Marceline's world had plunged into a frenzy of mania and despair long before the bars of the high-security prison clanged shut behind her. The secrets she uncovered behind the cave paintings in Celestic Cave had ignited a relentless fire within her, one that had burned with a singular purpose: to rescue her husband, Cyrus, from the cruel depths of the dark realm he was trapped in.

For months, she had been locked away in solitary confinement; no windows, no friends to talk to, dinners slid to her under a door without a word. Her steadily growing belly was the only indicator of time's passage, and the child inside had recently dropped low, contractions coming in waves over the previous weeks, closer and closer together. Soon, she would finally be able to see her baby— to hold it. It was the only thing that kept her going.

As one particularly strong contraction began, Marceline clutched the fabric on her gown in pain, knuckles turning white, falling to the concrete floor. What began as a soft cry turned into a blood-curdling scream as pain tore through her belly, almost like her organs were being shredded from the inside.

She could barely make out the sound of footsteps running towards her cell— her ears were ringing from the sheer intensity of the pain and she felt like she might throw up. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she realized that she was laying in a puddle of water. It was finally time.

Both terror and excitement rushed through her body along with a surge of adrenaline as nurses and guards alike bursted into her room and pulled her up onto a hospital gurney. The fluorescent light that shined into her eyes from the hallway nearly blinded her after so long in darkness, and she couldn't even react as she was handcuffed to the mobile bed.

She had no time to process her surroundings. She heard beeping and buzzing of what she thought to be hospital machines, and the hushed voices of nurses that sounded so foreign after so many months of complete silence. The light was still too harsh to see, and the pain was too much to focus on anything else for long. Every fiber of her being urged her to do one thing: push.

After hours of agony, the pressure in the lower half of her body grew so strong that she thought she might die, and she gathered up all her remaining energy for one final push . . . And then . . . She felt relief.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes to a blurry image of one of the nurses holding the baby. Her baby. A beautiful boy.

She attempted to stretch her arms out to reach for him, but her restraints held her back. She was only able to thrash against the handcuffs, blood from the birth staining the bed beneath her, as the nurses cut hit umbilical cord and cleared his airway, allowing him to let out his first cries.

"I- I want to—"Marceline began with a stutter, the feeling of her voice in her throat so foreign and strange after such a long time in silence, "Hold him."

The nurses continued on with their duties as if they hadn't heard Marceline, running tests on the newborn and tending to his needs. One of them came to the new mother to help clean her up. She didn't dare look the former Team Galactic commander in the eyes, and instead just focused on her job.

Marceline detected a hint of emotion in the nurse's averted gaze. Grief? Sadness? No . . . It was shame.

"Let me hold him." Marceline began softly, but when everyone continued to ignore her, an insatiable rage rose up inside of her and her tone grew more desperate, "I SAID LET ME HOLD HIM."

The nurse who was helping clean her up stopped for a moment, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She still didn't dare look Marceline in the eyes, but her lips mouthed the words "I'm so sorry." As she excused herself from the room.

As Marceline's eyes trailed her towards the door, she noticed a window. There was a large group of people standing on the other side of it. Men and women in suits— lawyers, she presumed— as well as a few police officers, two civilians, and . . . No. Not her. Anyone but her.

Marceline couldn't even breathe. She wanted with every fiber of her being to be free from her restraints so that she could run towards her and choke her to death. She wanted to watch the life drain from her eyes, because all of this was her fucking fault.

Cynthia.

The blonde woman peered into a black leather book, eyes sunken in and surrounded by dark circles. She highlighted something in it, and then placed a bookmark in the page to save her spot. Marceline squinted, trying to get a clearer picture of what she was looking at.

Then she saw the red oval beads that made up the links of Cynthia's bookmark. They were all too familiar . . . Fragments of the red chain. The same artifact that allowed Cyrus to bind the deities of space and time— the same artifact that granted Marceline access to the hidden area behind the cave painting in Celestic Cave.

This couldn't be a coincidence. A shiver ran down Marceline's spine, a revelation that pierced through her pain, connecting the dots between Cynthia and her husband's entrapment. She was a part of it all. Somehow.

Marceline was brought back to reality as she saw the nurses leave the room with her son.

"NO!" She yelled, "DON'T LEAVE!"

Her screams became more violent and incoherent as she watched the nurses carry her son towards the two civilians behind the window, and she thrashed against her restraints as they handed the swaddled baby off to them.

"GIVE HIM BACK!" She screamed, "HE'S MINE! I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!"

The couple left with Marceline's child, and she descended into madness.

Drenched in sweat and throat sore from screaming, Marceline vowed to exact a brutal revenge upon Cynthia. The pain of childbirth seemed almost secondary to the rage burning within her. It was her fault. Somehow. She just knew it.

As Marceline lay there, broken and alone, the resolve within her grew stronger. She would do whatever it took to reunite with her son and rescue her husband, even if it meant descending deeper into the darkness that now consumed her soul.

After all the other figures behind the window had left, only Cynthia remained. She turned her head, and for a brief moment, their eyes locked. Seething red meeting cold gray, Marceline saw something unexpected in the depths of the other woman's gaze:

fear.