31/31 - DAY 14 - COURTNEY CROCKETT, GHOST EATER

“This one time, there was this HUGE malignant force in this house. The place was absolutely busting with dark energy and shit. Well, my friend at the time and I went in there because of course we do - what else would you do when you can smell a Ghost from all the way down the block, right? This thing straight up possesses him, and he starts freaking out until I start pulling it out of him. Hahaha, I guess he wasn’t hardcore enough, it was awesome!” 

Courtney is a young woman with a bob haircut, dyed blue and green. She is CAREFREE, RELAXED, and AFFABLE. Courtney is an energy vampire, a variety of psychic that originated in the same tradition as psychic healers. However, unlike others of her type, she doesn’t take energy from people - she destroys Ghosts. 

Ghost-hunting clubs are a thing for normies, idiots, and the occult mainstream. People go into abandoned houses and spook themselves because they’re afraid of the dark, and sometimes they even record it and televise it while throwing around technobabble. Contacting the dead is one thing. Some people take a while to move on. But those spirits don’t have the energy to manifest clearly - the kinds of spirits that do are too dangerous for the kinds of people who bring EMF detectors and expensive cameras. 

Capital G Ghosts are the manifestations of powerful beliefs by motivated people, often entire groups of them. Sometimes, a single person may believe in themself enough to manifest in this way after death, however usually if a Ghost manifests because of a single person, it only represents one aspect of them or a particular belief. One that they’ve given a lot of energy to, shaping the ambient energy in the world. And Courtney, among other Ghost Eaters, tries to take that energy for herself. 

Courtney is aware of how dangerous this is. Possession by a Ghost is different from possession by the spirit of someone who’s deceased. Ghosts will change you and can do terrible things to your body, controlling your mind and turning you into a shell that does their bidding. Despite this, Courtney chases the high she gets from consuming Ghost energy. It’s not the same as taking energy from other people, which energy vampires typically do. The essence of Ghosts is incredibly intoxicating and can send her into days-long manic episodes before she crashes. 

Because she spends a lot of time unhaunting places, Courtney is well-connected with others in the occult community and could get just about anything if she had the need. However, instead she ends up spending most of her time getting high by conventional means. For her, to be completely and totally sober is to be vulnerable. When she’s regular high, she feels safe, and when she’s Ghost high, she feels unstoppable.