A/N: my profile explains alot, so stop by before you read, it'll help and will only consume a minute of your life (that you could otherwise spend in reality or communication with non-fictional people, which would be a waste). my characters are based off of lewis carroll's, but i made them all human, and teenagers, and...they like drugs. here's a quick list though.

Alice- Alice (bet you woulda caught that)

Kat- Cheshire Cat (psh...her name doesn't give it away)

Drew- dormouse (ha! betcha wouldn't have guessed that, oh...you did? okay then...)

Mattie- Mad Hatter (in his younger years o'course)

And...begin!

Misplaced Individuals (an afterthought)

Alice tilted her head back, threw her arms into the air and began to spin in a tipsy circle. The smile on her lips was giddy, she had found a childish joy in watching the sky melt together. Yellow sun, white clouds, blue sky…all blurring to a muddle of cerulean streaked with sunbeams and colorless lines. Alice loved looking up at the sky, it brought back memories. She was spellbound by the spinning hues…she looked so fascinated.

"Why do they make school soooo boring?" Kat strained to hear the same question Drew muffled into his hands everyday.

"I dunno," she responded languidly, "but you asked me that yes'erday."

The boy kept his head in his hands as he felt the heat rise in his cheeks. "I only ask do I have a reason to talk to you…" he thought through the aching need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. "I need a drink…" he groaned.

Kat stared blankly at the smooth surface of the desk before. The two sat in the back of the busy room, the other students paid no mind to them, busying using their free time in class to talk, laugh. The teacher, who sat at her desk grading papers with a bitter look on her aging face, never once looked at them. Drew fiddled with the zipper on his jacket, keeping his eyes down, while Kat battled an unnatural sleep. No one noticed their particular behavior, no one ever realized, even when they were children. The bell rang, screeching through Drew's headache making him cringe lightly and waking Kat with a violent jolt. Maybe it because they had always been like this. By the time Drew drug himself from the chair and Kat had stumbled her way through the maze of desks everyone else had escaped the classroom. They walked slowly down the nearly empty hall…they felt so disregarded.)

The blonde girl paused in her haphazard twirling and turned her gaze to the flowers by her feet, her smile widened, like a child's when a magical realization came about, as she played with the vivid petals. Her cheeks were flushed from reeling in a circle, her eyes glimmered with a wide-awake curiosity that was clambering for evidence, her smile was more playful than it had ever been…she looked so animated.

Kat was tired, her vision was foggy and her steps were unsure, hesitant. Yet amidst the struggle to complete her simple task of walking home the crawling need for more pushed at her chest. She could fell the breeze on her skin, she could hear Drew's music pounding from his headphones, she was crashing. Coming back to being coherent, it reminded her of childhood. Rising up from her placid hover to be blinded by bright lights and shocked by loud sounds that weren't truthfully that bright or loud but seemed overwhelming after the pill's cushion. Now she was exhausted and her surroundings were far too explosive, it made Kat want one more white cylinder to buffer the blow the world's dealt to her…she felt so drained.

Alice giggled at the dazzling colors whirling around her making her light headed as they spun too quickly and forced her to lose balance. Childishly, another giggle burst out as she tumbled to the soft ground, her fall dampened by the floor of vivid green grass and kaleidoscope flowers. Alice closed her eyes and listened to her heart pulse in her chest as she gasped for air, winded by magnified world around her. Heartbeat echoing in the colorful realm, chest rising and falling rapidly, fingers flexing, playing with nothing in particular…she looked so alive.

Drew came to an abrupt halt and froze, all thoughts of getting home and getting into his stash of alcohol was forgotten in seconds. He ripped his headphones out, as if the harsh, somber music could be creating an illusion to match its chorus. But the scene was still the same, only all the more real.

"Kat!" the boy yelled and the girl snapped out of her daze at his scream. Her thoughts worked in slow motion as she turned to see what Drew was running toward. There had been something in his tone that sounded like a terrified child, screaming about a nightmare. And then the desperate need for that little white pill intensified as she stumbled forward in an awkward run.

"Alice!" Kat cried throwing herself at the limp figure of her friend. Drew was already there, kneeling beside the blonde, shaking her shoulders, yelling her name.

"Alice! Alice! Alice!" he shook the girl with every yell.

Kat looked at Alice, how pale she was, how her lips were parched and bloodless, how her eyes were glazed and reflective, she reached out and cupped her best friend's cheek…she felt so lifeless.

Alice kept her eyes closed, the colors playing in front of her eyes were entrapping, bright, bright colors. Like the colors she searched endlessly for to paint her skies with when she was a child. Her breaths slowed down, she wasn't as desperate for air now, she listened to her pulse calmly slow. And with that insouciant, winsome smile on her lips…she looked so happy.

Tears sparkled in Kat's eyes as Drew's hands slipped from his grasp on Alice's shoulders. The pallid blonde's head lolled to the side, her eyes watching them without seeing a single thing.

"Alice…please wake up…" Drew begged but the girl remained unresponsive, lost to the world. She looked so mournfully young, sprawled under that tree from years ago. Kat didn't know what to do, her head pounded, she needed more than one pill now, and Alice just laid there oblivious to it all. Her best friend looked childish, with her blonde hair tangled around her face and chipped blue nail polish. And Kat didn't think she would come down this time and that made her heart hurt. She could still hear Drew's blaring music pouring out of his discarded headphones…she felt so sad.

Alice opened her eyes slowly, they felt heavy, demanding to be shut again. "The sky doesn't look as blue…" Alice thought vaguely, "…I wonder why…"

"She's gone…" Drew whispered, "I never thought it would kill her…"

"Alice…" Kat asked, "what have you learned?" The question she had asked so many, many times. She had never really expected an answer.

"I never saw it coming." Drew muttered, the song ended in the background.

"That day we looked up at the sky…did you really believe in forever?"

Kat smiled. To say she hadn't seen it coming…would have been a lie.

An Epilogue

"That day we looked up at the sky…did you really believe in forever?"

"Alice…what are we doing?" Mattie flopped on his side to face the girl lying beside him. She scrunched her nose and squeezed her baby blue eyes shut and turned to face him. He laughed lightly at her funny face and she relaxed the expression.

"We're looking at the sky…" Alice said in tone that clearly said that what they were doing should be blatantly obvious.

"But why?" he asked and the blonde turned back to the abysmal blue sky.

"Because it makes me believe in forever…" she whispered.

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thank you for reading