A citrus scent is in the air. I flutter my eyes open, the room becoming less and less blurry. It's so bright. Must be day time.
I look around. The place is familiar. I've been here before. When Lady announced that she would be a mother, when PB was patching up Ice King with a new heart, when that stupid deer broke both my legs.
I'm in a clean white hospital bed, wrapped tightly in blankets and yellow chains. I try to wiggle myself out of them but there is a lock. I stare at it as if merely looking at it will melt the lock, setting me free. And then I remember that I'm in the Candy Kingdom Hospital. I gnaw at the chains but recoil immediately spitting out some kind of yellow substance, puckering my face at the sour taste. This isn't candy.
I feel groggy. I try to remember why I'm here. I must remember.
"The two of them are planning something." PB looks into my eyes.
"I need you to be alert Finn." She's so beautiful. I want to have her. I want to have her so bad. She has a concerned face on, not focused at all. She's thinking about something else. Someone else, maybe.
"You're job is warn everyone." She says in a harsh voice.
Jake is next to me. He says something but it's muffled. I can't make it out.
And I can't remember anything else. Finn, why can't you remember? I think to myself... by myself.
Jake is nowhere, so is PB. Marceline, even Ice King would be good company now. It's one thing to be tied up in a hospital with someone (perhaps even my captor) but it's another to be completely alone, not knowing at all what's going on.
The room has an eerie icteric light in the middle of the high ceiling. And I realize that it's not daytime. The windows are covered, concealing a dark night behind it.
"Hello?" I shout. My voice booms all around the halls of the building. Reaching all the rooms, all the hallways. No reply.
There are many obvious questions I should be asking. What am I doing here? Why am I tied up? Where is Jake?
I hear a rattling, coming from far down the hall, behind the privacy curtains. Maybe it's PB, maybe she can tell me what's going on. The rattling echoes throughout the halls. There is no one but the rattling and me. I can imagine that it's a cart. I now hear its squeaky wheels rolling on the white tile floor as it comes closer.
A new terrifying thought takes over my mind. I struggle to get out of the chains but they're too strong.
I need to leave.
I don't know want to know what the rattling is.
But it's coming closer, ever so closer.
I shut my eyes.
It just keeps coming closer and closer, forever and ever.
I'm still now.
Maybe if I'm silent, the rattling will go away. It's becoming unbearable, getting louder every second. I want to cover my ears but I can't get my arms out. I'm forced to hear it RATTLE, RATTLE, RATTLEā¦
I whimper. I'm not supposed to whimper. I am a man. I'm an adventurer. I've fought the monsters that would scare a child at night, the monsters that would haunt a child's dream, the monsters that would wake the child up to run to their parents, begging for a night in Mommy's bed. I am a child now. I want Mom to come rescue me. She'll rescue me from the rattling, I think with my eyes still shut tight. And the rattling stops.
"Hello, Finn the Human."
