Simon's Wonder Chapter 5

"Up and at 'em, Marcy!" I said, gently shaking the girl from her slumber. She yawned and stretched. "Is it night-time already?"

I nodded, helping her up.

I felt the pains in my head again, they come often now, without notice. I see the visions. The whispers come again, revealing things.

You think you know

you know the snow

the ice is thin

nowhere to go

follow me

and you shall see

the frost's your guide

through misery

I try to ignore it, but it just seems to enticing. The visions tell me things. I see a huge, solid ice door. How extraordinairy! I open it with great effort, but the visions stop. I see Marcy, her face is red, and her eyes are puffy.

"I don't know what came over me!" I protests. She just glares at the crown.

"Right," she replies, hard. "Can we just get back to what we were doing?"

She looked outside the tent. "I'm scared to leave this town... It's the closest thing to a home I've got, Simon." she said.

"Take short steps, deep breaths, everything is alright. Chin up."

"I can't, I'm afraid." She said. "I'm sad"

Somehow, without any words, I just stood there searching for an answer.

"Since this world is no more and the moon's all we see, I'll ask you to come away with me. Hold my hand, If you're with me then everything's alright until the stars all fall down from the sky." I said, smiling.

She held my hand, stepping out of the tent.

"I'm ready." she said.

We started walking through the rubble of the town. Cars are destroyed and their wreckage lines the streets. Storefronts have been broken into; their windows smashed and glass littering the streets. Streetlamps lean against buildings and, in some cases, have fallen down entirely. She has to step around them and keep walking, even if she has no idea where she's going. She just has to keep walking.

"How old are you, Marceline?"

She shrugs. Time has no real meaning here and it stopped having meaning long before The Mushroom War. Speech, likewise, has little meaning to her. She's been alone for far too long.

Rather than speak, she sings softly. It's a song she made up, since she likes singing. It makes her feel less alone and helps her figure out problems to which she'd ordinarily have no answers. She reasons singing must have been important to someone she can no longer remember.

"What's that you're singing?" I ask, interrupting her.

"It's a song I wrote," she announces.

"Can I hear the rest? You're quite good."

Perhaps I'm being too complimentary or, perhaps, like her, I am desperate to hold onto any kind of attachment in this world.

"The winds used to blow

There used to be people here long ago

Before the screaming and bombs flew through the air

There used to be people standing there

Sometimes if I close my eyes and think hard enough, maybe

There's someone else who's still here, free

Someone who's waiting for me

Someone just for me."

Marceline's point of view

I remember the first time he hit me. Under the influence of the crown, his temper had mounted and he'd said some ugly things. The words and his sudden change in demeanor frighten me a lot more than the slap. Somehow, the violence pales in comparison. I don't know this man who wears the crown, because he isn't Simon Petrikov. The man who wears the crown is not my friend.

The man who wears the crown doesn't know Simon either. With or without the crown, his skin has acquired a blue tinge she has grown to associate the crown with bad things. The crown is a loss of control, an inability to regain himself. And even as he apologizes for hurting me, I withdraw. Simon isn't himself. I wait until he is.

We've been walking for a long time. My feet ache and my legs shake when I stop. It's cold, colder than it's ever been, and I can't see the sky. Ash blankets everything and crunches underfoot. When we walks, we leaves trails through it.

"It's c-cold." I say, shivering. He immediately flickers into concern.

"Oh dear, I'm awfully sorry, Marcy! I guess I'm just tooo used to it." He says, handing me a thicker jacket to put over my sweater. I put it on, and we sit down by a destroyed bank for a break. He gets out an apple for me, and one for himself. Sometimes I wonder when daddy will come. I don't remember him well, but unitl I find him, Simon will be my daddy-person.

I finish my apple, as does he, and we begin walking again. I being to wonder if we'll ever get to a place that isn't wrecked.

"Lovely view," he comments. "You have the destroyed corner store over there, and what used to be a school a mile away…oh, and the mall down there looks very nice."

I roll my eyes and we walk together quietly for a while. I plays with Hambo's arms and legs, twisting and manipulating them so that they look like they're moving. Simon says we'll reach the place soon, but I'm not too sure. He turns into a forest, and I follow him. I don't know where he's going, but I don't think he knows either. Sometimes it's alright to wander directionlessly.

It's not that cold anymore. I don't see any more snow, anyways. But there's snow up ahead, and I guess that's where Simon's goin. He loves the ice and snow.

We had to climb a mountain. I don't know if he's gone completely insane yet, but maybe he hasn't. We got to a cave, and he said it would be our ice fortress. It sounds like fun!