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‘Monster Mash’ is playing full blast when I arrive at school for the Halloween disco that evening.

The gym is covered with pumpkin fairy lights, bunting shaped like bats and ghosts, and there are fake cobwebs hanging from the tables of drinks and snacks.

In the middle of the space, three characters from Doctor Who are dancing.

Thirteen (Tilly) and Six (Jamie) are doing something that looks like a slow-motion duel with invisible lightsabres while Twelve (Elsie) is spinning around to show off the red lining of her coat.

Already laughing, I run over to join them.

Twelve-aka-Elsie screams when she sees me.

“No way! You’re Callan! Tilly wouldn’t tell us what you were coming as. She wanted it to be a surprise.”

After an hour of searching and raiding my wardrobe and Joel’s the other day, Tilly and I finally came up with a costume for me: the lead character from Shadows of the Sea , the sea-monster boy-band novel that we both love.

We sliced up an old black shirt of Joel’s, I borrowed Mutti’s black skinny jeans, then she and Mum spent ages after tea tonight painting my hands and face bright blue.

I’m probably going to look like a Smurf for the next few days.

“Tilly’s idea,” I say, grinning at her. “Hey, are you two OK? I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after the rehearsal yesterday.”

I thought the disco might be quieter than usual after the cù-sìth’s appearance – that some kids wouldn’t want to risk coming to school after a giant wolf had been on the loose, or that their parents wouldn’t let them out of the house.

But Jamie and Elsie just blink in confusion and ask what I mean.

Tilly says something about needing some more lemonade and drags me to the drinks table.

“They don’t remember,” she whispers. “I don’t think anybody does! No one mentioned it at school all day.”

The creature’s snarling, snapping jaws flash into my head. The memory makes goosebumps ripple over my blue-painted arms.

“How could they forget about something like that?”

“Maybe people forget after the character goes back to the Realm?” Tilly shrugs. “It must be different for you and me because we know the truth about where they came from. That’s the only explanation I can think of.”

So, after Neon leaves, everyone else is going to forget about him.

I’ll be able to talk to Joel and Carrie and Tilly about him, but nobody else.

Caitlin and Hannah will forget him, and about their apology for doubting me.

Hari and Russell and Mr Ross and all his other fans won’t have any memory of hearing him sing.

Neon has made so many connections here, so quickly, and after a few days or weeks they’re all going to disappear.

“Where is Neon?” I ask Tilly. “Is he here yet?”

She points to the opposite side of the hall where someone wearing a bird mask and toilet paper loosely wrapped round their body is talking to two Hulks.

I wander over, tap Neon on the shoulder, then duck down behind a row of chairs.

When I jump back up to scare him, Neon’s eyes light up behind the mask.

“Awesome costume!” He pushes his mask up for a better look. “You’ve done Callan proud.”

“Thanks.” I wait until the Hulks – Hari and Russell – are out of earshot, then whisper, “No sign of the Blanks?”

Neon shakes his head. “Not that I’ve noticed. Maybe they’re too busy chasing down that whale.”

By now, the video that Tilly sent me this morning has spread all over the internet.

Most people still don’t believe it’s real – a big science organisation even released a debunking video about how sparkling purple whales definitely don’t exist – but, when I rewatched it this afternoon, there were a lot of comments from people who seemed totally convinced.

“There’s no point in worrying about it,” Neon says with a smile and a shrug. “What’s going to happen is going to happen. Let’s just have fun tonight.”

We go to join Tilly and the others, who are now slow-dancing to an upbeat pop song.

Caitlin and Hannah arrive together a few minutes later.

Hannah is wearing a white dress with fairy wings and a wonky gold halo over her head, and Caitlin is head-to-toe in red with plastic devil horns.

I go to say hi, and we all say how great we look in our costumes – Caitlin doesn’t even make any snide remarks about mine being weird, so she must be in a good mood.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks. “Tilly said you were ill. You didn’t text us or anything.”

She looks slightly hurt, and I’m surprised.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the people I consider my best friends are sad that I’ve decided to take a step back from them.

But that’s the problem, especially with Caitlin.

I never know where I stand: if today will be a day she likes me or a day I’m the butt of the joke.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I feel much better now.”

We talk a while longer but soon I find myself drifting over to dance with the Doctor Who trio again.

We have another dance-off, all pulling the most ridiculous moves we can think up.

I catch Caitlin and Hannah looking over at us from across the room a couple of times.

Caitlin’s smile is bordering on a cringe, but Hannah looks like she wants to join in.

When ‘Time Warp’ comes on, I rush over and grab her hands. “Come and dance!” I shout over the music. “You love Rocky Horror !”

For a moment, it looks like she’s going to say yes, but then she glances at Caitlin and shakes her head. I really hope Caitlin starts being nicer to her. But, if not, I hope Hannah realises she deserves a better best friend too.

The disco goes on, and it feels exactly like any other.

Two girls from my Maths class have an argument and one leaves crying.

A fourth-year boy throws up in the corner, and no one believes him when he insists all he’s drunk is Coke.

Hari and Neon have a dance-off to a song called ‘Monster’, and they surprise everybody by being really good – Neon knows the entire routine off by heart.

That’s not something I wrote into his story. It’s all him.

But, some time after nine o’clock, the atmosphere suddenly shifts.

The volume of the music doesn’t change, but the sound becomes dulled in my ears.

The colours of the costumes around me fade.

I look down at my own bright blue hands, the paint now rubbed away from my palms and fingertips, and hardly remember the story that inspired my costume.

When I turn round, fear fizzes through every cell in my body.

Six Blanks stand in the doorway to the gym, their pale figures silhouetted by the strip lights in the corridor.

No, more than six – eight, ten – all dressed in those familiar colourless clothes, ambling into the room like zombies.

Their heads turn slowly around the space, searching for something they can’t see or hear but can sense around them.

A strange atmosphere seeps into the room: a dull, hollow feeling, like a million bad days rolled into this one moment.

Behind them, two first-year girls dressed as superheroes are frozen with fear: one bursts into tears, and the other grabs her friend’s hand and pulls her down the corridor.

Other people have noticed the Blanks too, but they seem more confused or impressed than scared – it hasn’t occurred to them that what they’re seeing could be anything other than a costume.

Beside me, Russell drops his cup of lemonade. “Whoa! Who is that? They’re creepy as hell!”

One of the Blanks takes a step forward and begins to move towards the centre of the hall where Neon is dancing with Tilly and Elsie.

The others follow, a slow-moving army heading for their target.

The fog is already rolling into my mind in thick waves.

If they come much closer, I won’t be able to think properly at all.

I rush through the crowd and grab Neon’s hand. He turns to me with a big smile on his face, but it disappears when he sees the faceless figures heading towards us.

“They’re here!” I shout. “We have to go. Now!”

Neon doesn’t move. His eyes are fixed on the Blanks slowly edging across the dance hall, a mixture of fear and defiance in his expression. Elsie and Jamie look from us to the Blanks, obviously confused, but unable to find the words to ask what’s going on.

Tilly straightens her short blond wig and swallows. “I’ll try to slow them down,” she says. “You guys get out of here.”

I don’t want Tilly to stay, but there’s no time to argue with her.

I drag Neon across the gym, through the fire escape and out into the street.

We run past the bakery, along the park and towards my house.

Neon pulls his hand away and shouts at me to stop, but I ignore him and keep running – I need to get him away from those things as quickly as possible.

When we turn a corner on to the high street, I skid to a halt.

This part of town would usually be deserted at this time of night, but now it’s filled with figures.

They linger by the bus stop, drift past the post office, stand in clusters in shop doorways.

My heart skips a beat, then thunders even faster than before.

Standing between us and safety are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of Blanks.