Whoa it's been forever since I updated this story, but for some random reason, I had the urge to write about Alice … Jasper must be manipulating me :)

Alice's POV

The days passed, and, much to my disappointment, they were James-less.

I was bored a lot of the time. I wasn't quite sure what I had expected girls in asylums to do all day, but I hadn't guessed it was just sit in a cell and wait for the weekly physicals. My first appointment was spotless – I was in one-hundred percent perfect health. But as I passed the rest of the waiting line to go back to the cell, I noticed all of the girls coughing and bleeding and looking downright ghastly. I couldn't help but feel terrible for all of them.

As each physical passed, my wellbeing grew worse and worse. My blood grew tainted with unidentifiable bacteria; my skin grew darker and oilier, as did my hair. It came to be that I could stand in line with the rest of the girls that had been here for months and years, and no one would be able to tell the difference between us. But, I tried my hardest to stay positive.

Something else that changed about me: I let the visions come as they wished. I wouldn't mention them to anyone, not even Nathalie. They had a wide range, though, wider than they ever had – some would be completely insignificant, like which girl would throw up today and if it would rain or not. But others were more significant. I kept having visions of James walking into the asylum and visions of the old man that was taking me away. It all made no sense – so I decided not to make any sense of it. I tried my best to keep my thoughts off things like my visions and on more present problems.

My hair grew back a little bit, tickling my cheeks and just beginning to brush my shoulders. But, after my first month, it got cut again – as I watched the woman snip off the various ends, I couldn't help but love the new look. It made it easier to forget my old life in Biloxi. It felt like, with all the strands that fell to the floor, the memories drifted with them. It was an exhilarating feeling of release to be able to forget home … and what had happened to Tommy.

I had nightmares about him sometimes, about his head ducking under the water. And the only solution I could come up with that would get my mind off the crazy dreams was to not sleep at all. Sure, it put hideous bags underneath my eyes, but it kept my head clear. But, my only fear was that, what if a lack of sleep was no way to escape from the nightmares? If there is daydreaming, can there be day-nightmaring?

"Nathalie," I whispered to the small little ball that was curled up beside me. She hardly looked human. "What if the dreams start coming back?"

So far, she was the only one that knew about the nightmares – about my past. "Go to sleep, Alice."

"You're right," I nodded, pretending that she said something different than what she actually said. "I shouldn't worry about things like that. I just need to stay hopeful."

I saw the whites of her eyes move. She must've rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say."

I paused for a moment, crossing my legs and then uncrossing them again. "Do you think my mother misses me? Do you think she spends her days weeping, imagining what it would've been like if she had protested against the psychiatrists and didn't send me here?"

"Doubt it," Nathalie mumbled.

I ignored her. "I bet Cynthia misses me. I bet she gets up and looks over at the bed next to her, only to remember that it's empty. We used to play together all the time … I miss her. She must miss me too, I'm sure of it …"

"Alice," she snarled under her breath, "Go. To. Sleep."

"I'm glad you're my friend," I smiled, leaning back against the stone wall. "I don't know if I'd be able to get through this without you, Nathalie."

The sound of clanking bars startled me, and also woke up some of the sleeping girls around us. One of the guards had opened the gate to cell 317 and was scanning his eyes among each of us. A bunch of startled faces met his gaze, all except for Nathalie – she was probably too tired and too used to all of this to even react. Raising his eyebrow, the guard walked over to us and picked up his finger cautiously, poking Nathalie in the back. She snapped up, growling under her breath.

"Leave me alone, Alice!" She hissed.

Her eyes widened when she noticed the guard was directly behind her. I was equally as surprised when the guard picked her up by the arm and stared at her in the eyes.

He eyed her suspiciously. "Who's Alice? … Hallucinating, are you?"

Nathalie didn't have it in her to say anything, so I spoke for her, "No, sir. She thought it was me who had poked her. I've been rather bothersome throughout the night."

The guard paused to analyze my answer for a moment before shaking his head, "And getting another wretch to cover up for you? I swear to the Lord Almighty, I think it's sad that some of you are in here, but then I get in the midst of it and remember that you're all batty."

He began to head back to the door, dragging Nathalie behind him. She looked like a corpse, completely inert.

"No! Stop!" I shouted, but he had already slammed the door, locked it and was down the hallway with my only friend in hand. Not thinking, I stood up, running up to the bars, and shaking them like some kind of restless prisoner.

"Give it a rest," a voice behind me said exhaustedly.

"Yeah," Someone else agreed. "Nathalie's not even worth it. She's got the personality of a rock."

"I don't care! She's my friend!" I protested, slamming my palm against the gate impatiently. Then, my hand fell between the bars – I had lost enough weight where'd probably be able to squeeze through. Turning sideways, I slipped through the bars.

I saw one girl behind me jump up. "What the hell are you doing!"

Another sat up as well, "They're going to kill you too if you don't get back in here!"

"Maybe it's a good thing they kill her," a different girl shrugged. "Since obviously she's crazier than the rest of us. It's been a non-pleasure knowin' ya, freak."

Ignoring them, I ran down the hall, noticing that one of the doors on the end farthest from me was ajar. I could see a couple shadows in the low light that came out, and their voices were loud.

"How long have you been here?" Someone asked strongly.

There was just a whimper in reply. I couldn't make out what they said.

There was the sound of a stinging slap and it hung in their air for a long time before the voice spoke again, "Answer me, devil! How long have you been here?"

"A year and a half …" The voice was hardly a whisper. This couldn't be Nathalie – she was too weak.

"Says here that she killed her parents and her brother on a sadistic rage," a different voice said. I recognized it to be the voice of the security guard. "With a butcher knife."

"You sick child," The sound of slapping came again. "You're just taking up space here. If I don't see her dead in the next hour, you're fired, Fitz."

"Yes, sir," the man responded obediently. Then his voice grew gruff, "You're off to the incinerator, you are."

I could hear her muffled screams as the shadows moved. Once I saw that someone was coming out, I hid behind one of the posts nearby. The man came out, the guard from before, holding Nathalie by her short black hair and pulling her down the hallway, to the steps that I had been brought up to this horrible place, and downwards out of sight. Although I knew it was stupid, I followed them down the steps, eventually getting to the basement.

There was a huge furnace, bigger than my house back home, and flames licked out of the door as the guard opened it. I looked around, noticing a bunch of buckets lined the walls. When the man wasn't looking, I was able to sneak over and look inside the buckets – they were ashes, the ashes of the people who had met the same fate Nathalie was about to meet.

I hid behind the shelves of buckets and watched in pain as Nathalie squirmed.

"No! You can't do this!" She pulled at the man's arm.

"Sorry, kiddo," He shrugged, picking up her wriggling body and stepping closer to the furnace. "But if I don't do this I'll lose my job."

"Please!" She screeched. "Please! I've done nothing wrong!"

"Done nothing wrong?" He spat. "You cut up your family in tiny little pieces, and you call that done nothing wrong? You're a freak of nature, you are. I'm doing this place justice … this planet justice if I dispose of you." He paused during his self-pep talk to look down at Nathalie. "I would say to give a message to the Lord Almighty for me, but I doubt you'll be going up that way …" I saw him throw a large black bundle into the fire.

And I couldn't hear the rest of his sentence. Nathalie screams were too loud.