Casper didn't have a good immune system growing up. He was born almost 3 months premature, and had mucous and blood in his lungs when he was. And while he didn't know the extent of his body's damage, he knew that he wouldn't last long. As he aged and became more accustomed to his weaknesses and began to dabble in self-hatred, he began to believe that at the most, he had until he was 25 to live out the rest of his life. Of course, everything he tried was worthless; there's nothing he can do correctly, except maybe the action of being a retarded nobody. He liked photography. Liked it a lot, but couldn't do it very well. When he was 12, he entered the state's 152th annual Photographical Arts Competition for Minors (PACM), or PACMan for short. He got second place. Of course, Sina and Ptara celebrated, but he didn't understand; they said that the kid who won was personal and highlighted the joys of life . . . what joys? All he knew was shades of grey and nothingness . . .

When he was 7, Ptara started dating a man named Zeke. He wasn't Greek like she was, or Russian like Belo had been (he had gone missing and been pronounced dead 2 years earlier), and he didn't like the 'ethnic' food she liked to cook. He liked stuff like meatloaf, ribs, chicken - yucky. He didn't like Sina or Casper much, either. He beat them both when Ptara wasn't looking, stole their blankets (they shared the attic as a bedroom), shaved their heads, and was generally neglectful. It came to a head when Casper was 9 and Sina was 12 when Casper had a panic attack about bullies at school and -- Zeke put his gun to the back of Casper's head. Ptara immediately pulled out a knife from the kitchen and called 00 (their equivalent to 911), and Zeke was taken away. Unfortunately, he was never arrested, but was given a restraining order against the Zhekillsky family, and it was revealed that he had a wife and 3 biological kids back in Amity City (the Zs lived in Hallrey County), who accepted him with open arms - for the most part.

Up until the end of Casper's run (before he turned into Rasp), he was extremely depressed, had horrible anxiety and night terrors, and although his family loved him very much, he never truly admitted to himself how much he hated to wake up every morning and feel his skin. How much he hated being seen or unseen, how much everything hurt. How much he just wanted to rot away.

How worthless he felt, so undeserving of love and respect and the ability to be alive . . . every single day.