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Oh Mickey... where are you?
This place—Wasteland she was told it was called—felt larger than it appeared, and she dreaded the possibility that she may never find her beloved in this place. Not if that... thing still had him.
The Blot... Gus said the creature was called the Blot.
She still had no idea how it had gotten into Mickey's room. Let alone how it got through the bedroom mirror... Minnie had spent that night with Mickey, as she had most nights. Despite living separately, they still enjoyed spending the night over at the other's house and sharing the same bed because, well, they were in fact married. Secretly they were, and Walt had known that and even told some people as such, yet to put up with the modest and appropriate way for children to see, they lived in different houses so it would fit the standards set by the time period they were created in.
And on that night she slept beside him peacefully, she'd heard the noise and looked up to see that horrible thing—the Blot, she reminded herself—coming through the mirror. And it hadn't gone after her, in fact it hardly noticed her presence at all. It went specifically for Mickey, and it grabbed him as Minnie screamed for him. After a moment of being stunned by what she was witnessing, as the creature dragged a flailing Mickey into the mirror, she made the quick decision to run and jump into the mirror after them rather than running away and finding help. The adrenaline brought on by the situation and fear for his safety had pushed her forward, giving her the inner strength she needed to jump in after him.
First it was a workshop that she had seen after jumping through the mirror. She heard Mickey yell and the Blot growling and roaring and ran in the direction of the sound as fast as her heels would allow. She turned the corner and speed towards the table sitting there, where a map was laid out. That was where the Blot had come from (and where it was taking Mickey), she realized, and before the dreaded thing could disappear into the map, she had jumped in after it, but not before gripping the nearest thing on the table—a seemingly simple paintbrush—out of a split second of hesitation and fear on her part.
And that was where they had gotten separated. As they fell through a Wonderland-like portal to some unknown land not anywhere near their world—(at least that's what Minnie figured, after all it was too much like Wonderland to not assume it was something at least similar to such a place)—Minnie had lost sight of both the Blot and Mickey, and she fell and fell and fell for what felt like ages, paintbrush in hand (why she kept it she had no idea), all while screaming his name and frantically looking around her moving surroundings before finally falling and hitting a hard surface.
She'd hit her head from the fall and blacked out, the paintbrush falling from her hand from the impact. And then she woke up, everything after felt more like a blur compared to where she was now: simply wandering with a Gremlin named Gus as she tried to help fix this town left destroyed by the very creature that stole her husband away. Somehow she was finding the courage within herself to keep moving forward, her original goal in her heart to find Mickey. But seeing this place in such disarray... Seeing all these lost, forgotten characters now having their home run amuck by such a dark and evil creature... And seeing him, Mickey's own brother that neither of them had even known about...
She felt awful about the whole thing. She felt nothing but an ache in her heart for these characters, and for the rabbit, the brother, that came before Mickey. This was his kingdom, his home, where he'd been raising his family (now scattered from the disaster), and now it was being overrun by the dangerous creature that had taken his love away; as it similarly had stolen her love away as well... except Minnie still had a chance to save Mickey. And while she had just realized that Mickey had accidentally caused everything, she knew he hadn't known what he had done. And she knew that if he did know, he would have felt just awful. She had figured out he had done all this from putting the pieces of what Oswald had told her about the Thinner Disaster, and from the old story about the odd workshop Mickey had stumbled upon (how he had spilled some paint and thinner on a map after a creature came out of what he had painted). She remembered the workshop the mirror led to; the map sitting at the table with the paint and thinner; the magical paintbrush in her hand. And from what she remembered seeing when chasing the Blot and from what Mickey had told her he had done, she knew the truth. She knew and for now she intended to keep it to herself. The last thing she wanted was for Oswald to hate Mickey even more than he already did, and Minnie hoped that after all this was over the two could become the brothers they were meant to be.
Until then though, she needed to find Mickey and somehow defeat the Blot.
I need to help them. I need to.
This was the first time in her life that Minnie was saving Mickey and not the other way around. It was usually her husband thrown into the hero role in their cartoons... except this time it wasn't a cartoon or a game or a story to them. This was real to them; to her. What was happening was real and what had happened to this forgotten world was real too. These characters were—while forgotten and lost in time—here and they were real. Oswald, essentially her brother-in-law, was real and so were his children. And Ortensia, who she wished she could have met, had been real once as well. And because Mickey was currently being held somewhere by the Blot, Minnie knew she had to step up and be the hero this time. Not just for him, but for these characters and for Oswald.
Minnie picked up her pace as she ran through Mean Street, paintbrush clutched tightly in hand, a set determination in her eyes. I am going to help them no matter what! I will find Mickey and I will help these characters get their home back to the way it once was.
Gus followed closely behind her, which helped her feel a little less lost and feel more aware of what she needed to do next. She felt much more confident and aware of what to do than she did when she first met the Gremlin.
She wasn't the damsel in distress Disney had made her to be. Not anymore, anyway, not after this all started. And she was going to be the one to set things right again. She was going to save this world and save Mickey.
Now Minnie Mouse was going to be the hero.