Marceline the Vampire Queen drifted aimlessly through the night.

Now I have to clean up the mess you made

Bubblegum's words buzzed around Marcy's head like an angry bee: they were ultimately harmless, but they sure did sting.

"Sometimes it feels like you clean up all my messes, Bonibell," Marceline said aloud, turning her face to the sky. The night was warm, the sky partially overcast, speckled here and there with starlight that had managed to make its way through the clouds. A light breeze lifted her hair from the nape of her neck, which would probably have felt wonderfully welcome had Marceline not been a vampire and, as such, unbothered by trivial mortal things like the weather.

"Princess Bonnibel," Marceline muttered under her breath.

It wasn't like Marceline had known Bonnie before she was Princess Bubblegum. They had met when the Candy Kingdom was still just a Candy Village, but Bonnibel was ever so princessy, even then. Things were different, though. Bonnie was less restrained, less rigid. She wasn't so piled with responsibility. A bit naïve, but she was free.

Well, as free as she could be watching over seventeen candy children who might explode at any moment from even the slightest bit of surprise.

Marceline shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and landed on the edge of a rocky cliff. She had been moving without a destination, but somehow she had ended up here anyway. The Abyss. With a dry laugh, she kicked a rock off the cliff, into the swirling chasm.

It wasn't the same.

Marceline was hundreds of years old. She had seen friends, loved ones grow old and die. Seen seeds grow to mighty forests; forests chopped down and cleared for settlements. She had fought and killed and she had survived. But the people she grew close to, just about everyone she had learned to love was gone now, buried underground.

Worm food.

Not Bonnibel. While the world aged around them, the two of them stayed the same. Never changing among the constant churning of the rest of the world's mortal butter.

Well, there was Simon. But he was a different story entirely.

Marceline kicked another rock into the Abyss.

"Princess Bonnie," she said.

She sighed and turned to leave, but then she caught a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. Rolling toward her was a rock, a small pebble not unlike the one she had just kicked into the Abyss. Frowning, she moved closer to examine it, when another rock hit her square in the eye. "Ow! What the hey?"

Marceline jumped back into the air and glared over the Abyss, as if she would find someone there, throwing pebbles at her as a prank, a lame attempt at humor. "This isn't funny!" she yelled into the void. There was no answer. No laughter at her expense. Nothing. The strange, roiling mass of black clouds and darkness below gaped at her in complete, eerie silence. She and Bonnie had discovered and named the Abyss when they were younger, playing at explorers and adventurers. They visited it only a handful of times, mostly to hide from Bonnie's growing responsibilities. Marceline gulped, remembering now why they had eventually decided not to return.

A sudden shadow loomed behind her.

The moon, obscured for a moment by a drifting cloud?

Marceline turned.

It took a lot to frighten the Vampire Queen. She had seen countless deaths: bloody; violent; planned; spontaneous. She had seen and known more monsters than she cared to remember and had learned long ago that most of the monsters this world had to offer turned out to reside within the people you thought you knew. She had laughed in death's face, and death had laughed back. Her father was the actual ruler of the Nigh-O-Sphere, for Glob's sake.

But when Marceline turned and saw the creature belonging to the shadow that had fallen over her, she screamed.

Unfortunately, no one was there to hear it but the clouds of perpetual darkness below.

I am aware that these chapters are incredibly short, I have never done this before and I am still getting the hang of it. I expect the chapters to get longer as I go on. Thank you so much for reading!