Your hooves.
Your horns.
You’ll stand eventually.
I cleaned your stumps.
My greatest achievement.
My cow.
I’d screamed until my throat went hoarse.
Now I couldn’t even open my mouth.
Not with the gag soaked in spit. Not with the shame choking me harder than the cloth ever could.
I tried to move again. Reflex. Stupid.
I couldn’t bend my arms.
Because I didn’t have arms.
Not really.
Not anymore.
I turned my head just enough to see the white curve of it—my…hoof.
A real fucking hoof.
It glinted dully under the surgical light.
Wide. Cloven. Black.
It twitched when I flinched.
It was attached to me.
I wanted to be sick but there was nothing left in my stomach.
Not after seven weeks under. Seven weeks of slicing.
Seven weeks of being“cared for.”
I remembered the smell. The sterile stink of antiseptic and the meat-sweet scent of blood.
My blood.
My limbs.
My chest rose in shallow, sharp bursts. It wasn’t a panic attack. It wasn’t fear.
It was worse.
Realisation.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
