A/N: I wrote this thing, inspired by the popular children's book "Good-Night Moon," as well as the premise that the land of Ooo is basically a sharp response to the serious world of adults that went too far that it destroyed itself, and that some kid's imagination must have projected a framework for the world to rebuild itself upon. I might explore these ideas later, but for now I just needed to get them down.
EDIT: Ahhh for some reason when I posted this, the entire "Good Night World" sequence got deleted! SO I put it back. so sorry!
He stopped closing his eyes for a moment to study his mother's face as she quickly strapped him into the contraption, adjusting all the necessary wires and turning the settings up to the correct intensity. Her usually lively, pretty face was thin and haggard, doubtlessly the toll from the radiation.
"Are you comfortable?" She asked him, trying to look cheerful. He wasn't, but he nodded and smiled in affirmation, revealing a mouth missing quite a few teeth.
"I think it's cool! Like in a movie space ship or something," he said.
"Space ship, huh?" She looked at him oddly, with her head cocked to the side, suppressed tears thinly veiling the overflow of love in her heart for her only child. "That's a great idea. Just keep thinking that, it's like a space ship." She leaned closer to him. "Now, Penn," she whispered softly. "This is something really important that I want you to do. You are such a brave and creative little boy, and–"
She stopped short as the sound of stifled screams erupted outside, quickly muffled and replaced by gunfire and multiple explosions. Penn started to wail.
"Hush! Said his mother, hurrying to close the door on the device. "Now Penn, you have to stop crying and listen to me! I want you to close your eyes and think of something, think of something good!"
But pen would have none of it. "Why can't you do it?" he snapped at her, fearfully. "You're the grown-up! I can't do anything!"
She stared at him, taken aback. "That's not true," she replied. "We–I need you, Penn. This is something that no grown-up, not even I, can fix. Now, think of something that makes you happy."
"Like what?"
"Oh, for goodness' sake..." she turned at the sound of cracking concrete and shattering glass across the street. "Anything! Candy! Ice cream! The lake we went to for vacation! The neighbors' dog! Anything at all! Just think, concentrate on whatever it is, and don't you dare let anything else cross your mind," she closed the grate but held the small window open, so that the only thing he could see was her thin, pale, desperate face.
"Don't be afraid, Penn." she said. "Grown-ups are the ones who are scared here. They are the ones who have brought us where we are now. But you–you're young, you're unsure, but you–you're not afraid of anything."
Penn looked up at her in wonder. But before he could even think to say anything like "I love you, Mom," she shut the tiny window connecting them, and his world went dark.
...
The machine roared to life, filling Penn's ears with a soft but persistent hum as he struggled to obey his mother's last command–to think of good things, and only good things. Several scenes flickered through his mind as he tried to recall the best memories of his young life.
Halloween at his friend Dylan's house, children all covered in makeshift party costumes and draped sheets with ragged holes cut in them, buckets and buckets full of sweet candy delights, and a platter full of sprinkled doughnuts and rainbow cupcakes with chocolate frosting that he loved to stick his fingers in.
Running around on the lawn with his best friend waving plastic swords at each others' heads and shouting, improvising enemies and weaving together fanciful heroic plights without the stifling boundaries of logic and laws and physics, nothing but the sheer joy from play.
The doodle that had started out modestly in the margins of his arithmetic homework but had grown in scale, taking over the blue lines of the paper until they comprised an elaborate crazy landscape complete with jaggedy mountaintops, pink rolling hills, distorted figures waving happily at each other from candy-striped castles superimposed upon incorrectly done equations...
He felt himself sinking further into the hum and blackness enveloping him, but he wasn't startled. Rather it felt natural, like a return to the womb, except this time it was a metal womb sheltering him not from the cold air but from much harsher elements. He fell asleep, and if he heard the chaos surrounding him it he did not stir, for to him it was nothing more than a distant storybook chant, just like the bedtime stories his parents read to him as he drifted off into sleep, a storybook chant chronicling the end of humankind.
Good night, storm!
Good night, monsoon!
Boom!
Good night, America, first one to land on the moon!
Good night, Shanghai!
Good night, Moscow!
Good night, Paris, in flames so fair!
Just like all cities everywhere!
Boom!
Good night, creeks!
Good night, streets!
Good night street lamps
And broken potted houseplants!
Boom!
Good night, faces
with bloody traces!
And to the lonely left in abandoned spaces!
Boom!
Good night, emptiness!
Boom!
Good night, stars!
Good night, air!
Good-bye,
World of grown-ups everywhere!
Good morning, sun!
Good morning, fun!
Good morning, world where all is play with no work to be done!