Marlene awoke in her habitat happy and cheerful. For the first night in awhile she had a nice uninterrupted sleep. King Julian didn't play his boombox, the penguins didn't interrupt and Alice hadn't woken her up. She got up and stretched, limbering up her stiff body and exposing her chst. It was an embarrassing sight, but nobody was there to see.
Normally Marlene was a creature who liked the limelight and loved to be surrounded by friends. But for just a little while she was glad to be alone. After months of being annoyed by her roommates it was nice to enjoy a little bit of solitary.
But she knew that she needed to get to her schedule sometime. So she walked out of her cave and into the sun. But what she saw shocked her even more than any of the shocking things she had seen during her years at the zoo.
"oh god" She whispered as she stared at the nothingness in front of her. The bars of many cages lay bent and scattered on the ground. The waters were dried up and dead fish skeletons lay at the bottoms. Many human houses outside the zoo lay crumbling, and even Marlene's habitat was in horrendous shape. It seemed that the only habitat unaffected by whatever had happened was Julian's. Due to the fact that it looked remarkably untouched, as well, the penguins habitat looked fine. Despite the fact that a small chunk of it looked like it had crumbled.
"Marlene!!" A voice called from behind her. Before she could turn around and look she was tackled to the ground with the familiar feeling of penguins on top of her. She smiled as she felt the penguin tackle, at least not everything had been destroyed. Of course the comfort of familiar faces was soon overcome by anger.
"What did you guys do this time?" She said angrily as she pushed the penguins off her as she got up. She found it a little easier now for some reason. Like they were a little bit lighter. She brushed herself off a little bit as she waited for an answer. WHen she didn't hear one she turned around and was shocked by what she didn't see.
"Where's Skipper?" She asked timidly as she stared at the three penguins. She noticed that Rico had his head down, Kowalski had put away his notebook, and private looked like he was covered in....blood. The three penguins shuffled nervously.
"Well you see marlene....."
"Splat!!" Rico yelled sadly. As if to prove his message he regurgitated a small orange, and smashed it with his flipper. Marlene gasped in horror as she came to the realization that Skipper was dead. She had always had a little bit of a crush on Skipper and had been good friends with him ever since he had come to the zoo. She had dreamed that one day she and Skipper would get married, or at least date. But now she knew it would never happen.
Mort stared at the sleeping Julian. Julian had slept through the destruction as it wiped the zoo clean of most of it's habitats. Even worse, he had watched as one of his friends had died. He still remembered the event.
He had been playing with his penguin friend, private, inside the penguin habitat. Private had found a blue ball and asked Mort to play with him. He agreed and a few minutes later he was in the penguins lair passing the ball to the young penguin. He was having a good time until he heard the noise. When he looked up he saw a few cracks in the ceiling over top of him and private. He screamed and was sure he was going to die. He shut his eyes.
When he opened them he found himself alive, he breathed a sigh of relief and looked over to see private. Of course private was a lot less happy than he was. He had a shocked expression on his face and was staring at a spot in front of him. Curious, Mort looked at the spot and gasped in horror as he saw the wreckage, and the black thing sticking out of them.
"He was a hero" Kowalski said valiantly as he told Marlene about how Skipper had died. Marlene wasn't any happier at the knowledge. Her love had died a hero, but he had still died. Nothing would cheer her up.