One day, when Dorothy was nearly eight and a half years old, a man had come to her aunt and uncle's farm. He wore a black suit with a long tie, and wore dark sunglasses in the hot, blazing sun that singed the fields like the reflection of light in a magnifying glass does to poor unsuspecting ants.

Uncle Henry had told Dorothy to run off and go play... but she hid where he could not see her, and listened to what the strange man had to say to him.

Later that day, after the man had left, Aunt Em was close to tears and she held Dorothy close, as if she were about to lose her in any moment.

But Aunt Em never told Dorothy why she had been crying. She never told Dorothy what was wrong.

Then, one day, when Dorothy was ten, there were trucks and trucks that brought supplies. There were also several men in bright orange vests with white stripes stretched out from the center horizontally, and they all wore white helmets. They were building something, but neither Aunt Em nor Uncle Henry would tell her why. They would just shake their heads and tell her not to worry about.

What could be too important for Dorothy to know about?

Then, when Dorothy was nearly eighteen, the storm came.

Clouds and clouds of dust, dirt, and debris swirled around in the shape of an impossibly tall and wide funnel. The wind roared and whipped all around them, debris flying around, equipment and vehicles being turned over like they were merely toys and not two thousand pounds.

"Dorothy!" Uncle Henry screamed. "Dorothy, get in the ship!"

Aunt Em had grabbed Dorothy by the wrist so tightly that she thought her circulation might cut off. The older woman pulled her towards the ship and pushed her hand to the scanner. The scanner flashed a green light and the hatch began to lower down.

Dorothy did not get to look back at her uncle as he ran back into the building in which they lived. Aunt Em had dragged her deep within the ship, and pushed her into a tube that only Dorothy could fit in. Aunt Em pushed a few buttons and the door of the tube rounded shut.

Dorothy screamed to be let out, for Aunt Em to come back, but things had gone completely dark the moment she had heard the hatch of the spaceship close shut and the system beep as it was locked in for take off.

                ***

Dorothy had been staring blankly at the wall as the memories had returned to her, fuzzy and nearly incomprehensible as they were. She pulled her knees up to her chest and let out one loud, crackling sniff through her nose.

She barely even knew her Aunt and Uncle, since she had lost her memories while she had been in cryosleep. Maybe she hadn't even lost them, but they were locked away, and she could not access them yet.

Memories were never truly lost. Only missing.
Dorothy picked off a piece of the bread she had been given by Maridina a few hours before. It was dry and nearly stale in her mouth,  it stuck to the roof of it, and she hated every piece of it, but she needed to eat. She needed to get her strength back up.

But was she even going to kill the Wicked Witch of the West?

Or was she going to take the risk and try to help her to assassinate the Wizard of Oz? She had been given the job to kill her first, but she had to decide which offer was the most promising.

There was no guarantee that either of them could help her return to her home with her Aunt and Uncle on Earth.

She had no guarantee that they were alive, either. She had no idea how long she had been in space and in cryosleep, or how far the planet of Oz was from Earth. 

Killing either the Witch or the Wizard might would bring liberation and peace to the people of Oz. But what if their deaths just brought more turmoil? At least, the Wizard's would. The death of any leader was a sorrow not of the people, but a sorrow upon them, for people need leadership, but they need a leadership that is responsible and not evil or self-serving.
Dorothy did not know enough about the planet and their people to know what they needed, or if they even needed anything more or anything else.

How could she, when she did not even know the reason why she had been sent there?