A/N- so this is basically how I interpret what Marceline saw as a child during The Great Mushroom War. It's not so much a story but more of a visual that I felt I had to write.
The bombs fell from out of nowhere. All you could hear was blood curdling screams and crashes. To this little, young girl it was normal, just an everyday thing during a war that seemed to go on forever. She stares out of the safety of her cave, over the mountain, the ominous cloud, coming to cover the land in a shroud, the skies are musky and the bombings echo, but to her it just comes out to a cold ringing.
Blood stains cover the outside and body parts spread out, but they don't phase her. She's grown in a haunting world full of destruction and death and she's used to it all. She's moved all around between those who pray to the 'who was it? A glob?' and those who beg for mercy, but somewhere in between she's come across those who accept this is the world and are just trying to make it out alive.
"Mom says it'll all be okay soon and she's never lied to me before, right Hambo?" The teddy bear just stared back at her with its stitched smile, but it's okay because the smile always reassured her. This time she wasn't so absolute as she hasn't seen her parents in a while, how long? She doesn't know. She never learnt to count being raised in war times.
Hide in a bushel, a basement, or cave, that's what they taught her." Hide, Marceline, hide if you hear the screams close or see the bombs near run as fast as you can and hide somewhere safe" Why did she have to hide all the time? Why were there bombs in the skies? Why were the only sounds she heard were screams? She didn't understand this war. She didn't. She understood her mother's old stories though. She told about clear skies with fluffs in them not the ones with musk that made Marceline sick to look at and Children played outside and you didn't hear the screams everywhere you went you heard music! And you got three How much was three again? Meals a day instead of scavenging for a meal a day if you were lucky, but what sounded the best of all was sleeping safe, in a bed, warm, under a blanket, and you didn't have to wake up to the terrorizing sounds of the war, but that wasn't her life. Her life was dead bodies covering the lands, and mushroom musk shaped clouds, with few children because they were the first to go, horrifying sounds a child should never hear, the adults going out to try and find as much food as they could, and you slept cold and uncomfortable, wishing it was a different time.
"Mom says that when the war ends we will get a permanent home and I can have a- oh what are those things called? The sleep fluffs? Yeah, those, and I can go to that place with other children that survived and learn what the heck a three means. Won't it be great Hambo?" Just then the young child can see a helicopter enclosed with flames crashing downwards somewhere behind the fog leaving her to not believe the tales her mother has spun for her. She slumps down at the edge of the cave and cuddles with the toy she holds whispering things, "it's not true, Hambo, is it? Mom has lied. This war is never ending and all those things she promised really are too good to be true." It was very unlike Marceline to think of the worst, but on another hand it was very like her to accept the reality of things, as young as she was.
But when the cloud comes a huntin', no one is safe! Marceline hasn't seen her parents in a long while she'd keep track if she only knew how. They said they'd be back soon. Soon? What does soon even mean? Soon just seemed like a giant lie but what didn't anymore? "Oh Hambo, you're my only friend during these times. Not the adults. I mean they created this horror! They're the reason there's blood on the sidewalks and knives in our loved ones stomachs. You and me, Hambo we could stop all of this if we weren't so much smaller than the bombs." The child let out a heavy sigh, stood, and walked back into the safety of the cave humming the nursery rhyme made about the war such a lovely tune based off such a horrifying event with her stuffed companion. The doll was dragged along the watery, cold floors still with that stitched smile.
A/N – Okay so if you didn't understand the scattered parts of the cloud hunt song"Over the mountain the ominous cloud, coming to cover the land in a shroud, Hide in a bushel, a basement, or cave, but when the Cloud comes a' hunting, no one is safe!" is the Cloud Hunt song from the episode "Marceline's Closet" That has been revealed as a nursery rhyme about the Great Mushroom War. Anyway, I hope you liked this story I had a horrifying nightmare of this and felt I had to write it.