Requiem for a Nightmare
Marceline/Bubblegum
Prologue
The realization the Door Lord helped them to piece together has given their fate another chance, will they take it?
It was her sixth today, and it marked no different on the calendar of continuous days the war would drone on for. The 'Mushroom War', as they call it. Unbeknownst to her, well of course, she was only young at the time, was the fact as she stood, in the fleeting moments of bare, bloodied and battered feet, which pushed off against the cold, mudded and wet ground, was that, not including her, the number of humans was almost nil.
"Let me see her!" She bellowed, "I'm alright, really!" But even as she attempted to sit up, pain rippled through her, and her sight was blotched black.
"Marceline, please!" Her father's voice was barely audible in all of the panic, even if he was just centimetres from her ear now. She tried to jerk away as the paramedics tried to force her to lay still on the greying mattress that wept stuffing as she wept tears for those around her.
This was far from a domestic hospital, but of course, they were all destroyed. Left in their wake was this make-shift infirmary located deep inside of an abandoned bunker. What is left of the survivors would be either dead, or fleeing elsewhere now.
"Mommy!" She screeched, causing her father to elicit a harsh hiss.
He tried to cover her eyes, and hell, maybe he should have attempted harder and Marceline would have been more likely to forgive him in the future, because the sights that laid out before her when she finally managed to pry her eyes open and throw herself hard enough against the paramedics, and the seeping wound in her stomach to catch her mother's gaze was the second most fleeting moment of her life.
Milliseconds and everything went haywire, because she knew as well as her father, that the becoming of a monster was a two-step program. It works, or it does not.
Maybe, just maybe, if she had of turned to see his expression, the fear in the deep set eyes of a man centuries older than anyone else that were situated here right now, she would have known he felt the same waves of grief.
The razor-sharp, pearly white fangs had pierced her throat, possibly moments before the paramedics had the reflex to clutch her hand and hush her cries of fear, Marceline's whole exist went out, like nipping the wick on a candle.
The flames of her mother's beautiful youth, the spark of her soul, and the fire in her eyes, all cut at once. She didn't need the machinery close to her to start wailing before she had realized it herself.
"Mommy! No!" She's crying now, broken sobs that rack her body with the shaking that is so bad, her fingers have trouble curling into thick masses of inky black hair, and end up pulling some of it from the roots. Though it's helpful, almost therapeutic, and aids the screams that echo around the bunker.
Her father does not speak, does not make a sound, and this frustrates her more, she turns to him, with too much grief and anger to notice the tears that were damp on his cheeks, or to notice her mother was not the only one to lose the fire in her eyes.
"Why?" Her tiny hands are balled into fists, and long nails dig into her palms hard enough to cut the skin, and she beats his chest, over and over, but as usual he is stone cold, even through his suit, and each swing is like pounding into ice.
"Marceline, please." His voice is tight, but his tone is defeated, not angry, and his hands fall against his sides as his head bows, because he knows how much it stings, and wishes he had something to pull apart, too.
"We're going to have to give her something to calm her down, or the process could be just as dangerous." Marceline does not hear the paramedic speak, and does not see her father slowly force himself to nod.
Xo
The bombs were falling again by the time they presumed the medication had made its way into her system, and was now ready to work its magic as she began the process.
They had always been terrifying, no matter how many years would pass, no matter whether she would be sprinting into her mother and father's bed chambers and slipping under the covers to sleep between them, with her favourite teddy, Hambo, clutched tightly to her chest.
Her father would place a protective arm around them both, and Marceline would nestle into his chest, as her mother would sing softly into her ear, words that she would always hold on to, to block the bombs out.
And even with that protective arm over her once more, the other paramedic was hovering over her, lips inches from her neck, and fangs poised, the feeling of them pricking against her soft skin had her shaking once more, even with the general anaesthetic, and the other pills she had not caught the name of, that were to calm her nerves.
Her eyes watched the ceiling, scanning the cracks where the moonlight would seep through and radiate the rubble around them, as well as the handful of brightly twinkling stars that littered the sky, and she knew she was much too excited to see the rest of them.
'Twinkle, twinkle, little star,' The world flashes and breaks, her gaze around her malfunctions like the sudden explosion of a computer monitor, and she's not breathing anymore, but still, the words continue in a flurry.
'How I wonder what you are,' Her eyes screw shut for a few moments, because just like anything medical related, when they say it won't hurt, there's still some stinging somewhere. But she's still alive.
Right?
Right?
' Up above the world so high,'
Suddenly everything around her is white, and she's walking, no, watching herself walk. Perhaps another her? Did she always look so bloody and battered?
No, not always. Marceline was as graceful as could be in the middle of a war, and her father tried his greatest to keep her appearance at least decent to look at. But she was suffering some shrapnel wounds. But the reason for this procedure was not just because of her injury, it was a prolonged act that should have been given to the humans that lived side-by-side of the vampire colony much earlier on in the war. Perhaps then, more could have had a chance at survival.
'Like a diamond in the sky.' She watched the other Marceline reach a figure, and it took her a few moments to make out through the blurriness that it was, in fact, her mother.
"I want to stay with you, Mommy!" She called, having lost all sense of reality.
"It is not your time dear, you know that." Her mother's voice was as soft and sweet as always, as she held the other Marceline in her embrace.
"I don't want to live without you! This world...This world is horrible!" She was sobbing now, rubbing fiercely at her eyes with the back of her wrist.
"Do not ever let our Kingdom fall to this again."
"When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night."
"She's crying, again." She murmured with a soft sigh.
To be continued...
Note; Hey guys, this is my first time writing for something Adventure Time related. I was kind of stuck for ideas to write about it, and the pairing I have in mind for later chapters. But this is just a quick prologue that shows you one of the glimpses into Marceline's past. There will be more in the future chapters. This wasn't as long as I hoped it would be, but I'm extremely exhausted and there are probably so many errors in this.
In later chapters this will be Marceline/Bubblegum, I just want to add more feel for the characters. And the chapters will be better pieced together, and longer. This was quite the mess to try and let some imagination roll out, sorry.
Polite reviews, please.