Somewhere In Neverland

It wasn't always fun sharing a room with your best friend. We bickered over everything, from leaving a t-shirt on the floor to forgetting to turn the light off before we went to sleep. It got ridiculous. We were in our 1st year of college in London studying art and design. And since we were such good friends, we decided to rent a flat out together. We had finals the next day and I was stressing the fuck over them, without Beth breathing down my neck over every little thing I did wrong.

"For fuck sake Stacey, why are there jelly beans all over the floor?" Beth asked. Beth was my best friend of 3 years. We had so much in common, and that's why we argued so much.
"I tipped them over yesterday, give the floor a bit of colour with the boring white it is." I sniggered at the now giant jar of jelly beans and kicked it under my bed.
"You know Stace, you really need to grow the fuck up. You're 16 now, not 6. Pick your clothes up, put the jelly beans in the bin and get the fuck to sleep, it's 2am."
Ouch. I pretended to care it didn't hurt. I picked up a handful of jelly beans and threw them at her. Following by picking up another jelly bean and putting it in my mouth.
"Why leave them go to waste when they're perfectly good for eating?" I laughed, popping another one in my mouth. Beth rolled her eyes and got in her bed on one side of the room.

The light was turned on, the way I liked it. But the window was open, the way Beth liked it.
"Jesus Christ Beth, it's freezing in here, can't we close it just for tonight?" I looked outside, it had been snowing heavily for a good few hours and the window sill was full with the snow.
"Like fuck. Turn the light off, only then you can close the window." She rolled over on her side, opposite me avoiding contact. She knew how much I hated the dark. It scared me to the point where I was 16 years old and had to have a night light on every single night. It was ridiculous.

I decided to just go to bed and hope that it would be warmer in my blanket. I clutched my knees up to my chest, enclosing the space and hugging my blanket tightly to create some sort of warmth.
I heard Beth's breathing slow down and I took a long sigh and let myself drift into a deep sleep.

"Psst, Stacey. Wake up.. Wake up!" Beth was nudging my side, trying to get me to wake up. I blinked my eyes a few times and rubbed them, bounced out of bed expecting to be late for finals and there to be light outside the still open window. It was dark. Beth turned my lamp off.
"You turned my lamp off?" I looked at the switch that layed across the small cabinet in between both beds.
"Yeah I do every night but there's something more important!" She was whispering, clutching into my bed in the corner looking over to the window. A dark figure fell away. I ran over to the window and looked down. There was no body, so nobody fell.
"You seen it too right?" Beth was shivering now as I nodded slowly.
"C.. close it. Close the window." She never asked me to close the window, not even in the winter. I looked around the surrounding areas of the window. There was no footprints in the snow, so no one could have climbed it either.
I closed the window, still looking around. I turned the lamp on and a shadow hung up on the wall. It wasn't mine, nor was it Beth's since she was sat on my bed.

I looked around trying to find the culprit of the shadow but nothing was there. It waved it's hands. So in automatic response, I waved back.
"Why the fuck are you waving at it?" Beth looked scared as hell. She never got scared at anything.
There was a knocking at the window. The fucking window.
I turned around to see a figure floating in mid air. I had to open the window, I was curious.
I slowly opened it, letting the head peak around the window. I opened it further, allowing the figure entry.

It floated in and landed with a slight thud on the middle of the floor.
"Hey that's my shadow!" A cute American accent escaped the figure.
I could see it was a boy. A shaggy, light brown hair cut just coming to the middle of his ears. He was taller than me.
Me and Beth stood up, mouths gaping open.
"What is your name?" I looked at him, I was curious about the whole situation, and also scared. But I tried to keep my cool. This guy was cute.
"Gaskarth. Alex Gaskarth." He smiled lightly and bowed in front of me and Beth. It was so peculiar to see a boy of around 18 maybe 19 to act that way. Me and Beth laughed, easing at the thought he was a little strange.
"And yours is?" He gestured towards me. I decided to play it formal, since he was.
"Stacey." I curtsied in front of him.
"Beth." Beth didn't seem to impressed. But she curtsied all the same. It would be rude to not do so.

"Well Stacey, Beth. I'd love to stay and chat but I must find my shadow. I seem to have lost him." He walked around the room, looking inside closets and inside draws of all sorts.
"You lost your shadow?" I questioned, following him.
"Yep, have you seen it by any chance?" He didn't seem to think this was a game. This was real to him. I figured we might of just let a mental hospital escapee inside our room. But I remembered the shadow from the earlier events.
"Oh yes, it was in here!" I helped him look after that. Beth sat back on the bed, trying to take everything in.

I decided to take this as an opportunity to question Alex.
"So um, Alex. Where do you live?"
He stood up and smiled cheekily. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the window and pointed to the stars.
"In.. space?" Beth was looking at us both, confused.
"No silly, second star to the right, straight on till morning!" He smiled at the two glowing stars right in the window and sighed.
"Well, who do you live with?" I looked back at Alex.
"The lost boys. There are so many of them now I struggle to remember all their names. But in my memory I have Jack, Rian, Zack, Austin, Aaron, Phil, Tino, Alan, Vic, Jaime, Tony and Mike."
He counted on his fingers and one toe, remembering all their named perfectly.

"You should come meet them, it would be nice having a lady for company. There aren't many at home." He began to look back through the room, searching high and low.
I looked over at Beth, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. I nodded at her and she nodded back indicating she wanted to go.
"Yeah that would be awesome!" I gave Alex a bit of a late reply, but he didn't seem to notice.

"AHA! Got you, little devil won't get away from me now!"

Notes