They Ate Her Flesh

Daisy opened her eyes, but there was no feeling left in her body. No heat, no pain, no pulse. But the instinct to scream overwhelmed her, and she did, as loud as her lungs could… then she ran her hand through her body, at the places she felt pain before her death.

That was when she realized… She didn't have a body. 

She was a floating mass, not living. She was a ghost, floating above the frozen ground. And below her was the grotesque nightmare of what her supposedly weak sister and husband had done to her.

Desmond, her husband for years, sat hunched over an overturned plastic crate, his fingers blackened by severe frostbite, his teeth tearing savagely into a strip of pale, raw meat. 

Across from him, Maureen, her stepsister, crouched close to a weak, sputtering pit, her shivering hands casually feeding a jagged, marrow-stained fragment of bone into the fire.

Those were… Daisy’s bones.

They had hacked her to death while she slept, stripped her flesh, and were now burning her skeleton for a few pitiful minutes of warmth.

Her body no longer had shape or form lying next to them, and recalling the entire situation over again, her entire ghostly body contorted and writhed in disgust. 

"You animals!" Daisy shrieked, lunging forward to tear at Desmond’s throat. But her hands passed straight through his shoulders like smoke. "Animals! I gave you everything! You monsters! How could you be this cruel?"

Neither of them turned. Neither of them heard a thing. She was a ghost, bound to the horrific sight of her own desecration without being able to change anything.

"Grateful?" Desmond spat, wiping grease from his mouth with a filthy sleeve. "She hardly had any fat on her. Tough as leather."

Maureen let out a wet, raspy chuckle, huddling closer to the burning marrow. 

"At least she was finally useful for once. Seriously, how dumb could that bitch even be? Five whole years of acting like a dutiful mother to another woman's kid. And even after the cold came, she still acted like the perfect daughter till the end. God, I hate her. She had no idea she was being used by all of us and still tried to act all high and mighty.” She spat out. “God, she was pathetic."

Daisy froze. The silent screaming in her throat died instantly. What did she just hear?

"I still can't believe she never questioned it," Maureen smirked, her cracked, blackened lips twisting into something vile in the firelight. "The day she gave birth, we swapped her baby girl out before she even held her. Dumped her real kid in that slum shelter to rot, and handed her my boy instead. And she poured every drop of love into raising my son while her own daughter died by our hands."

"Doesn't matter now," Desmond said coldly, tossing a bone scrap into his mouth. "The kid is gone now. Couldn't survive the cold, but she still fed us for weeks with scraps. She should've done a better job, then we wouldn't have had to hack her to pieces to get food and warmth. She only has herself to blame for being useless."

The words echoed in the void, smashing Daisy's soul to pieces. It made her ears ring; it made her dizzy. Do ghosts get dizzy? It didn't matter because she was definitely dizzy.

All this time… to think this was what her husband and sister she cherished so much thought of her. And her baby… They had tampered with her baby.

Three years ago, the entire world had plunged into a brutal, relentless glacial era. The sky had turned to grey with endless snow, power grids collapsed, and getting a single spark of fire to ignite in the frozen air was nearly impossible. 

One by one, people starved and froze to death in the streets.

Yet through all of it, Daisy had worked her body to the bone. She had braved sharp blizzards to drag back firewood, thermal gear, and food so her ‘frail’ stepsister, her ‘weak’ family, and her husband could stay warm. 

She had continued to do it all even while carrying the heavy, crushing grief of losing her son to the storm—a lie they had fed her from the beginning. That boy was never her son. 

“I mean, how could she know?” Maureen continued as she gnawed on the bone. “She had not given birth to a boy in the first place. Most swaps are from the same gender, but pay the nurse a little bit of cash, and she lied right away that the baby girl was a boy just so they could get my boy into her crib.” She laughed, a sharp, croaky sound that sounded more like a cough.

Daisy’s chest aches. She had given birth to a girl? She didn't know. She had no idea.

Her baby... her baby girl... She had given birth to a daughter. Her daughter…

They had taken her newborn and thrown her into a ditch to die while the world was still breathing, and forced Daisy to slave away raising their illegitimate bastard instead.

“Ah, I can't forget her pathetic existence no matter what,” Maureen added. “What kind of woman agrees to give away millions in inheritance just because she is told her sister is sick and needs treatment?”

Daisy froze. Even that too? Was that also a lie?

“She was gullible and easy to manipulate,” Desmond stated. “That's why it was so easy to keep her around.”

“If not for her inheritance, from the start, you and I were supposed to be the ones married.” Maureen snuggled into his arms. “From the moment you came to propose to her, she had no idea that I had been the one fulfilling your dirtiest fantasies.”

No, no, stop talking. Even that too? Even that? So from the start, all of them knew what they were doing, and she had been the only foolish one?

The one who was easy to deceive?

The truth tore through her heart, and her soul…

Then, the grief in her ghostly chest transformed into an all-consuming, terrifying inferno of rage. Her spirit shook violently with a curse so dark it tore through the fabric of the dying world.

I will never forgive you! I swear on my daughter's grave, you will pay for this!

Just as her madness reached its absolute peak, a blinding, golden light tore through the dark. 

The sight of her killers vanished, replaced by a sleek, glowing blue interface hovering in the void.

[System Protocol Activated.]

[User Soul Integrity: 100% (Driven by Extreme Vengeance).]

[Would you like a second chance to rewrite your fate?]

Daisy stared at the floating text, her spirit burning with pure, icy venom. "I don't care if you are a god or the devil himself. Give me my second chance. I will drag every single one of them to hell myself."

[Selection Confirmed.]

[Congratulations, Host! You have been successfully rewound to 29 days before the Glacial Apocalypse.]

[Main Directive: Stockpile supplies, build your fortress, and avenge your previous death. Good luck!]