#Ghost Cow is underrated af

[thesnazzysharky]

Dēteriōrātus Voluntās - A Ghost Cow Short Story

TW: Starvation and self cannibalism. AO3 link here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 days... 5 days...? Well, I've officially lost count now... My rations have ran out. My bodY thins and weakens as it consumes itself. I'm skin and bones with no meat. I have drunk my own urine out of thirst and gnawed at my fingers and arms for what little bits of food I can obtain. I have not slept since I have settled myself in this room. The room is pitch dark. I have a flashlight, but I do nOt want to turn it on and be horrified at the sight of my own body or potentially something else...

Yet I still remain. I still prevail. Everybody else in the hospital is now dead, I presUme. Except for me. I'm hidden. I'm safe. I'm sane. I'm content with this small, dark, comforting room. Sometimes I hear faint whispering in my ear. Sometimes I hear something walk past the door. Sometimes I hear groaning or wailing under me. Sometimes I feel something touch my shoulder. Sometimes I smell something enticing outside the door. Sometimes see straNge images and visions in the sparse moments where I close my eyes longer than I should. I can't say for certain whEther this is due to lack of sleep or something paranormal, but it doesn't matter to me. None of it matters. I shall stay safe and alive. Safe from the "ghost". I have read or heard of stories of all kinds of monsters, ghosts, and cryptids. Freaky, weird, and potentially dangerous abominations that poor souls would sometimes stumble across. One thing consistent with these stories howeVer, was that these creatures always had a reason for behaving how they did. Sometimes they were acting on purely animalistic instinct. Sometimes they had a strange and alien morality to them. And other times thEy were victims of a tragic past. Not the creature roaming around in the hospital though... no. This creature is something that I have never seen or heard of before. I have seen the things it has done. I have seen how it manipulates otheRs. I have seen how it controls. I have seen how purely sadistic and void of any soul it is.

It's not a ghost. It's not a demon. It's not a monster. It's something else entirely. Something that I can't wrap my head around. I don't know what this thing is, but what I do know is that it's not doing what it does out of any instinctive nature, alien morality, or vengeance for what it had previously gone through. It does not seem to have any big or meaningful goal. It just simply popped up here one day and began causing havoc. It's a petty creature. Made evident by the fact that it chose a hospital of all things to spread misery and suffering in. A place where people should be comforted and helped became a place Where people were tortured and killed. It knows what it's doing. It loves the suffering it's causing. It's doing this purely for fun it seems. Not too unlike a child burning ants with a magnifying glass or tearing the legs off a caterpillar one by one.

I suspect it's searching for mE. To manipulate and control. To cause me agony and delusion. Unfortunately for it, it will never find me. Others have tried ways to get rid of it. Suicide. Radiation machines. Breaking their own fingers or cutting off their hands. Giving themselves concussions. Quitting their jobs. Yet they all still died in the end. Such pathetic idiots. Why did none of them think of the simple and correct solution? Hiding yourself away, somewhere dark and unremarkable at a glance. Never falling asleep, as the creature can't haRm or possess me if I'm always on alert. Staying completely calm, not taking any notice to the odd things you see, hear, smell, or feel. You aren't in any actual danger. In the end, I am victorious. I am resourceful. I am safe. I am content. I am sane. ... I closed my eyes for too long again. I'm not safE in this room.