Okawae
a short story idea
Aubrey Sterling is a rising conservative media personality in Canyon Hills, California, who co-hosts "The Rational Republic" podcast with Tyler Westbrook, promoting Ayn Rand philosophy and Heritage Party politics. By day, she works as a ruthless insurance claims adjuster, taking pride in denying coverage to those she deems unworthy of care.
When Aubrey callously denies life-saving medical coverage to Agnes Crowfeather, an elderly Miwok woman who dies as a result, Agnes curses her with her dying breath: "You are Okawae" - vulture.
Initially dismissing the curse, Aubrey continues planning her investigation of the trendy Eternal Horizons Society crematorium for podcast content. But soon she's consumed by insatiable hunger that no food can satisfy. Despite eating constantly, she wastes away, developing increasingly vulture-like features that she desperately tries to hide.
When Chase Thornton, a charismatic Heritage Party politician she's been flirting with, dies in a car accident, Aubrey attends his funeral. Standing over his corpse, she blacks out as an alternate personality - Carrion Blackheart - takes control and feeds on the dead. She awakens with no memory, but the voice whispers wickedly about what they did.
Aubrey begins to understand that she has been blacking out, and eating corpses, the only food that will satiate her, at night. She fears if she doesn’t eat them, she will starve to death.
To survive, Aubrey uses her Eternal Horizons investigation as cover to access corpses, replacing them with cigarette ashes from her chain-smoking neighbor, Sage Kowalski - an aging hippie whose liberal lifestyle she despises. Ironically, when Sage's cancer claims cross her desk, Aubrey must approve coverage to keep her ash supplier alive.
As her transformation progresses, Aubrey becomes estranged from Tyler, who secretly loves her but watches helplessly as she pushes him away. When Sage discovers the ash theft and attempts blackmail, Carrion Blackheart takes control and kills her.
The story ends when Tyler, worried about his missing co-host, discovers Aubrey in her apartment - fully transformed into the scavenging Okawae, feeding on Sage's remains. The rational republic has fallen to its most primal nature.
