto heels, white stockings clung to tight toned legs, revealing a flash of creamy thigh before giving way to the baby blue skirt, thick and fluffed, swishing checkerboard in rhythm to her hips. The matching corset pushes her breasts upward, in lavicious counterpoint to the frilly lace that criss-crosses its way up the length, cut low on healthy cleavage before giving way to puffy white sleeves. Dark hair hangs in pigtails, lips splashed a garish red. Big dark eyes sweep over the devastated hamlet, desperate to turn away but unable to turn around. Click-click-click.

I don't think we're in...
No. Don't even think of saying it.

Wind brought a faint scent of ozone, sweeping through the crumbling ruins of the village as the sun slowly climbed in the sky. The sun slowly climbed in the sky, bringing dawn to the remnants of civilization and her footsteps echoed like thunder crashing in the silence, the heels crunching broken glass and shattered timber as they stabbed into the detritus of the ruins.

As she moved through the village, she was soon greeted by strange, intermittent scratching noises. Every once and a while a larger piece of masonry was overturned to supplement the digging noises, or a window would shatter, piercing the heart of the silence as the glass trickled to the ground.

Then, the first one pulled itself from the wreckage, a disgusting, bloated, barely-human mass of sickly pink flesh the color of a fresh burn. Stubby vestigal wings fluttered on its back as it crawled across the ground towards her, looking up with bleary eyes, its wide mouth giving a wordless yowl as it approached.

Others soon joined, surrounding her on all sides, crawling towards her from the remnants of the buildings. They closed in, tightening the noose, scrambling as best they could across the jagged ruins, their movements sluggish and lethargic.

Yet another crash, echoed across the charred landscape, this one much larger than any before. A blur of red and brown leapt from behind her, haunches up as it growled at the strange homunculus-like shapes menacing her. It appeared to be some sort of junkyard mutt, a mix of pharaoh hound and Doberman, mangy fur hanging from its powerful form, pulling its lips back into a growl as it padded around her, snapping at any of the creatures that got too close.

She walks on shaky, tall heels, unable to stop, only able to best try and shift her balance. She can feel eyes on her, depraved and leering, from the dilapidated ruins. The crumbling road gives way to the bombed-out remains of the town, rising up around her, a skeleton of a hamlet, path giving way to scorched pits and potholes as she descends further into the hell. There is life here, or something resembling life in the loosest sense. Eyes skitter over the ruins, turning, turning, turning, but not able to catch sight of anything, bogeymen dancing at the corner of her subconcious.

And then she catches sight of the thing, horrible Holocaust winged monkey monster. She screams but there are no words, backing away. She can move now that it's too late, move on her own, turning rapidly back to where she came, too late to realize that she's surrounded by the things. A heel slips, stumbling face first over a pothole. And they close in, her prone, at the mercy of these winged, howling creatures. They close around her, grasping, unrelenting shambling. Charred flesh reaches out to grasp at her, lost.... lost.... Fingers reaching for skirt, for stockings.

And then the blur. She know it's there before she sees it. She's never had a dog, but it's oh-so-familiar in the way dream creatures always are, a ragged monstrosity that could well be the culmination of every starving junkyard dog she ever saw while roaming the streets. She pushes shakily to her feet as it circles around her, maintaining a tight perimeter around her, holding the little aberrations at bay. Eyes dart for an opening in the melee.

The ravenous hound circles her, keeping his knotted fur brushing against her legs as he bares his teeth in rage against the approaching munchkins, snapping at one that stumbled a little-too-close to Anna, saliva dripping from his jaws. Finally, they took the hint and retreated, glaring at her with gleaming little eyes from shadows of the rubble, watching her from their hidey-holes.

The dog dropped to his haunches by her side, looking up to her with his jaw hanging slack, tongue dangling from his mouth. An old, dry-rotted leather collar hung limp around his neck, the dirty, tarnished piece of identification reading, quite predictably, “Toto.”

He moved from her side, sniffing excitedly at the ground, digging down with those dangerous claws until he had wrenched aside the remnants of the demolished villa, revealing the slightest glimmer of gold beneath the remains.

She sits in the smoldering pothole, knees pulled up to her chest, fingers curled in the wiry fur of the dog; monstrous, sure, but the only semblance of normalcy she has in this damn place. "Can't even get away from this shit in my dreams..." she murmurs to herself. But that's not what really has her terrified. It's the lucidity, the fact that, for all the awareness that this is a dream, that the setting shifting around her can't be anything other than a dreamscape, she sure as hell feels like she's awake; like these damn, depraved things found a way to sneak their way into her fondest childhood memories. Those eyes continue to roam her, and she fancies she can almost hear their chittering, depraved thoughts.

She buries her face in the mangy fur of the hound, eyes closed, fingers curled around the leather collor. "At least you don't yip incessantly, Toto.... So where do we go from here?" And, as if in answer, he darts away. She uses the grip on his collar to heft herself up, carefully following him, slow in heels, quite content to let him be the scout. The Yellow Brick Road. Right. Of course. Like she really wants to go that way. Eyes turn up to the sky, face a scared rictus snarl. "Look, bitch! I know this story! I know you're watching me on a big old crystal ball right now! So show yourself! Who the fuck are you?"

No response. Typical. She sets out on the heels of her trusted companion.

Toto peeled away from her, waiting every turn in the road for her to follow. At this point it was rather easy to make out where the stone-lined path lead. Though it was covered in inches of ash and soot, it still differed from the cracked, gray grasslands on either side, slowly merging into the forests. Finally, the canine beast took his leave from the path, running off into a vast field.

It may have once held corn or some one of any other crops, but surprisingly it was now overrun with roses, the plants pushing up in twisting stems that somehow broke free of the choking ash that strangled the life from the rest of the land. Still, despite the beauty of the red-lined field, the thorns still rather obvious, standing out in sharp relief in the slanted light of the morning.

The dog, however, paid these thorns no mind, he charged directly through them, making his way toward a shape in the middle of the field. There, slumped as though crucified, hung the top-half of a scarecrow. His long, patched hat was pulled down over his face, a long, ragged and patched black duster hanging from his shoulders, his body missing below the waist.

“Hello…?” a gravelly voice called out, joined by an insistent bark from Toto, “A little help over here, darlin’?”