The Adventures of Marcy Cutler

The Union

     Christian was obviously impatient to speak with Marcy, but unfortunately, for their first two periods, they sat quite far from each other, and found no opportunity to get closer until third period english class. They had a creative writing assignment, and Marcy was sitting next to Christian. He turned to her and started whispering:
"Have you spoken to Lauren yet?" Marcy nodded. "She, um, she seemed pretty pissed off." Marcy bit her lip.
"Yeah. Yeah, she was." She sighed.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. She was being perfectly reasonable." Christian cringed.
"Anyway, if you, um, if you want to talk about what happened or something..." he trailed off awkwardly.
"Yeah. I do want to talk about it, actually." Christian smiled uncertainly, surprised by Marcy's response.
"Oh, um, okay. Well-" Marcy cut him off.
"Look, Christian. Last night... something happened to me. I want you to believe me, but this might sound ridiculous. Although," she cocked her head. "Probably not much more ridiculous than the shit you've already seen." Marcy explained her dream. Christian seemed remarkably nonplussed.
"That's pretty... incredible, Marcy," he said quietly.
"Yeah, it is, " Marcy replied. After Christian failed to provide a response, she continued. "Well?"
He glanced up at her.
"Well, what?" She looked at him incredulously.
"You aren't the least bit surprised by this?"
"Marcy, less than twenty-four hours ago I discovered not only that vampires exist, but also that they exist in my hometown and attack my school." He shut his eyes. "Honestly, at this point I'm not sure I'm even processing this anymore." Christian slumped forwards on his desk. Awkwardly, Marcy draped her arm across his back.
"I'm... sorry, I guess? For getting you involved?"
"No, I just- I can't even imagine what you're going through right now. I'm just being insensitive."
"No, you're not. Really. Honestly, I don't..." I don't feel anything at all, Marcy thought. I should, I just don't.
"What?" Marcy glanced over at Christian. "You don't what, Marcy?"
"It's nothing. Sorry." He shrugged.
"So you're supposed to protect people from vampires now? With your magic ghost powers or whatever?"
"Yeah," Marcy mumbled.
"What are you going to do? Are you going to run around looking for these things?" He looked concerned.
"Jesus, Christian, if I knew what I was going to do, I'd tell you. I'm still trying to figure all this shit out for myself."
"Yeah, alright. If you need any help, though, just tell me." He grinned.
"Thanks, Christian."

     "Marceline Cutler, would you please report to the guidance counselor's office?" Marcy almost leapt from her seat, and rushed out of the room without a glance at her teacher. I need answers, goddammit. She took the stairs two at a time, and had badly bruised her knee by the time she reached Mr. Singer's door. She knocked on the door. There was no answer. Marcy knocked again. Still, nothing. She glanced around haplessly. Is he out? They called me down to the office... As she prepared to knock for a third time, a tired, gravelly voice finally replied.
"Come in, Marceline." Marcy tried the door. Feeling foolish, she found the door was unlocked.
"Mr. Singer?" Marcy called out to the man, who was seated at his desk, facing away from the door and Marcy. He was slumped forward slightly. "Mr. Singer? Are you okay?" Singer turned around slowly in his chair.
"Hello, Marceline." The man in the chair was barely recognisable from the previous day. He was slouching and his face was a mass of cuts and bruises. A large bandage covered his left eye and cheek. His right, visible eye was red and glassy.
"Your face..." Mr. Singer seemed to try to smile, before thinking better of it.
"This," he gestured at his face with his left hand (Marcy saw now that his right was in a sling), "Isn't all that bad."
"But your..." Marcy touched her left eye.
"Yes, my eye. I almost lost it, but the doctors say it'll be fine. To be honest, it's the legs that bother me most." Singer pulled himself away from his desk with his good arm, revealing a wheelchair. He awkwardly wheeled himself over to where Marcy stood. One of his legs was swollen and heavily bandaged, while the other just hung limply.
"Oh my god, what happened?"
"It was them, Marceline. I was a fool. I tried to fight them." He looked away. "Calvin doesn't know yet. He went home with one of the Bishops." He began to shake slightly, and Marcy wondered if he was going to cry again. Instead, he turned back towards her sharply and grasped her shoulder tightly with his right arm. She could see cold fear in his good eye, and he seemed to be filled with some form of frantic energy.
"Mr. Singer?"
"Don't try to fight them, Marceline. You can't, they're too strong. I won't- I won't let you." And just as quickly as it had come, the energy faded. Singer seemed to collapse in on himself. He stared sadly at Marcy.
"I'm sorry. You're dismissed."

     Marcy was about to leave the school to get on the bus when Christian ran up to her.
"Hey, Marcy!"
"Oh, hi, Christian."
"I was, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to come back to my house?" he glanced around awkwardly. "I mean, to talk about... well, you know."
"Oh, sure, I guess."
"Great." He smiled. "I live pretty close, do you mind walking?"
"No, that's fine."
"Alright. Do you need to text your parents, or some-" Christian's face went blank. "Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry." His breath was uneven, and he stared down at the ground, a look of shame in his eyes.
"No, it's... it's okay. You were just- you didn't mean it." It's not okay. It shouldn't be okay. A cold shiver ran down Marcy's spine.
"I am sorry, Marcy," Christian said, dejectedly. She conjured up a smile.
"C'mon. Let's go." The two friends left the building staring at their feet, avoiding eye contact. They walked along the street, heading towards Christian's house without exchanging a word, until he piped up.
"Marcy?"
"Yeah?"
"Someone's following us."
"Goddammit."