So, er...This is awkward.
This is not only my first ever Adventure Time story, but it's also the first time I've ever posted a story of mine on the internet. So I'm kinda sorta extremely nervous. I'm fairly proud of this, though, and I did work pretty dang hard on it. So I'll stop babbling now and I'll just say, enjoy~
The sun was setting on the empty, desolate park when the oddly-colored little family decided to come by for a picnic.
The pale woman took the lead, large parasol in one hand and a wicker picnic basket in the other. She whistled to herself happily, twirling the umbrella as if to shake water off it, despite the clear, crimson skies. Behind her was a gaunt-faced grey man in a sharp suit, hands in pockets and a little grey girl on his shoulders. Bare footed and more than a little dirty, she was chattering happily to the man, small hands knotted in his hair as if she were riding a horse. The family got to the base of the hill that was their destination and the man set off in a run, causing the girl to squeal in delight and wrap her hands around his head. At the top of the hill, he fell dramatically to the ground and the two collapsed into a fit of laughter. The woman shook her head, smiled, and gently took off the ground, gliding to the top of the hill to join her husband and daughter.
Within moments, a flowered blanket was set on the grassless ground, and it was covered with all varieties of foods: steaks still oozing with blood, pomegranates, cherries, apples, beets, tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, a tiered red velvet cake and, to top it off, a tall bottle of red wine. The family squeezed themselves onto what space remained on the blanket and dived into the food.
"You couldn't have chosen a lovelier spot, dear." The woman sighed happily. From the hill they could see all around them, from the murky green lake to the east to the towering skyscrapers of their city to the west. The woman eyed the sun as it slowly sunk into the skyscrapers. As it finally disappeared and the night took over, she sighed again, this time in relief, and closed the parasol. "I just hope we don't miss the show."
The man checked his watch. "We still have ten minutes, if my watch is right." Unlike his wife, who was sucking on a piece of dripping steak, slowly draining the red from it, and daughter, who had shoved a slice of cake in her mouth whole, he didn't touch the food. But he smiled lovingly at his wife, regardless. "I'm happy you like it, Aveline."
"It really is just lovely. And so quiet." Aveline the Vampire Queen sucked on a bit of steak bone, eyes distant. "It's been nothing but noise, noise, noise lately. Such a bother."
The man picked at his long, sharp teeth. "Well, that won't be much of a problem soon."
The girl tugged at the hem of her mother's dress. "Mom? Can I go to Sara's house tomorrow? Her mom said it's okay and we were going to play war, and I was going to be the bad guys. Sara promised."
Aveline's lips twitched in a mockery of a smile. She patted her daughter's dark hair and said, "I'm afraid not, Marceline. We'll be moving tomorrow."
"Again?" The girl cried. "But I was just starting to make friends! They didn't laugh at my skin or steal Hambo like people always do!" As if to emphasize her point, she squeezed the stained, patched bear to her chest and set her mouth in a firm pout.
"Your mother and I know that, Marcie." Her father said gently. "But after tomorrow this town won't be nearly as much fun anymore. You understand that, right?"
"No! Why?"
Aveline dragged the small girl to her. "Don't worry. Just sit back, eat and relax. We're all together now, as a family. Let's celebrate it."
Marceline opened her mouth to protest, but shirked away at the look on her mother's face, and instead opted for the bowl of cherries. She chewed on them sourly, spitting the pits at passing ants.
"Look there, Marcie." Her father said, pointing to the city skyline. "It should be any minute now…"
"I don't know." Aveline muttered to him, squinting into the empty distance. "Maybe your contact was wrong."
"Nonsense." He scoffed. "Bolf is the best psychic in the Nightosphere. He said it was happening now, at eight o'clock."
"Woth's 'aenning?" Marceline said thickly, her mouth full of cherries.
"Just watch." Her father hushed her.
For several long moments, the little grey family sat in silence. Then, Marceline's father whispered in her ear, "Do you know what an orchestra is, Marcie?"
The little girl shook her head, dark eyes wide and cheeks still puffed full of cherries.
"It's a group of musicians. They all play different instruments, and it all comes together to make music. But not just any music, it's big. It fills the entire air with its sound. And this is the world's biggest orchestra."
In the still, cold silence, a panic alarm rang out, clear as a knife cutting through the red skies. "Hear that?" He said. "That's the strings. Quiet at first, and soft…"
Someone screamed.
"Then comes the woodwinds."
The single scream doubled. Multiplied. Marceline shivered, swallowed and shirked back into her father's shadow as the screams multiplied again and again. They piled on each other, over and under and in-between in their desperation to get out.
Aveline sighed and closed her eyes. "The poor, sad things. They know what's coming and they can't even run fast enough."
Marceline's father's eyes were wide. Hungry. He licked his pale lips and continued. "Listen. This is just the beginning. The best part is about to come. The strings and the woodwinds are fine, just fine, but they're not enough. They lack substance, that umph that ties the music together like string on a package. Just listen, Marcie. Any minute now, you'll hear it…"
Marceline wasn't sure when the sounds of the sirens and the screams of the people within the city blended together. But they did, into a single, palpable sound of fear. The lights of the town flickered and died as the city plunged into darkness and the fear writhed and contorted until it become something palpable; something that covered the little oddly-colored family like a blanket and threatened to smother them. It was then that Marceline saw the smoke trail. It was faint, but it traveled so far up she had to nearly lie down to look for it.
And Marceline's father grinned. "The drums."
Marceline once watched a video of a tree growing. Once a day every day for years the photographer took a photo of a tree, starting from when it was only a seed, and then compiled the photos together into a video. The little sapling spouted out of the ground and reached its arms to the sky, and grew taller and stronger as it tried to touch the sky in vain. It never reached the sky, even though Marceline egged it on.
The explosion was a lot like that tree, in its way. The bomb connected with the town, and the seed was planted. In a second it had sprouted, and its trunk of dust and debris grew and expanded like lightning. The skyscrapers and buildings were engulfed in its trunk, and Marceline could all but see Sara's house, torn away like tissue. The trunk, aged and brown already, twisted and grew and grew and grew…And then the leaves, grotesque and bulbous as they were, sprouted, and the tree stood tall over what was once the town.
This tree touched the sky.
"It's a mushroom." Marceline breathed. "Daddy, the orchestra's a mushroom."
"Mmm-hmm." Her father had his attention on his wife, who had her hands clutched to her chest, face bright and breathless.
"Mom! Daddy! Look, it's snowing!" Hand-in-hand with Hanbo, Marceline jumped to her feet and pointed eagerly at the white flakes falling softly from the sky.
"Oh, honey, that isn't snow—" Aveline began, finally broken away from the spell of the explosion, but she was too late. Marceline was already halfway at the bottom of the hill, giggling and dancing in the storm.
"Let her have her fun." Marceline's father said dismissively. He reached for the wine and poured two glasses, then handed one to his wife. It matched the color of the sky.
Aveline took the glass. "It's beautiful." She muttered.
"It's pointless. Destructive. Chaotic." Marceline's father beamed. "It is indeed beautiful."
Aveline held up the wine to the sky. Through the glass she could just see the mushroom cloud, slowly stretching over the little oddly-colored family and covering them in its shade. "It's hit the west now. Soon this war will engulf the world, won't it. This…Oh, what did Bolf say it will be called?"
"The Great Mushroom War." Her husband said. "A little dramatic, but it'll do."
"This Great Mushroom War." Aveline finished. "A toast, then?"
He laughed. "To the souls it'll destroy! The lives it will ruin, the wastelands it'll create…To the Great Mushroom War."
The two glasses gently clinked together in the dead silence of the red night. "To the Great Mushroom War."