Ghoul: Re Insanity

The "house" was barely a house. The word felt like a lie.

Amatsu stood at the threshold, the night pressing cold at his back, his breath curling in the stale air. What remained of the structure slumped in on itself—walls split and splintered, consumed by rot and time. The roof sagged, the skeletal remains of its beams jutting out like ribs. Mold veined the surfaces, creeping, swallowing. The floor had rotted through in places, deep fractures yawning open like wounds.

In the farthest corner, something had long since died, its remnants nothing but a stain.

No warmth. No comfort. Just a husk. A place the world had forgotten.

Wind scraped through the broken walls, whispering through the rusted remains of a door barely clinging to its hinges. The damp stench of decay thickened the air, mingling with something softer—something sweeter.

Paper. Faintly rotting.

Amatsu exhaled, his footfall soft against the fractured wood. He stepped inside.

And then he saw her.

Curled in the dim light, knees drawn tight, arms wrapped around herself. Hair—green. Long, tangled, unkempt. Too long, as if no one had ever bothered to cut it. She was younger than him. Eight, maybe. Small, fragile. A bundle of bone and silence.

She was starving. That much was clear. Skin stretched too thin over her frame, her collarbones sharp, her wrists narrow as twigs. But it wasn't just hunger. There was something… off.

She didn't look ruined.

She should have. He had seen starving ghouls before—seen them crumble, seen the light in their eyes flicker out. The desperation. The fear. The fight.

But her?

Her skin was pale, waxen, like something carved from candlelight. Lips, cracked but whole. Her eyes—green, the same shade as her hair—dull, but not empty. Watching.

She should have flinched at the sight of him. Should have drawn back, shrunk away, begged, cried—something.

But she didn't.

Instead, she turned a page.

A book lay open in her lap, its edges torn, pages smudged with filth and time. But she read it as if it was the only thing tethering her to this world.

Her lips moved. A whisper, soft. Repetitive.

"Mother…"

The word barely carried.

"Mother…"

Again. Hollow. Weightless. A prayer left out in the cold too long.

"V…"

The sound slipped from her lips like a secret she no longer understood.

Amatsu's fingers twitched.

Who was she?

A starving child, left to rot in a ruin. Not dead. Not dying. Just… waiting.

His gaze swept the shelter again—weak walls, too many gaps, no real exits. This wasn't a refuge. It was a grave someone had forgotten to fill.

He counted the openings, marked the way the wind moved through them. The air was still. Stagnant. But something in it felt wrong. A wrongness that clung, like the scent of something that had been left to fester.

She tilted her head, watching him now. Not afraid.

But not whole, either.

She was shattered. Not in the way the broken became desperate—not in the way hunger turned ghouls into monsters.

This was different.

She didn't ask who he was. Didn't ask why he was here.

She just turned another page.

"Mother…"

Amatsu frowned. Was she even sane?

She should have been dead. Her body should have given out. Starvation should have hollowed her into something desperate, something wild.

But she just sat here. Reading. As if nothing else mattered. As if she had already withered away, and all that remained was the act of turning pages.

She wasn't fighting to survive. She wasn't fighting at all.

She was waiting.

For what?

Amatsu exhaled. It didn't matter.

He wasn't here to comfort ghosts.

But something about her kept him from turning away.

The night pressed against the broken walls like something alive.

Amatsu sat with his back to the cold, rotting wood, arms resting on his knees. His breath was steady. Measured. His mind, less so.

The shelter creaked with every shift of the wind. Gaps in the walls let in the sounds of the city—the distant wail of sirens, the sudden crack of gunfire, the wet tearing of something being devoured. 24Th Ward never slept. Predators didn't rest.

Neither did he.

The girl lay curled on the far side of the room, wrapped in something too thin to be called a blanket. Her book was tucked beneath her arm, as if she feared it would be taken from her.

She hadn't said a word to him.

Not while he sat. Not while she lay down.

Not until she twitched—a sharp, sudden movement, like something trapped in a nightmare.

She twitched. A sharp, sudden movement, her breath hitching.

Then, her lips parted.

"Don't touch me."

The words slipped out in a breath—thin, weightless, but immediate.

Amatsu's fingers stilled.

The way she said it—flat, automatic, like something burned too deep into muscle memory to forget—

It wasn't fear. It wasn't pleading.

It was resignation.

A cold prickle crept up his spine, unbidden.

He had heard that before.

An alley. Rain, thick and heavy. The reek of filth and blood.

A girl, barely older than her, pressed into the concrete.

Clothes torn.

Breath shallow.

The same words, slipping through chapped lips.

"Don't touch me."

Not fighting. Not begging. Just saying it.

Like it didn't matter. Like she already knew it wouldn't change anything.

Something deep in his chest twisted—something old, something he'd buried.

He forced the memory down.

The girl in front of him didn't move again. Just lay there, breath slow, uneven.

Then softer—softer than a whisper—

"Mother…"

A prayer to no one.

Her fingers curled tighter around the book. Her lips trembled, just slightly.

Then, in the same breath, the name—

"V…"

A pause.

And then—

"I will kill you."

The words bled into the stillness, hollow and certain. A whisper dragged from the depths of something too deep to reach.

Not a plea. Not a cry.

A promise.

Amatsu watched her, breath slow, eyes half-lidded against the dark.

She hadn't told him her name. Hadn't asked for his. Hadn't spoken beyond those murmured fragments slipping from her lips like something already lost.

Yet, somehow, he already knew—she wasn't nameless.

Someone had named her once. Someone had spoken to her, called for her, whispered something softer than the ghosts that clung to her now. But whoever they were, they were gone. Left behind. Buried. And she remained, curled in the carcass of a home that no longer had warmth to offer.

His gaze flickered to the book she held, its torn pages clutched tight, ink smudged with time and filth. She gripped it like it was all she had, like letting go would shatter something unseen.

V.

The name had weight. A sharpness. It wasn't just something she whispered—it was something she carried. And whoever V was, he doubted they were just a memory.

His fingers twitched. A slow, steady exhale.

What was her name?

He should've asked. But somehow, he knew—she wouldn't answer. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

His stomach twisted. He didn't know why.

He shut his eyes.

Sleep wouldn't come easy. It never did.

Not in a city like this. Not with hunger gnawing at his ribs. Not with his mind dragging him back to places he had long since abandoned.

Memories stirred at the edges of his thoughts. Shadows of himself, smaller, weaker. Cold floors. A room that smelled of blood. The weight of hunger so sharp it felt like his ribs would cave in.

A voice.

"Eat."

"Eat."

"I'm Hungry"

His hand clenched. Enough.

Something was watching.

Not a memory. Not a ghost.

His body tensed, instinct flaring sharp in his veins. He felt it. A presence in the dark. A prickle at the back of his skull, a shift in the air just beyond the broken walls.

Slow. Careful. Waiting.

Feral ghoul? Scavenger? Something else?

Amatsu exhaled, silent, controlled.

He could investigate. Hunt first, strike first.

Or he could stay in the shadows. Let them pass. Let them think he was already dead.

His fingers twitched. His kagune stirred beneath his skin, whispering the answer it always did—

Hunger.

But hunger wasn't enough. Survival came first.

His gaze flicked to the girl.

Still asleep. Still fragile. Still holding that damn book like it was the only thing keeping her together.

She hadn't flinched at the presence outside.

As if she was used to being watched.

Amatsu's eyes darkened.

Maybe the real question wasn't who was out there.

Maybe it was who was already inside.

A shift in the air. Subtle. Too subtle. The way it pressed against his skin—not the weight of humidity or cold, but something… heavier. Thicker. Like the moment before a wound splits open.

Then the sound.

A crack, deep and deliberate, splintering through the stillness like bone snapping under a slow, careful weight. Not settling wood. Not wind.

A step.

Measured. Purposeful.

A breath followed—sharp, too quick—like something caught in the act.

Amatsu stayed still. His pulse didn't quicken, but his muscles coiled, honed by instinct sharpened against survival. He had been hunted before. He knew the feeling of being watched.

But this?

This was something else.

The presence beyond the broken threshold lingered. It did not step forward again. Did not retreat. Just stood there. Watching. Waiting.

Then—

A voice.

Low. Wet. Like something dragged from the bottom of a rotting throat. It slithered between the gaps in the walls, the breath behind it wrong—not rasping, not gasping, but hollow, as if the lungs that expelled it had been emptied long ago.

"What a beautiful meat…"