Before the kingdom (Bubbline)

Parts of a Puzzle

The gummy girl was dripping with, well, gum. The warm spring sun caused this. Someone had stuck gum under a table many many years ago in Popeyes. For once, that was a good thing. The gum wouldn't have clothes without that happening. Now, how did a sword end up in some swelled up blob of gum in an eatery like this? Well, that was a story she couldn't wait to tell the ice man and the girl.

It was the day the young girl was left behind, and Popeyes was filled with anxious humans and demons. The demons had weapons to fight with, such as clubs, bats, shields, and swords of all kinds. About three demons sat at that table and set their weapons down, waiting for Hunson Abadeer to make an announcement. The gum could barely make out some parts of:

"Okay guys, we need to leave in orderly groups to avoid some chaos. I know many of you are frightened and ready to leave, so that's just what we'll do. You fellas are my second to last peeps. So if you'll just step outside in a nice orderly-"

She could make out a rumble in the background, which even shook the building. The people sitting by the table looked towards the window, along with some demons and people standing by. Everyone quickly started to a furry out of their seats. One man at the table had a shield, one had a metal spike ball on a chain, and the other had The Sword. They were suddenly in a rush. They grabbed their weapons. Or, at least, tried to. The Sword Guy let his sword slip as the demon next to him hurriedly pulled him away. The demons left that day, never to return.

Later on the fog steaming from the ooze came into Popeyes, expanding the gum under that very table.

She had seen too many countless things before the expansion. Weird enough, clothes held many memories.

***

What they didn't realize was that they were looking at a future soldier of the Lich. Be that as it may, it made no difference for the next few years. If anything, seeing the man crawl from the ooze made him wonder if they really were the only humans left in this wasteland. About an hour after leaving that crater, Marcy and Simon stood directly in front of the library.

Finally, they both thought, victory.

Simon guided Marcy inside, still double-checking for zombies in the distance. When he saw none, he went inside and closer the door behind him and locked it. Marcy, holding Hambo, immediately ran into the door that lead to the seemingly endless amount of books.

Simon tried to catch up with her, running out of breath. He stood next to her, slightly hunched over. "Ooh, wait a sec..." he saw the shelves and shelves of books, widening his eyes. "Wow, has this old dump always had that many stories tah' tell?"

"How in the fiddy-seventh death world are we gonna find that one thing in here?"

"Well, Marcy, it's easier than you think. There's a system in libraries my dear old pal. And we's-a-gonna find your spell in no-time!"

"Cool. Where do we start?" She didn't seem too excited about getting back home, but Simon chose to ignore that because he figured maybe she was running low on enthusiasm after so long.

"Ok, I guess you can just follow me. There's a thing that tells where each type of book is. Like real and fake and junk like that. The organize the stuffs by letter...or maybe author."

"Simon?"

"Hm?"

"Do you know what you're doing ?"

He hesitated. "Yeah, yeah of course I do."

He went behind the front desk to find drawers of book names. He looked for the letter "I" first, for "incantations." It took him a few minutes, but he eventually found it while Marceline was just wandering about the shelves.

He went to the section it should be in, which was further to the back of the shelves. On the way there, he noticed small amounts of unusually strange pink gum bulging from some of the shelves. "Where the hell is all this gum coming from...?"

He could swore he heard something from the entrance. "Wait...Marceline! Where are you?!"

He heard a bang from the door. Zombies.

"Simon? I'm over here!" He could hear Marcy tell from another aisle of shelves.

"Come to me. Follow the sound of my voice, sweety!"

"Okay Si..."

He stopped walking. "That's good, can you hear me alright?"

"Yeah," she walked towards the back, " yeah I hear ya."

"Good. Just-a keep on coming. Keeeeep on coming."

Marcy was on the fifth aisle to the right of entering this room. Simon was on the first. He heard another bang.

"I think you're almost here, hurry, please!"

She was behind the aisles, walking towards the first one. "Why? What's the big hulla-balloo?"

"Umm it's just important, okay?"

"Did you find the thingy?"

He looked further down the aisle and saw he was close to booked with "Inc" as the first letters. He walked further down, trying to avoid gum on the floor.

Another bang.

"I think so, c'mon!"

She sighed. "Okay..." She saw him down the first aisle and trotted towards him. She accidentally stepped in gum. "Eww..." she lifted her foot and looked at the gum. "Uck, what is all this shtuff doing here..."

"Don't worry about that, Marceline. Now look, I'm pretty close to the answers, baby girl. Follow me. "

"Okay." She slowly got her feet out of the sticky mess and was careful to avoid more.

Simon scrolled past the books watching for the letters to form in the perfect order. He started to think of what he would do once he found the spell. Get Marcy home of course, but then what? Where would he go? Oh! Maybe the demons have done reversal spells or something to flemish the power in...nahh. Why am I even trying. It's best to stay behind and flood this useless place with snow and insanity. It would keep Marcy out of serious peril...or at least the possibility of it.

He came to a section of books that had gum practically erupting from behind. However, he saw a book with "Incantations" written on the spine. He slowly pulled it out, ripping the gum from its' weird gummy grasp. "Okay Marcy I found a good one!"

She gasped. "Really?"

"Mm-hm." He tried to open the book, but it was hard to open with gum covering the outer edges of the pages.

"Hmm...I'm not sure if ill be able to-"

A very loud bang interrupted him. The front doors. They must be inside.

They both looked towards the front of the aisles. Simon held the book in one hand and put the other in front of Marcy. Talk about protective instincts. How different a it might be if she was older.

"Ok Mar, Maybe we better get outta here."

She quickly nodded and took a step back.

Simon backed up with her. He held her hand and froze as he saw the zombie saunter inside. It turned and saw them. Things were suddenly slow and fast, somehow. It went towards them. "Run, Marcy! Go!" And on they went. Once they were in front of the back door another zombie, once presumed as dead awoke and helped the other zombie corner Si and Marcy. Simon tried to open the back door, but all the locks were hard to unlock with shaky hands. He decided to turn around and fight them. However, he struggled pulling the sword from the side of his bag.

Well, I guess we all know what happened next. Angering Marcy, he put it on again.

***

The gum made great progress today with her travels. She was able to see the crater from where she was now, and the day was only a tad over halfway over. She wanted to let them know they weren't alone. And, more importantly, to tell them she was trying to help them all this time. Even if that wouldn't make sense, it would have to reign as true.