1 One - Followed the yellow brick road

Stacey sat up from the cold, hard ground gasping for air. She tried to shake off the lingering dread from her dream. The air pressure felt heavy against her chest, making it hard to breathe. Cold sweat made her clothes cling to her and the outdoor wind laden with unfamiliar scents made her shiver. Her mouth was dry and her heart was still racing.

The smell of dry dust filled her nostrils when the air momentarily grew still. Her body felt heavy laden and her head ached. She looked up at the overhead concrete steps under which she had been sheltering to try and remember where she was. The brick wall behind her was growing moss in its cracks. Outside, a wide, empty car park yawned in the early morning light.

Still here.

She was still here in this alien place.

Why couldn't this be a dream as well? Why couldn't she just wake up at home in a more familiar place?

Stacey thumped the ground in frustration and watched the fine dust puff up in little wafting clouds. It tickled her nose.

Her old recurrent dreams of being chased had become more frequent and fraught with danger here. It made her reluctant to close her eyes at night for fear the person chasing her would finally catch and kill her.

Good news. The dreams were just that. Nonspecific, repeating dreams that were probably the result of her subconscious trying to tell her conscious mind something it felt was important.

Bad news. Back in reality, she was still lost with no idea where she was or what direction home was in.

Stacey took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and rubbed her growling tummy. The hunger pangs weren't that bad at the moment but she had no doubt they would return soon. She hadn't had anything to eat for two days. Or was it three? Maybe four? Hunger and confusion had blurred everything together. The cash in her pocket wasn't accepted here - wherever 'here' was.

To her, this place looked like some regional town where country life met suburbia in a small town. Except the inhabitants here called it a 'big' town. Even so, everything was so foreign that she couldn't recognise a single roadside weed. There wasn't even a dandelion. The grass was more blue than green and had more stem than long bladed leaves. If those things could be called leaves. She definitely wasn't in the Land Downunder anymore.

If this town called Wistledown was a big town, Stacey wondered what the inhabitants here would make of the cities she knew back home. Cities like Beijing, Tokyo, New York, Sydney and so on. Everyone had surely heard of those huge cities, but no one here had.

Seriously. Where on earth was she? And how had she gotten here?

One moment, she had been exploring a messy part of the big old park near her apartment and had found the remnants of an old yellow brick road. Thinking of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, she had followed that yellow brick road for fun and found what looked like a black stone monolith with at the end of it. Its four sides had been carved with foreign looking scripts. Dirt and moss filled the engravings. In order to get a better look, the piled up dead leaves and thick layer of dirt had been brushed off the top of the stone with her hand in curiosity.

The next moment, she had woken up under a bush by a road, beneath a crossroads signpost just outside this town. Stacey had no idea how or why she had gotten there, nor did she have any idea where she was. There had been no sign of the black monolith or a yellow brick road. The only thing Stacey was grateful for was that the people here still spoke some English, even if their accent was strange.

There seemed to be two main languages that everyone here was expected to be able to speak, read and write in. English was known as the common language - used more by younger people. The other language was known as Tadpole - the traditional or more formal national tongue. Tadpole seemed to have a few variations, with two written forms, one which was more cuneiform like and another form which looked more pictographic and somewhat like an ancient Chinese calligraphic script. Or not. Stacey was only guessing.

Confused and awkward conversation with the locals had been made in order for Stacey to make sense of her situation. They had looked at her like she was either stupid or crazy. Although they appeared to think she had an intellectual disability, they had still been kind enough to educate her on these basic matters. Stacey had endured the scorn and ridicule patiently in order to make better sense of what had happened to her.

From beneath the concrete stair, Stacey stared out at the near empty parking lot in front. Although she was only a few blocks from the town centre, it was pretty quiet here. Otherwise she guessed she might have been chased away by now.

Combing her messy hair with her fingers, she pulled her hair back into a slightly neater ponytail and wondered if she'd be able to get anything to eat today. There had to be a way to find a job and earn money - or food. She just hadn't found it yet. It didn't help that she couldn't read the signs or recognise a single fruit or vegetable. Surely her general knowledge in common foodstuffs wasn't this bad.

So far, people had looked at her clothes, heard her accent and immediately turned her away. As a result, Stacey had been frequenting the marketplace and business centres of the town to learn how the locals spoke. She was slowly trying to figure out how to imitate the style of speech here. Unfortunately, she hadn't made much progress. She was still seen as some strange, idiot foreigner with an intellectual disability. Unemployable.

Actually, it wasn't really a surprise that anyone who couldn't read road signs or speak the language would be refused. It'd be a pretty similar situation for any foreigner back home who was considered illiterate because they didn't know the language.