Chapter Text
The first thing Dustin notices is the color of the grass. It's green like he's never seen before–vibrant and alive–especially compared to the grey gravel of the Upside Down and the rusted interior of Eddie's trailer. He takes a tentative step out into the sun, shutting the door behind him. 'It's just a trick of the light,' he thinks.
Dustin slings his backpack forward, and realises that it, too, has had its saturation dialed up. He shakes his head, pulling out his Walkie-Talkie. "This is Dustin--over," he says.
No response.
"This is Dustin, does anyone copy? Over."
No response.
"This is DUSTIN, does anyone copy?! Over!"
Only static.
Dustin just looks at his Walkie-Talkie and mumbles, "I don't think we're in Hawkins anymore…"
The teenager releases a shaky breath, taking in more of his surroundings. A crystal blue sky is freckled with cotton candy clouds, and rows upon rows of yellow corn run across distant hills like a shag carpet. He’s still in the trailer park, he thinks, as evidenced by the mobile homes he recognizes–Max’s across the way, the Ditmeyers’ in the next plot, and the one that belongs to that weird guy with the dog just down the road a bit–but they’re all repainted to be neon pinks, greens, and yellows.
He presses down on the ‘Talk’ button again. “I must be in some weird version of the Upside Down–over.” Telephone poles are wrapped in patterned cellophane and candy trees sprout up from every garden–the whole thing sends a chill down Dustin’s spine. “Now I know I’m not in Indiana anymore,” he reports to no one.
“Hello,” a light voice calls from behind him.
He flinches at the sudden presence. Dustin turns to see a girl he knows adorned in a poofy pink dress and synthetic, blonde hair that sits perfectly on her shoulders.
“Shit, El you scared me,” he calls back.
Her brows flatten into a strict line. “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
Dustin freezes with confusion. “Who, me?” he asks, glancing behind himself, “I’m not a witch, El.”
She still glares at him with that untrusting stare.
“I’m Dustin Henderson…from Hawkins.”
She leans in, swaying a crystal wand as she thinks. “What is… Hawkins ?”
“It’s where we live…” the boy responds. “El, what’s going on?”
She doesn’t reply, only moves closer and waves her wand at the box in his hand. “Is that the witch?”
“What, this?” He asks as he shakes the metal lunk. She shakes her head, glad they’re on the same page. “This is my Walkie-Talkie–not a witch.”
Her brow flattens out again and she begins to pace. “Well…I am a little…muddled. The Munchkins called me here because a new witch has just dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East. And there’s the house,” she gestures to Eddie’s vine-riddled trailer, “and here you are, and that’s all that’s left of the Wicked Witch of the East…”
Dustin follows her gesture to see a pair of legs sticking out from underneath the trailer. Boot-cut jeans ruffle onto glowing, red Vans. A single hand peaks out from under the wreck, and the glint of a ring catches Dustin’s eye. He leans down to inspect it and recognizes it instantly as the one that flew towards Lucas and Steve with every punch that one, November night. “Shit…Billy…” he whispers to himself.
He backs away, turning instead to the neon explosion that surrounds him.
“So what the Munchkins want to know is,” the familiar girl continues, “are you a good witch, or a bad witch?” Her lips curve up into a friendly smile.
“El, I’ve already told you: I’m not a witch,” Dustin sighs, “Witches are old and ugly and-”
He’s interrupted by the sound of giggling from all around him.
He clutches his belongings tighter. “What was that?”
“The Munchkins,” she grins, “They’re laughing because I am a witch. I am Ga-linda, the Good Witch of the North.”
Dustin only stands there staring for a moment, the wheels in his head turning. “Do you mean, Glinda? ”
She clears her throat, “ No, it’s Ga-Linda .”
“Spelled G-L-I-N-D-A?”
“....Yes?”
“Yeah, that’s pronounced Glinda .” There’s an awkward silence as they just look at eachother, neither one sure what to say next. “So…you said you were a witch?” Her face lights up again and she nods feverishly. “I thought witches were supposed to be ugly.”
“Only bad witches are ugly,” she assures. “The Munchkins are happy because you have freed them from the Wicked Witch of the East!”
“Okay…but what are Munchkins, exactly?”
“The small people who live in this land! This is Munchkin land and you are their national hero!”
Something in Dustin’s chest warms–he’s always wanted to be considered a ‘national hero.’
The witch looks around in anticipation of a celebration, but the street is bare. “It’s alright–you can all come out and thank him!” Still nothing. Music begins. “ Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sings, “and meet the young hero who fell from a star!” Small faces begin to pop up from behind the bushes as the music continues
“Wh-what the fuck?” Dustin startles, “Where did this music come from?”
“He fell from the sky, he fell very far. And Hawkins, he says, is the name of the star.”
The Munchkins sing along, “ Hawkins, he says, is the name of the star. ”
El continues, “ He brings you good news, for haven’t you heard? When he fell out of Hawkins, a miracle occurred.”
The street is crowded now with Munchkins–people Dustin recognizes from middle school that don’t seem to have gotten their growth spurts just yet. They all look at Dustin, and he feels the music build on him.
“No way am I fucking singing,” he mutters. He clears his throat, throwing his hands up in defense. “Look guys! It wasn’t a miracle, okay? I just…I um…” he thinks back to the last thing he can remember, but struggles to grab onto any of it.
There was a black column of smoke–a leg, he thinks–or maybe it was a storm. No. It was definitely a leg. There was screaming and he was holding some type of spear. They were in the Upside Down…fighting the Mind Flayer, he remembers. He sees Steve’s face flash across his eyes.
“I just got lost…I don’t know how I got here…or how to get home,” his voice cracks out. There’s a lump in his throat that’s threatening to cut off his air.
Munchkins blink in the silence. There’s a muffled commotion in the middle section of the crowd, and Dustin sees a pair of afro puffs making their way through the sea of colors. Munchkin citizens are pushed out of the way, and a young girl takes center stage.
“Erica?” Dustin gawks, “Not you too!”
She puts her hands on her hips, accentuating the bright pink cape that drapes from her shoulders to the floor. She speaks rhythmically to the music, “As Mayor of the Munchkin City, in the County of the Land of Oz, I welcome you most regally–but we’ve got to verify it legally. To see if he is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably dead!” She walks up to Billy’s outstretched legs and gives him a couple of hearty kicks. “Yep! He’s dead!”
A mass cheer washes over all of the Munchkins. They begin singing something about ding-donging and the witch’s demise–but Dustin barely hears it.
He stands still at the center of it as they dance around him with their dizzying array of color and pattern. He feels like he’s in the eye of a hurricane, or a tornado. Again, the Mind Flayer flashes across his vision. Red lightning singes the edges of his view. He hears their phantom shouts from somewhere far away, like some distant memory he’s not supposed to know about. The music crescendos, drowning him in sound and movement. Dustin clutches the Walkie-Talkie so tightly, he thinks he may crack the plastic.
Then a bolt of red lightning cracks across the sky. Clouds coalesce, covering the colorful trailer park in darkness. A deep laughter rolls across the houses, shaking every Munchkin to their core. Everyone but Dustin and Eleven drop to the ground in fear.
“I thought you said the witch was dead!” Dustin calls.
“That was his soldier, the Wicked Witch of the East,” El responds, “This is the Wicked Witch of the West–he’s worse than the other one was.”
A man of decaying vines appears from the fog. “Vecna…” Dustin whispers to himself, the air suddenly escaping his lungs.
“Who killed my soldier?” Vecna calls. His pale eyes shoot towards Dustin. “Was it you?”
“Leave him alone,” Eleven commands.
Vecna cranes his neck and snaps, “Stay out of this! I’m here for vengeance!” He snaps back to Dustin, honing in on the fear that emanates from the trembling boy. “So, it was you, was it? You killed him, didn’t you?”
Dustin stumbles backwards, pleading, “No–no! It was an accident! I didn’t mean to kill anybody! Really I didn’t!”
“Accident? Well…” Vecna draws closer, forcing Dustin up against the wall, “I can cause accidents too…” he raises his left hand and hovers it above Dustin’s tear-soaked face–he doesn’t even know when he began to cry. “Hold very still…this will all be over soon…”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Eleven’s voice rises above the grime and destitution. Vecna pauses. “Aren’t you forgetting the ruby slippers?”
Vecna retreats his hand, turning to where Billy sticks out from under the wreck. “Yes,” a grin slithers across his scowl, “the ruby slippers…I almost forgot.” He walks to retrieve the shoes, but by the time he’s gotten there, Billy’s feet are bare. “They’re gone!” he exclaims with a growl. “The ruby slippers! What have you done with them?” he charges at Eleven, “Give them back to me or I’ll-”
“It’s too late!” she interjects. She points to Dustin, announcing, “There they are, and there they’ll stay!”
Dustin looks down to see the glowing, red Vans comfortably secured to his own feet. They illuminate from the inside–it seems–and though they feel stable, they look to be made of the same, mucousy material the gates are made of.
Dustin grimaces at the thought of having to touch them.
“Give me back my slippers!” Vecna cries out angrily. “I’m the only one who knows how to use them. They’re of no use to you! Give them back to me! Give them back!”
Eleven draws closer to Dustin, laying her hand peacefully on his arm. “Keep them on, Dustin. Their magic must be very powerful if he wants them this bad.” Dustin nods his understanding, though he really wishes he could just take them off and get this over with.
“Stay out of this, Glinda, or I’ll fix you as well,” Vecna hisses.
“Oh rubbish!” Eleven laughs, “You have no power here! Now leave before someone drops a house on you too!”
They’re locked into a death stare for a moment, and a clean trail of blood trickles from Eleven’s nose before Vecna finally backs off. “Very well,” he grumbles, “I'll bide my time–and as for you, my fine boy, it's true, I can't attend to you here and now as I'd like, but just try to stay out of my way, just try! I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little Walkie-Talkie too!” He disappears into a cloud of red and black smoke and a couple of lightning bolts crack across the sky.
But the clouds dissolve quickly, and soon the crystalline sky is back. Eleven looks around at all the Munchkins cowering on the floor. “It’s alright, you can all get up!” She calls. Dustin has never seen her so caring, so extrovertedly kind. “Pooh -- what a smell of sulfur!” Her words feel rigid, like she’s reading from a script.
She looks back to Dustin with empathy in her gaze. “I'm afraid you've made rather a bad enemy of the Wicked Witch of the West. The sooner you get out of Oz altogether, the safer you'll sleep, my dear.”
He scoffs, running a hand through his curly mop of hair and thinking of the Farrah Fawcett spray he put in it this morning–however long ago that was now. “I mean, I'd give anything to get out of Oz altogether–but I don’t know how to get back. I can't go the way I came…”
She turns her eyes to the splintered boards and warped frame of the trailer. “No–that's true. The only person who might know would be the great and wonderful Wizard of Oz himself!”
Dustin pauses, his brain finally wading through all of the nonsense and connecting the dots.
“Shit…” he groans, rubbing his eyes, “I’M IN THE WIZARD OF OZ? That makes so much more sense–it really explains a lot.” He chuckles to himself, an air of hysteria seeping through. “Definitely explains the singing and all of this,” he gestures to the buildings, “rainbow bullshit.”
He laughs again, turning around himself a few times. Eleven and the Munchkins just watch him with blank stares as he, seemingly, descends into madness. “Does that make me Dorothy?” he grins, looking down at himself and noticing–for the first time–that he wears a blue-gingham patterned button-up over a white tee. “Holy shit I’m Dorothy!”
“....I thought you were Dustin?” Eleven asks.
Dustin doesn’t hear her, he’s too busy thinking about sixteen separate things. “Wait!” he exclaims, frightening a few towns-folk, “If I’m Dorothy and this is The Wizard of Oz and I’m wearing the red shoes, I can just click my heels, say the shit, and go home, right?” He looks around frantically at the faces that just continue to stare back.
Eleven slowly backs away, saying, “I don’t understand what you’re-”
“Here,” he starts. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.
“There’s no place like home.”
Heel click.
“There’s no place like home.”
Heel click.
“There’s no place like home.”
Heel click.
Silence.
Dustin opens his eyelids and sees every eye in Munchkin glued to him with concern. His breathing picks up. He’s muttering to himself, “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck….that was supposed to work I don’t understand….what’s going on what kind of sick dream is this…”
“Dustin,” Eleven approaches him again, “It seems you are lost. The Wizard of Oz is a…wonderful man, and I’m sure he’ll be able to help. He’s very good–very mysterious. He lives in the Emerald City, and that's a long journey from here.” She raises her eyebrows lightly, trying again to bring optimism. “Did you bring your broomstick with you?”
Dustin can’t manage a word, he just shakes his head ‘no’ as the tears well up in his eyes.
“Well, then, you'll have to walk. The Munchkins will see you safely to the border of Munchkinland. And remember, never let those ruby slippers off your feet for a moment, or you will be at the mercy of the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. He thinks of his friends–still out there somewhere battling the Mind Flayer without him. He needs to get back home. “How do I get to the Emerald City?”
Eleven’s mouth curves softly and her eyes light up. She leans in and says, “It's always best to start at the beginning–and all you do is follow the Yellow Brick Road.” She turns and gestures to the road that leads out of the trailer park, its gravel a golden hue.
He tries to swallow the tightness in his throat. “But what if I-”
“Just follow the Yellow Brick Road!” she repeats. A pink light envelopes Eleven, and before he can get another word in, she’s gone.
Dustin and the Munchkins stand in awkward silence. He clears his throat, then calls, “Well! This was very nice, but I better be going.” The Munchkins split a path towards the yellow road, and he steps his way through. “I just follow this, right?” he asks to fill the silence.
“Just follow the Yellow Brick Road!” Mayor Erica shouts rhythmically.
The nerdy boy scoffs lightly, responding, “Well technically, it’s gravel not brick but-”
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!” another Munchkin civilian shouts.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!”
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!”
They start to sing, and Dustin picks up his pace. He gives a short wave and speed walks out of the town as quickly as he can while they sing about the wizard and the epic journey he’s imparting on. The rabble fades as the distance grows, and Dustin sighs with relief.
He mutters to himself, “That was so fucking weird.”