The Curious Case of Casey Black

She wasn’t sure what it was about her that made everyone suddenly hate her. Casey spent a painstaking amount of time on her long black hair each morning, making sure her middle parting wasn’t too in the middle, and there were no split ends to be seen. She adjusted her school uniform in such a way that it wasn’t too neat nor too messy. She was in the netball team, was a member of her local dementia café who she helped run with the school’s head boy Lewis, and got high scores on all her tests. By most people’s standards, Casey Black was a near perfect teenager. But no-one seemed to want to talk to her anymore, or even be in the same room as her.

It started after yesterday’s snow day. Casey had been invited to go sledging with some of her classmates. They had what you might call an ‘American High School’ perfect day where everyone was all smiles and games, ending the day with hot chocolate and marshmallows. The next day at school, everyone had seemingly forgot Casey existed. She signed in as normal, and sat down at her desk, greeting Clara, her best friend, as she normally did. But Clara barely looked up, and simply shrugged when Casey said hello. Every time Casey rose her hand to answer a question, the teacher skipped her. At lunch time, Casey made it her mission to see what was bothering Clara so much, only to find that she couldn’t find her friend anywhere. Asking some of the people she’d gone sledging with the day before got her nowhere, with some of them glancing in her direction with a perturbed look, and some just completely blanking her. Everywhere Casey went, people seemed to ignore her, and those that she knew well seemed oddly sombre and cold. She even overheard someone ask where she had been all day, even though Casey was right in front of them when they asked the question.

It was during her afternoon P.E. class that Casey decided to make a stand.

“Alright, what gives, everyone?” Casey said, stood in her P.E. uniform in the middle of the gym. She already felt her face going bright red, unused to being the centre of attention. “Why are all you lot ignoring me? Seriously, what gives?”

Casey looked around, noticing only a handful of people, people she barely knew, looked in her direction, frowning. But everyone else, including Clara and her own P.E. teacher, didn’t react at all. It was as if she wasn’t even there.

“Clara! This isn’t funny. I don’t understand what your deal is!” Casey shouted, reaching towards her friend’s shoulder. As soon as Casey’s hand touched Clara’s shoulder, she slumped forward, shivered a few times, and then collapsed. Casey jumped back in alarm, startled as several people rushed towards her.

“Casey! Where the hell have you been? We haven’t seen you all day!” Lewis said.

“No-one knew where you were, Ms. Black. Even your mother called in asking if we’d seen you. The police have been called!” breathed Miss Ninarte, the P.E. teacher. “You should really call your mother. When did you even get into the gym?”

Casey stood there as some of her friends came over and gave her relieved hugs. She had heard a few people ask where she had been all day but thought perhaps it was all part of some game they were trying to pull. She allowed herself to be led away by Miss Ninarte, only realising Clara still hadn’t been picked up from the floor.

“Wait, Miss, Clara is still on the floor! She collapsed!” Casey said, turning around and rushed past her teacher. She saw Clara was still on the floor, motionless, with several people literally standing around her, seemingly ignoring her. “Oi! Get away from her! Clara! Clara, get up!”

Casey ran towards her friend, not noticing the strange looks she was getting from her classmates and leaned forward to touch her friend. As soon as Casey’s hand touched Clara, her friend shuddered and sat up, making everyone around her step back, startled. Some people screamed. Some people ran away. But some people stood completely still, faces white, pointing down at Clara.

“What the hell?!”

“Where did Casey go?”

“Clara, you were invisible!”

“Someone, call the police!”

“Clara, are you alright?!”

Casey stood up, recoiling as people bustled past her, reaching to pick up Clara from the floor. As for her friend, her face was painfully white, and sweat was running down her face, like she’d just finished running a race.

“Wh-… what happened? Where’s Casey? Is she here?” Clara whispered, swaying slightly on the spot.

Miss Ninarte was there then, holding Clara’s shoulder and looking around wildly. She asked Lewis to go to reception to get the police involved, and then began calling Casey’s name.

“Casey? CASEY?! What the hell is happening?!” Clara yelled, pulling her teacher’s hand off her shoulder. “She was right here, she touched me, and then I… fell over?”

The chaos in the gym hall was loud enough to attract the attention of other teachers, perturbed that their classes were being disrupted by all the screaming and students running out of the gym yelling about ghosts and girls being kidnapped. Casey stood in amongst it all, looking down at her hand. Everyone had resumed ignoring her. No matter what she said or how loud she said it, it was as if she wasn’t there. But touching Clara had seemingly made her visible again, whilst making Clara invisible. Or something like that. It was too confusing for Casey to understand. It was then she spotted a tiny red scratch on the back of her hand. It was in the shape of a small fang mark, like her little spaniel back home had nibbled on her without her noticing. It didn’t hurt, but it looked fresh and very angry. When Casey pressed down on the mark, she noticed a few people look in her direction, frowning, like they were trying to focus on what they were looking at but couldn’t quite see it. The harder she pressed, the more confused her classmates looked.

Eventually, Casey just went for it. She touched the nearest boy, grasping his shoulder, jumping back once more as he slumped forward, collapsing onto the ground. She looked around wildly as more screams and finger pointing came in her direction, including from Clara. A few teachers even moved some of the other students back, guarding them with their own body, as if Casey was armed with a chainsaw or two. Casey dived forward, clasping the boy by the shoulder once more, and stood back as he sat up, looking confused and scared as people rushed towards him, dragging him away from where they last saw Casey.

“Everyone, get back! Stay away from Casey!” shouted Miss Ninarte, looking towards the boy with concern. One by one, everyone began to rush out of the gym, shoving past each other with reckless abandon. Casey watched them, a smirk pulling the corner of her lips upwards into a smile. She looked down at her hand again, tracing the small fang mark with her index finger, stroking it like it was a cat. She’d never felt so… good. Her heart was pounding in her chest, adrenalin fluttered in her stomach and fingers. Her mind was racing, going over several plans at once, wondering what she could do with such a newfound power. This was going to be it. Her big, new, and bad life. She could cause mayhem in parliament. She could make anyone that disobeys her disappear. She wouldn’t have to pretend to be perfect, to balance her life in such a way that she was neither too good nor too bad. She could simply be bad. It was going to be good to bad.