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<span style='width:100%;font-weight:bold; font-size:10px'>Out of Character</span>
<table class=ooc><tr><td>Timestamp: Dyo (Spring), 81379</td></tr></table>


Sketch rolled over and whacked the alarm clock. It was bad enough that they had to keep turning themselves back on every couple minutes after you hit the snooze button, but this was just too much. The clock had been a gift from her mother for Easter, and had an alarm that you could record yourself. So of course, the idiots whom she lived with used it to torture her with all sorts of vulgar messages. Today's was one of the more mild recordings, luckily being the product of her boyfriends drunken idiocrity (rather than rude and belligerent curses), simply screaming the word "SHRAPNEL!" several times consecutively. That was the sort of thing that happened after she went to sleep. She was the youngest one of the household (by 5 years at least), so tended to be easily worn out. Not to say that she was not a trooper like the rest of them, but often didn't really want anything to do with the sketched-out stupidity that went on in the wee hours of the morning, but was not exempted from it entirely. the messages on the alarm clock were the most subtle of the night activity. It usually involved broken glass.
The sun was choked out by a dusty black sheet which hung in the window. Beside her, her lover slept, drooling like the animal he was on weekends. She loved him still, but hated him at times just the same. Although the two balanced out, she stayed with him just the same. IT was 100 times better than going back home.
A quick glance at the clock read 10:17. Ten seventeen? Oh shit. She was supposed to be at school at eight o'clock. She was screwed. Sketch had just finished recovering from a month or so of missed class, devoted purely to brainless time waste and parties. The lifestyle was fun, no doubt, but was degrading to her personal commitments. She knew that if she didn't start taking care of things, her life would fall to pieces. So she had. She'd returned to the academy and had caught up on schoolwork. Until today. Another missed day. The vice-principal would have her ass on a silver platter for this. It must have been just yesterday that she had cried to them in the office about her sob story of a little lost girl going through hell and a half in her family life. She had begun to pull the same sob story on everyone to which it mattered. The entire month of bullshit had been almost purely her fault, but she was good at hiding it. tears, An innocent smile and batted eyelashes could take a girl a long way.
Now slightly revived, she pried her eyes open to their fullest extent, trying to ignore the pull that told her to go back to sleep for a couple more hours. She rolled over again, only to be greeted by a bloodcurdling squeak, clearly connoting that she'd laid upon her kitten. Sharply turning back to her original position she retrieved a pink and black fur ball from beneath her bottom. To tell the truth, until she'd squished it, she'd entirely forgotten the presence of the kitten entirely. She'd just gotten it yesterday from a friend. The cat was supposed to be some sort of rescued specimen from a long abandoned planet, but Sketch knew better to believe that bull crap. It was always just a publicity stunt to sell off some strange sort of mutation. Either way, she loved the little feline. She even dyed it pink.
Scooping up her pet, she climbed delicately from the queen sized bed, careful not to disturb Andre, her boyfriend. She quickly prepared herself for the inevitable hurricane-like wreckage in the next room. As she turned the corner she was greeted by the all too familiar mess of passed out partiers and broken beer bottles. She also noticed a hand painted clay mask, once mounted on the wall, now lay in shattered pieces on the sticky carpet. Usually the smashed aftermath didn't especially bother her but this one was hers. Shed made it herself...

 

Dropping the shattered pieces to the ground, she returned to her haven of pillows and warmth, the bed. Not but a month ago she did not filly appreciate the wonders a soft mattress could do for a person. It was just a place to close your eyes and wake up the next day, but now it had become a secret retreat of heat and rejuvenation. How many hours had she spend there lately just balancing on the verge of dream and consciousness, letting the days pass by. For several weeks her sleeping schedule had been mutilated so as she never saw daylight, except for a luminous hint shining from outside the prison walls of the apartment. She had begun to loose faith that it would ever come at all.

 

Sketch didnt know how she had gotten here. It was all a blur of names and faces and experiences. It all seemed so unreal yet ineveitable. It all started with Josh's .

Josh was her childhood buddy. He was relatively unpopular as his personality came on a little strong at times. He had ADHD and refused to take medication. Sketch always encouraged him not to. Dexadrine turns happy children into zombies.

Why she liked the guy, she really never understood. At times, he could get under your skin for the simple reason of ones on inabillity to stay enthusiastic for so long. Josh was always happy. Together, we could laugh and giggle about nonsense for hours. We were both children in overgrown bodies, and together we could be ourselves.

Why do people die?
... I suppose children belong in Paradise.

 

It took an awfully long time to register that the loud obnoxious noise ringing in her head was not in her head at all. It was actually her doorbell. Buzzer. Screecher. Whatever you want to call it. Fuck. She knew it would wake up everyone. Sketch hurridly checked her appearance in her dusty mirror, miraculously unbroken. Her reflection seemed to be an old, overexposed photograph of herself, worn and faded with time. How old was she? Not nearly old enough to worry about looking old. Her pupils were noteably wide as nickles; not normal sized but certainly an improvement from last night. Drugs could be cruel. Every morning after she always asked herself "why", as she either puked her guts out or suffered the awful generic come-down you usually get from upper where you are brutally exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally from 48 hour parties, yet you cannot sleep. Often there was a little of both.

This morning she had actually gotten some sleep but her mind still buzzed. Cocaine, speed and ecstacy were dirty drugs. Maybe the first couple times they seem worth it, but when you finally accept the inevitable and realize that you've lost 30 lbs, become slightly annorexic, and begin to feel yourself go crazy.
Words made sense to her but her mind worked faster than her muscles wanted to comply with so her words came out half formed and slurred. "Sketched out" as it was called in slang. The correlation between the phrase and her name were merely coincidental. However, she still had to answer the door. You never truely appreciate your sanity untill its gone, but for now she felt sorry for whatever poor sap was waiting for a decent citizent to answer the door. If there was one way to put a dent in your life, it was us.

Flipity-flip-flip. Sketch pulled the door open a crack, leaving the chain lock on. On the other side glowed an brilliant white winged figure. Her first instinct was that God had sent an angel to her door, either for a noise complaint or worse. (Sigh...
drugs...)

"Hi..eh...um..Hey.... can I help..y.you?"

 

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:#336699'>
'Sketch? Sketchity sketch schketch. Mmmm... Oh fuck, thats me.' she thought.
Staring blank eyed at the blue-haired angelic figure shuffling papers before her, Sketches mind raced for a response. She was definately not in the mindset to be taking care of paperwork.

"Check on me? Am I an infant again? I thought you got more mature when you went away to school." She mumbled. Not the most friendly approach, but it was awfully early. She'd counted on at least an additional three or four hours of sleep before considering thinking. The girl at the door was silent for a moment. Looking deep beyond her sparkling blue eyes Sketch saw fear, discontent and blazing self-conciousness that only brought to her mind the cliche: 'Dont shoot the messanger'. Suddenly an offtopic idea-light went off in her head, and she knew she was screwed. Trying to do it as subtly as possible she turned her head and coughed while wiping her nose furiously. Before returning her gaze to the dragon at her door she stole a glance at her paw, revealing a tell-tale trail of white powder which was undoubtedly smeared all over her face the entire time. Shit. Sketch felt her heart rate elevate. Getting kicked out of school was not a hard thing to acheive when narcotics were involved. So she'd have to make this quick.

"But yah.. anyways.. whats this about?"
</span></span>

 

Oh man. Had the school really gotten her a babysitter? What the hell was this?
Sketch opened the door a bit wider and motioned for Morichai to enter. She poked her head out into the hallway to survey any eavesdroppers. There was only a single dragon a long ways down the hall walking in the opposite direction. No real threat. Once inside, she closed and locked the door, chain and all.
In one swift movement she grabbed Morichai by the wrists and pinned her up against the wall. On impact, she felt a shudder and tinkle of bottles and glass shaking all throughout the apartment.

"Are you a cop?" Sketch demanded, staring into the girls frightened eyes.
"If you're a cop or working for them, you have to tell me right now or it's entrapment and I can be released on any charge for improper evidence. Not to mention, you're ass in several different pieces on a silver platter."

Judging by the shocked and frightened look in her eyes, Sketch was almost positive Morichai had nothing to do with the police force, but today most cops were undercover. In the past couple weeks sixty nine kingpins had been arrested and over seven and a half million dollars of drugs had been seized in the less than feeble attempt to clean out the school. There was no room here to be polite and careless. Undercover cops had taken her lover away from her, she was not about to be next.

 

Sketch let go of the dragoness' delicate arms and watched the white grip marks on her flesh fade. The idea dawned upon her that she may be over-reacting a little. Come to think of it, she did vaugly remember the girl walking around the halls and attending some of her classes. Still, she watched the girl cautiously.

"Truancy eh?"

Then the truth finally hit her. Had she really been partying for three days? Or was it four? Nowadays it was easy to lose track of time like that, but who knew that the school would send out somebody to make sure you weren't dead so they could expell you. The situation looked grim. However, at the same time she had actually been spending some time on schoolwork. She enjoyed it and couldnt help it. Thats how the whole binge got started. She had been staring blankly at books for days working on a chemistry study concerning the molecular layout of water and the possibility to restructurize it so it would remain a solid at room temperature. Tedious work. Very tedious as she had begun to question the likeliness for any success at all. Thus she started popping pills. One thing led to another and soon she was smashed with a whack-load of unfamilliar people in her dorm room. Strange, yes. Surprising? No.

Now that she'd confirmed the validacy of Morichai, she began to relax as well as she possibly could with the high potency of forgin chemicals in her blood.

"Alright then. Come on." She said and motioned towards the back room, the only empty room in the entire place. It was a tiny room plastered wall to wall with colorful grafiti which constantly glowed under the four black lights that were scattered upon the ceiling. As for furniture it contained a matching black leather couch and arm chair. In the center of the room there was a circular glass table, no doubt covered in-

'Oh fuck!' Sketch thought. 'Fuckity fuck fuck."
She knew she was fucked.

All over the table were white powdery smears, not to mention a two hundred dollar pile of shiney white cocaine, glowing brilliantly like a spotlight under the black light. Could she possibly be any stupider? She suddenly remembered the mental post it note she'd left herself the night before to clean that up and stash it away. At the time her worry had been the plausability of any junkie in the house robbing her for all she's worth, but now the situation had the potential to become a whole lot worse. Stealing a quick glance at her guest she saw that Morichai had undoubtedly spotted the dope judging by the blank sort of shocked expression. In panic, Sketch quickly closed the door and locked it, standing between it and the Morichai.

-(Insert Alkward Silence Here)-

"Well... okay. He'res the deal. You're going to pretend that you didnt see this. In fact, you didn't see anything in this apartment at all. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all. If, by some strange stretch of the imagination you did, I'll burn your house and eat your familly. Got it? Good. Now for your cooperation, I'm willing to go out of my way for a friend. Anything you need. I have alot of pull around here. Now take a seat. You came to talk to me, so talk. However, while youre here... do you do drugs?"