Hidden Blood

The first sign that something was wrong with me should probably have been the dreams.

Instead, I blamed the headaches.

Headaches were normal. They happened when you stayed up too late scrolling through videos you didn’t care about, forgot to drink enough water, or spent forty-five minutes staring at a chemistry equation. There were dozens of perfectly reasonable explanations for a headache.

The dreams were harder to explain.

For four nights, I had stood beneath the same enormous tree. Its branches stretched so far above me that they disappeared into darkness, while thick roots broke through the black soil beneath my feet and twisted into a fog that covered the ground. The air smelled like rain, and somewhere beyond the tree, I could always hear something that sounded like whispering.

Then there was the woman.

She stood on the opposite side of the tree every night, dressed in something pale that moved around her ankles even when the air was still. I could never see her face clearly. The harder I tried to focus on it, the more it seemed to blur, as though my own mind was deliberately keeping it from me.

She never came closer. She never explained why I was there.

She only said my name.

Casey.

Every night, I woke before anything else happened.

This morning had been no different.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror while brushing my teeth, trying to decide whether the dark circles beneath my eyes were noticeable enough for Mom to comment on. They were. Mom could notice a new freckle from across the room, so the chances of her missing the fact that I looked mildly deceased were nonexistent.

I pulled my hair into a loose ponytail and decided concealer required more effort than I currently possessed.

The headache had already started.

It sat behind my left eye, not painful enough to stop me from functioning but persistent enough to make everything slightly more irritating than it needed to be. I had begun waking with them three days ago, and they usually faded sometime after breakfast before returning later in the afternoon.

The stranger symptom was the static.

That was what I had started calling it, anyway.

Every so often, a faint prickling sensation moved beneath my skin, usually along my arms and into my fingertips. It wasn’t painful. It felt like the moment before touching a metal shopping cart and knowing you were about to get shocked, except the shock never came.

The first time it happened, I blamed my sweater.

By the fourth, I stopped wearing that sweater.

It happened anyway.

“Casey!” Mom called from downstairs. “If you’re planning on going to school today, now would be an excellent time to get moving!”

I spat toothpaste into the sink and checked my phone.

7:36.

“Shit!”

I grabbed my backpack from beside the bed and hurried downstairs, nearly missing the final step when one sock slipped against the hardwood floor.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a mug of coffee beside him. Mom stood at the island packing something into a plastic container, already dressed for work, looking unfairly put together for someone who had been awake for approximately the same amount of time as me.

She glanced at the clock when I entered.

“Good of you to join us.”

“I'll be on time, don't worry.”

“Yesterday you were late because spent ten minutes looking for a shoe you were wearing.”

Dad looked up from his laptop. “That was impressive.”

“I was under pressure.”

Mom laughed as she slid the container toward me. “Lunch. Put it in your bag before you forget it on the counter again.”

I took it obediently and shoved it into my backpack. There was already a piece of toast waiting beside my travel mug, which meant Mom had correctly predicted that I wouldn’t leave myself enough time for breakfast.

She had been doing that most of my life.

At eighteen, I could drive myself to school, make my own appointments and theoretically keep myself alive without supervision, but Mom still reminded me to take a jacket when it was cold, and Dad still checked my tires, and my water and oil levels every other weekend.

It should have been annoying.

Sometimes it was.

Mostly, it was just them and I appreciated it.

Mom looked at me more closely as I reached for the toast. “Did you sleep?”

There it was.

“I slept.”

“How much?”

I took a bite to buy myself time. “Enough.”

Dad glanced over the top of his laptop. “That answer has never meant enough.”

“Why is everyone attacking me before eight in the morning?”

“Because we love you,” Mom said easily.

“Feels hostile.”

She smiled, but her eyes stayed on my face. “Is your head hurting again?”

My fingers paused around the travel mug.

I had mentioned the headache once. Two nights ago, while helping her put away groceries.

Of course she remembered.

“A little. It’s fine.”

“If it keeps happening, we should get it checked.”

“Mom, it’s a headache.”

“You’ve had several.”

“I'm also a senior in High School. There could be a correlation.”

Dad nodded thoughtfully. “She makes a strong argument.”

Mom pointed at him. “You’re not helping.”

I smiled and reached across the island for my bag. The movement sent a faint burst of static down my arm, stronger than it had been upstairs, and I instinctively rubbed my fingertips against my palm.

Mom noticed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I flexed my hand. “Static.”

She glanced at my sleeve. “From your sweater?”

“Probably.”

It wasn’t the sweater.

I knew that because I was wearing a cotton T-shirt beneath my jacket, but saying that would lead to questions I didn’t have answers for. The sensation had already faded anyway.

I leaned over to kiss Mom’s cheek before circling the table and doing the same to Dad.

“Love you. Bye.”

“Drive safely,” Dad said.

“And eat your lunch,” Mom added.

For all the weirdness of the last few days, mornings still looked exactly the way they always had. Mom worried. Dad pretended not to. I ran late. Somewhere between my bedroom and the front door, I forgot at least one thing I had meant to take with me.

It was normal. I liked normal. Right now, I needed normal.

Sean was leaning against his car when I pulled into the school parking lot, holding two iced coffees and looking far too awake for someone who regularly claimed to get 'zero hours of sleep'.

I parked beside him and climbed out.

“Tell me one of those is mine.”

“No.”

I stared at him.

Sean took a slow sip from one cup before holding the other toward me. “Please take it before the murderous thoughts that are swimming around in your eyes turns into actions.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I know.”

Sean had been my best friend long enough that neither of us remembered exactly how it started. Our mothers claimed we met at five. Sean insisted it was six. I remembered him being around before either of those ages, which probably meant my memory was unreliable or he had simply become so permanently attached to my childhood that imagining it without him felt wrong.

There were photographs of us with missing teeth, terrible haircuts and matching friendship bracelets we both denied ever wearing. At ten, I convinced him we could dig a swimming pool behind his parents’ shed using garden spades. At thirteen, he broke his arm falling out of a tree I dared him to climb.

We started toward the building with the crowd.

“You look terrible,” he said.

I took a sip of coffee. “Sometimes I wonder why you're still single.”

“I’m serious. Did you sleep?”

“Why is everyone suddenly monitoring my sleep schedule?”

He bumped his shoulder against mine. “Bad night?”

I hesitated.

The tree flashed through my mind. The woman. My name.

“I just had a weird dream, that's all.”

Sean accepted that without demanding more. That was one of the things I liked most about him. He could ask questions without making them feel like an interrogation, and if I didn’t want to answer, he usually let me get away with it.

Usually.

At my locker, I spun the combination while Sean leaned against the one beside it.

“You're prepared for Bennett’s presentation, right?”

I stopped.

Sean closed his eyes. “Casey.”

“I forgot.”

“Casey!”

“But it's okay, because I can remember most of it from the class test we had!”

He sighed dramatically. “What year was the Louisiana Purchase?”

“1803.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen million.”

“From?”

I gave him a flat look. “France.”

Sean nodded. “You may live.”

“Thank God.”

The warning bell rang, and he pushed away from the lockers. “I'll see you at lunch. It's your turn to buy."

He disappeared into the flow of students, and I watched him go with a smile before grabbing my books.

The headache returned as I closed my locker.

It came quickly this time, a pulse of pressure behind my eyes accompanied by that now-familiar static beneath my skin. I sucked in a breath and waited for it to pass.

Someone slammed a locker farther down the hall.

The sound made me flinch harder than it should have.

For one irrational second, irritation surged through me so intensely that I wanted to scream at whoever had done it.

Then it vanished.

I stood there, unsettled by the force of my own reaction.

I wasn’t angry.

Not really.

Yet lately every emotion seemed to arrive too loudly. Irritation became anger before I had time to understand it. Embarrassment burned hotter. Yesterday, I had nearly cried because I couldn’t find the charger that had been sitting beside my bed.

I blamed exhaustion.

That explanation was doing a lot of work lately.

By fifth period, I was standing at the front of the history class with twenty-six people watching me forget information I had known that morning.

Mrs. Bennett sat behind her desk while my presentation glowed on the projector screen. I had made it through the first half without embarrassing myself, which should have been encouraging.

Instead, my headache had started building again.

“The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States,” I said, glancing at the slide behind me before looking back at the class. “The agreement was finalized in…”

My mind went blank.

I knew this.

Sean had asked me this exact question not even four hours ago.

Just say 1803.

Someone whispered near the back.

A chair scraped against the floor.

Heat crept up my neck.

I looked at my note card, but the words seemed to blur together as the pressure behind my eyes sharpened.

“Casey?” Mrs. Bennett prompted gently.

“I know.”

A few people laughed.

I immediately regretted how defensive it sounded.

“I-I mean, sorry. I k-know this.”

The laughter grew slightly, not cruel enough to justify how violently embarrassment hit me.

The static rushed down both arms, prickling beneath my skin as I tightened my fingers around the note cards. Behind me, the projector flickered, and when I turned, the screen went black for half a second before the slide reappeared. Mrs. Bennett barely seemed bothered. “Ignore it. It’s been temperamental all semester.” Of course it had. An old projector and a bad cable were hardly evidence of anything strange, and I clung to that explanation as I forced myself to breathe and looked down at my notes again.

There it was.

“The agreement was finalized in 1803 for approximately fifteen million dollars.”

My voice steadied as I continued, but the static remained beneath my skin. Every time my nerves spiked, the projector dimmed slightly. Once, when someone whispered again and I lost my place, the image jumped hard enough that several people looked up.

By the time I finished, I was barely thinking about the presentation.

“Thank you, Casey.”

I returned to my seat and the moment I sat down, the projector steadied.

I told myself it meant nothing.

Electronics malfunctioned all the time. The projector was old. Mrs. Bennett had literally said it had been acting up for months.

The timing was weird.

That was all.

When the final bell, I had almost convinced myself.

Sean appeared beside my locker while I was rearranging books.

“How bad?”

“I briefly forgot the year 1803 existed.”

He winced. “After everything I did for you.”

I laughed and shoved my history book into my bag.

Sean leaned against the lockers. “You still have the headache?”

I looked at him. “How do you know?”

“You keep rubbing your temple.”

I dropped my hand.

“Apparently.”

“You should tell your mom.”

“Trust me, I think she is one second away from calling 911 to come and haul my ass to the hospital."

He smiled. “See you tomorrow?”

“Unless I die of the headache before then, sure.”

“I'm just warning you, I'm not doing some Romeo and Juliet bullshit and following your well-toned ass to the afterworld."

Sean pushed away from the locker and disappeared toward the exit with everyone else.

I zipped my bag before realizing my chemistry book was still inside and sighed, “of course.”

The hallway had emptied quickly. A few voices drifted from classrooms, but most students were already outside.

I turned back toward my locker and spun the dial. Before I reached for the handle, the static returned. Not faint this time. It travelled down my arm in a warm, electric rush and settled sharply into my fingertips.

I froze.

The fluorescent light above me flickered twice, drawing my attention upward as the headache behind my eyes pulsed in time with it. For some reason I couldn’t explain, my heartbeat began to quicken, and I stood there watching until the light finally steadied. When I looked back at my locker, the metal door was trembling. The movement was barely noticeable, just a faint vibration beneath the constant hum of the hallway lights, and I stared at it for a moment, wondering if someone had slammed another locker nearby hard enough to shake mine.

No sound came.

The static beneath my skin intensified.

Then the locker door swung open.

It didn’t fly across the hallway or tear itself from its hinges. It simply moved several inches before continuing outward under its own weight and striking the locker beside it with a hollow metallic clang.

I jumped backward.

For a moment, I could only stare.

My chemistry book sat exactly where I had left it.

I looked both ways down the hallway. The nearest classroom door was closed, and the handful of students who had still been lingering were gone.

I slowly looked down at my hand.

The static had disappeared.

There had to be an explanation. Maybe I hadn’t closed the locker properly before. Maybe the latch was faulty. Maybe vibrations from somewhere else in the building had shaken it loose at exactly the wrong moment.

Any of those things were possible.

Probably.

Except I had heard the lock click.

And more importantly, I had been standing almost a foot away when the door opened.

I hadn’t touched it.

Nobody had.