Welcome to Wonderland

There they stood. The literal end of the world. The impostors had won.

Alice looked up at Conner. She couldn't believe this was it, couldn't believe everything their ancestors had worked for, everyone they had lost was for nothing. Their parents, their siblings, Kelsey. All for nothing.

Alice looked back down over the Valley, watched as the line made it's way closer towards the mountains where they stood. They watched the beautiful green land they loved turn into nothing but sand.

"Wow." Conner breathed. "I thought we would be the heroes to save the world but clearly we were in over our heads."

Alice had never heard Conner so negative about anything and she hated that he was now. She started to pace around, not wanting to watch everything she loved transform into something else without doing anything to stop it.

"There's got to be something we can do." She started. "We must have missed something, we can fix this, we-"

"Alice!" Conner interrupted, grabbing Alice by the shoulders to get her attention. "We did everything we could."

"But there must be something else-"

"Alice."

"Another way-"

"Alice." Conner hissed. "It's over."

Alice looked up at him, eyes burning with tears. His voice had cracked. It was really over. She took a deep breath and looked over at the valley. The line was slowly creeping towards them, only a few miles away now.

Alice turned around, only wanting to see the sea of trees she called home when it happened. She wanted her last moments of sight to be something she had always admired. She waited with anticipation, until she noticed something peculiar. She wasn't only looking at green now, she was also looking at sand.

Trees fell, one by one. Alice gasped.

No. She thought. This can't be happening.

"Conner," she whispered. "Please tell me that is not what I think it is. Please tell me this is not happening."

"What?" He asked.

Alice pointed at the trees ahead of her, responding to Conner

"That."

He glanced over to where Alice was looking to see more and more trees turning to sand.

"So you don't want me to tell you that we are going to be the end of the world, that the world will end with us, or that we are now surrounded by curtain death?"

"That is exactly what I don't want you to say."

"Well, I've got some bad news. Welcome to wonderland, meet the queen. We've made her mad." He joked.

It was a joke Alice had hated for years, but the thought of this being the last one made her cry.

Conner's eyes widened. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I thought it could lighten the mood, maybe just a little."

"This is a terrible time for jokes Conner." Alice sniffled. "The world is ending and we're the last to go. I don't think there's anything you can say to 'lighten the mood'."

Alice sighed. "Look," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm scared, and you know I get snappy when I'm scared, but I don't want my last conversation with my best friend to be a fight. "

Conner looked at Alice. "You have every right to be scared," he comforted. "I'm scared too. Who wouldn't be? But if this is truly it, I want to talk about moments in our lives we can smile about."

Alice bit her lip. "What about the time when you slipped on that pickle in the cafeteria."

"When I first met you and Kelsey." Conner remembered. "Not my finest moment but it got me some pretty amazing things in life. But remember when we went to the lake and you fell in that hole."

Alice let out a tiny smile and shook her head. "That's when the wonderland jokes started. But that wasn't as great as the time when Kelsey asked the teacher if she could go get a drink and she went to Starbucks."

Conner laughed. "I think she got that idea somewhere online."

Alice nodded. "But still, she actually did it."

They shared a few more stories until they were eventually laughing so hard, they were crying. Alice looked down over the mountain side. The sand had now began crawling up the side of the mountain.

They looked out to the world of nothing. There was nothing left. No buildings, no houses, no people. Nothing. Only sand.

"This is it. It's time." Alice trembled and turned to Conner. "It was nice knowing you Conner Stephens." She said with a smile.

"I'm glad that out of everybody else who was in this world, I got to know you Alice Prescott." He smiled back.

Alice wrapped her arms around Conner, wanting to die in his warm embrace. They stood there and just took each other in, a final, wordless goodbye.

Alice peeked through her eyelashes to see the sand inching closer to their feet. She quickly stopped, not wanting to see what happened now.

She braced herself for a feeling of falling apart but was shocked when instead something wrapped around her waist. She opened her eyes and looked up at Conner. His eyes told her he was just as clueless as her.

They looked down to see a green light around themselves.

Alice panicked. "Oh no." She let out.

The light started pulling them up as the sand covered where they were standing. The watched as they were pulled closer to the ship they had broken into with Kelsey and had forced themselves to leave it without her.

A door opened on the bottom of the ship and they were pulled inside.

They were tied up by the faceless creatures, creatures that knew the two would rather be dead than back inside this ship.

"My, my." One chuckled from the throne, the leader. "Look who we have here."

Alice started to shake. They were in so much trouble.

"You didn't think you would get the privilege to just die after everything you did to me." The leader laughed harder. "No, no, no. You get to watch us inhabit your precious world. You get to work for me. You are the only two humans left in the entire universe. You should be proud. You get to live, unlike your useless friends."

It's voice echoed throughout the room, leaving nothing but silence once it faded.

"You two should be thanking me. Your small lives are worth at least a little to you. I know they will mean a lot to me."

Again, a silence overtook them. Alice and Conner had learned what happened when you speak without permission here. They would end up like Kelsey, maybe even worse.

"Oh, one last thing." It said. "We're going to show you what you did do your planet."

The ship started to accelerate, and Alice looked over at Conner. This couldn't be good.

The light from outside the window turned to black. The ship had settled into the Earth's orbit and slowed.

"Look." the leader said. "Isn't it wonderful?"

Conner looked at Alice before they both turned towards the window. Alice thought that if she ever went to space, it would be breathtaking and the earth would be beautiful. But now, there wasn't anything but sand. Instead of blue, green, and white, the Earth was a yellow-orange color. It was horrible, and if there wouldn't have been severe consequences, Alice would have screamed.

"Welcome to your new home." The leader said. "You're going to hate it."