Day 15: Cotard's

Genre: Slice-of-Life Horror
Universe: Life, Afterlife
Rating: PG-13 / TW: Zombies
 

[ I recommend that you read Day 11: Zombies first, if you haven’t already. ]

     “Cotard’s Syndrome?” Josie twisted the end of her ponytail in her hand. It was a nervous habit that she had developed as a kid. The gentle pulling against her scalp had been a strange comfort, but the twisting didn’t give her same feeling since she had started to wear a wig. Still, she was sitting across from her government issued post-Zombification therapist with her nerves building and old habits are hard to break.

     “Yes,” her therapist confirmed. Dr. Alison Brighton was a kind looking therapist, if not for the way it showed on her face how the deluge of new Zombified patients had worn on her over the past few months. Dr. Brighton steeled herself and began to explain the diagnosis once more. “It comprises several symptoms, but what is key for you is this belief that you are no longer alive.”

     “But Doctor, I’m not.” Josie insisted.

     “Your body has gone through radical changes, Josie, but you are not dead.” Dr. Brighton pushed out a smile that was meant to be reassuring.

     Josie did not feel reassured. She felt quite the opposite, really.  “My heart stopped beating, I only breath when I remember to, my skin keeps falling off in patches! I’m dead!”

     “Yet, here you are, able to hold a conversation with me,” Dr. Brighton leaned forward. “Don’t you feel that means that, despite your physical state, you are still alive?”

     “I…” Josie looked down at the loop of synthetic hair in her hand. “I… I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t feel alive anymore.”

     “And why is that?”

     “Aside from the whole dying and coming back from the dead stuff?”

     “It is better if you use Living-Based language,” Dr. Brighton gently reminded her.

    “Alright,” Josie sighed. “Aside from the whole pausing and reanimating stuff?”

     “That’s much better, and yes.”

     Josie grit her teeth, grabbing her wig at the top and ripping it from her scalp in frustration. “Maybe because I spent three days laying in an alley having my head chewed on by rats and I was so out of it that I didn’t even realize what was going on!?”

     Dr. Brighton scribbled something on her notepad. “Tell me more about how that makes you feel.”