"You failed that time… maybe you should—"

"I'm not giving up! I will be dreamt by someone who deserves to dream me!"

"….have it your way…."

"I will."

In an empty lot across from an old, abandoned apartment building were four kids. One was a girl with long pink hair with silver tips, and the rest were boys, about five years older. One had black hair, the other had red hair, and one had blue hair. The red and black haired children were running away from the girl, a rag doll hanging limply from the red haired boy's hand.

"Stop!" the girl whined, her voice breaking as tears slid down her face. "Give it back!" she almost tripped as she stopped and fell to her knees from lack of oxygen. The two boys laughed at her and said something between themselves inaudible to the other two children. The last child, the one with blue hair, stood, eyes closed, singing in a foreign language. His songs were about death and sickness, but no one ever bothered to listen.

"Hey Alien!" the boy with black hair called. The other boy stopped singing, opened his eyes and looked at them. He didn't speak much, but he knew responding to the nickname 'Alien' only made people think he was weirder. But still, no one bothered to learn his name either. "Wanna come with us?" he asked, laughing. The blue haired boy stood still and dropped his gaze, looking down at the girl with long pink and silver hair. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She was like him, except she was almost thirteen and he was almost sixteen. But still, they both had the same mental problems. It didn't help when every child who decided to stand out went to an insane asylum.

The boys, laughing, ran across the street and into the old apartment building. The girl was crying, but through her tears she managed to mutter "Great, now I'll never get it back…" The boy said nothing for a few moments, then walked over to the girl.

"I'll get it back." He said, then started running off into the old building across the street. The front door was usually locked, he'd tried to get in many times before, to sing uninterrupted and to get away from the kids who never went to the asylum.

He tried to open the doors, which opened so easily he almost fell from the force he used trying to get it open. He looked around at the sparkling lobby. Everything was new. The tile floor was polished, and windows were almost invisible instead of the dirt that was normally caked on the glass, and the walls were completely clean. There were a few people, and a small radio was playing. There were two sets of stairs which led to different sides of the next floor. How could there be people here? This place had been abandoned for years. He walked over to one of the couches, and someone walked up to him, a tall man with rather bright orange hair.

"Young man, would you mind closing the door?" he asked politely. The boy stared at him, then looked over at the front door he had left open. There was a slight breeze that made the air cooler than it had been, and as the boy walked over to close it, he looked outside quickly, and saw nothing. To the left was a forest, half hidden in shadow, and to the right was more of the city, buildings made of brick and wood, and tall structures. He closed the door, lost in confusion. Before he knew it people were staring at him. Everything was silent, and he covered his mouth after realizing that he had been unconsciously singing his songs about death.

The strangers continued to stare at him for a few moments more, then the few people in the lobby clapped and starting calling out things like 'Sing again, boy!' or 'That was wonderful! Why can't you sing like that, son?' and other various such things that got drowned out as the applause grew. The boy stared out blankly.

"You like my singing?" he asked, confused and shocked. He had never met anyone who had even understood his singing or even listened. The small radio was turned off and he started singing again, this song about poverty, one he doesn't sing often. After that song, the grandfather clock by the far wall chimed eleven times, and the strangers walked up the stairs to their own apartments.

The boy sat down on one of the couches, unsure where he could stay, when they man with orange hair from earlier came up. "I got you an apartment." He said, tossing a key down at the boy, who grabbed it in both hands as if he were clapping. He looked at the key. 'Apartment 524' it said on the thin plastic card hanging from the same ring as the key. The boy looked up, but the man was already gone.

The boy sat in silence. He heard the radio slowly turn up, and looked over at it. He thought he saw something white standing there, but it was gone the second it took for his eyes to look at the radio after moving their gaze so quickly. He rubbed his eyes and looked back at the radio. 'Sleep deprivation must be getting to me.' He thought, standing up. He passed the radio on his way to the stair case, but stopped and took a few steps back until the radio was right beside him.

Ontop of the radio was a sheet of music. "'The Second Alice'." He read the title of the song aloud, though no one could hear. The song was written in blue ink, and on the back was a big blue diamond. He looked down at the radio to see if there was anything left, and he picked up something else, something smaller than the sheet music. A playing card; the ace of diamonds. However, on the back was not another diamond like on the music, but a reflective sheen, like a mirror. In the mirror was a shadow of himself with an evil grin shaped like a crescent, almost taking up half his face. It had no eyes, though when he moved it he could see a faint glimmer of silver as if the eyes were watching him. He heard a faint echo around the room and he looked deep into the mirrored card. 'End up like me…' it said, then disappeared.

The boy had sung the song 'The Second Alice', and now it was all he ever sang, and the people loved it. People came to live in the apartments just to hear him sing. He felt happy, though sad at the same time. The song changed him and those who heard it. People started calling him 'the second Alice', and that was what he went by now. Though Alice wasn't a very 'manly' name, to him, it was better than the name 'Alien'.

There were more crimes than before, people were saying. Robberies, murders, suicide, homicide, and other various criminal acts. The people who came to hear him sing were prime suspects, and a few of them had been proven as guilty. The more he sang, the more crimes and death occurred, and he knew it. But did he stop? No, he couldn't, he wouldn't. These people were glad to hear his singing, unlike everyone he had met or even seen. He couldn't sing his old songs either. He was stuck on 'The Second Alice', his song, his. It had named him in this world, given him some joy; this was the song these people liked best, and as long as they continued to enjoy it, he would sing what the people wanted.

He no longer saw people. The sky was always a shade of blue, his blue, the blue of the diamond that was now on his hand. The blue ink from the music had faded into black though, and every time he sang it, it seemed to him that the ink grew darker. Blue roses were everywhere, the thorns poking out slightly. He was never one for having thorns bury themselves in his hand when he picked up a rose, but was a rose a rose without thorn? Having little thorns was better than no thorns. He saw the world as skeletons, death waiting to happen. Skeletons trimmed with blue lined the world around him in the apartment building lobby.

From what he understood, the world was becoming like 'The Second Alice'. The world covered in blue, distortion, death, crime, illness, fire, destruction. Everything the song contained was there.

For the first time in a while, when the Second Alice sang, he had one of the largest audiences since he had started singing. When he began the song, even before the first line was over, people were rioting with cheers and claps. The skeletons were everywhere, filling up the lobby of the apartment building. Except one. A single skeleton, white instead of black tinted with blue, holding a gun and a single blue rose.

Everything turned blue as he fell, vines slowly wrapping around him. The people gradfually went silent, picking some of the blue roses and laying them beside him. Soon after, the apartment building was empty; no one had a reason to be here anymore it seemed. He was the only one left, dying on the lobby floor. Or at least he should've been. A blue rose bloomed from his heart where he was shot, and the thorny vines that grew from it completely stopped any movements before he even thought about them.

He didn't know how long he'd be there, feigning death. He remembered the card, the ace of diamonds he had found that day. The vines allowed him to take the card from the inside pocket of his shirt. He pulled the card out in two parts. It had been ripped. But how? He couldn't answer. The shadow that had once held a smile now held a frown, the same crescent, just turned, and they eyes gleamed a brighter silver than before.

His arm dropped to the ground again, and he lay there, unmoving. He couldn't think, his world was turning gray, his mind a haze and his voice already aching from disuse. Through the haze, he knew something was wrong. He didn't feel alone, there was someone else. Someone else who was simply…

'Feigning death…' he thought, the haze covering his mind and holding back any more thoughts.