Author's Note: Well this is my first fan-fiction is a couple of YEARS. Wow! But anyways, as the description said, this story is about the life of a girl during the Great Mushroom War. I watch Adventure Time casually, so forgive me if I get any of the continuity wrong. Upon learning more info about the show, I might edit some chapters, but for now trust me enough to know that I'll make any plot holes or any weird continuity make sense in the story's long run. Thank you for reading! Please comment, feedback would be GREATLY appreciated!

Two Hundred and Eight Days Ago

Chapter 1: A Normal Life

Vivian was not outstanding in any way.

She was not spectacularly beautiful, nor was she blessed with a brilliant mind. Her straw-like brown (not blonde) hair was rather unnoticeable, and her (not colorful) dark-dark brown eyes hardly ever shone brightly. Her sense of fashion was average- perhaps a bit too much so- but varied, while her skin was a bit too pale for her liking.

Her world was not wonderfully mad. She did not have any special abilities; she was not particularly strong, or even brave. Even her hometown was bland, with every average little person dressed in drab little clothes, each worrying about their normal little problems. (Or, at least they were normal to them at this point; the wailing emergency test sirens and the periodic security checks residents experienced daily lost their terrifying charm about a decade prior.)

Vivian did not stick out in a crowd, nor did the actions of her family. Despite their militaristic upbringing, these days Mr. and Mrs. Knately owned a relatively successful cannery. Her father and mother had received a traditional education: they knew their arithmetic about as well as they knew their grammar and their biology skills were as strong as their standard civilian military training skills were. ("You know," the Minister of Education had said, "just in case Little Timmy is ever in a situation where it's necessary, what with the times and all.") Vivian was not partial to any subject, but she enjoyed the life she led. Her group of friends was not too small, but not too large, but the only people at school who stood out in her mind were her best friend, Melaine, and the raven-haired girl who had barely moved in. ("I heard she was from that city that was attacked just the other week." "She's a little pale, isn't she? Almost inhuman if you ask me." "Hey guys, shut up, I think she heard us.")

The first thought that would come to mind when one saw Vivian was often "The girl with the silly doodles and hats." Indeed, Vivian loved to draw, albeit her lack of skill in that department. Every night she sketched, designed, created drafts and outlines for entire outfits. Vivian was enamored by cartoons and by fashion, so it was only natural that she would emulate the gorgeous figures she saw in these shows by making crude replicas of the outfits. Of course, now that the price of fabric had skyrocketed, she would only have a limited supply of cloth at her disposal every week, so she put her money towards small projects. Trinkets, caps, hats, hoods, anything she made would keep her sane in the colorless town which she called home.

Her favorite item was a tightly-fitting, snow white hat. The hat was simple enough to make, despite the strange horn-like protrusions that came out from either side of the hat where Vivian couldn't sew the sides of the fabric together properly ("Oh, of course I put those there on purpose! Ears! Bear ears!" she stammered to her unconvinced mother.) Vivian was proud of this work of hers; it was the only hat she created that she could wear out in public with pride, but ironically this is what kept it out of the sight of the public. Vivian was desperate to keep her creation in prime condition, so she kept it under lock and key in her closet, huddled among old socks and empty photo albums.

It was this hat that would be her legacy.

Even after the end, even after the mushroom clouds obliterated the only home she ever knew and destroyed her bland little life, the hat would remain, and would be the only memory the Earth had left of young, tenacious, tragic Vivian Knately.