Based on a song by Toad the Wet Sprocket
A grimy car pulled up to the side of the somewhat busy rural road and stopped dead in its tracks. Moments thereafter, the windows rolled down and revealed the driver: his bloodshot eyes filled with rage, his hair ragged and his face red with anger. His stereo was turned up so loud that it was hard to hear anything even if your windows were rolled up. His loud voice complimented the music in a way that is difficult to put into words, as if the yelling was background noise in the songs that played in his car. Although he could not see any, moths fluttered through the air and he had unknowingly killed hundreds of them. They all lay on the road, twitching wings and unmoving legs.
A moth landed on his shoulder while he was screaming into the sky. He saw the tiny insect look at him with big, curious eyes and he tried to flick the thing off, but because moths are so fragile, he crushed it and wiped its body on his shoulderblade, which he did not realize. Afterwards, he went back to yelling, while more moths filled the car unbeknownst to him until they were swarming all around, blinding him. It felt as if they were devouring him, and the drivers pulled over on the opposite side of the road and stared as the moths seemed to carry him out of the car and into the air. All that remained by the time he was out of sight was a twitching leg that kicked at the passersby as he was dragged away into the sky.
Even after he was gone, it was hard for the witnesses to look away from the car. They were all still processing what they saw. Some thought it was horrifying, others thought it was a prank someone else had played, but they all agreed on one thing: that man would never be seen again.
~~~
Me and my Dad were out by the lake one misty afternoon, he was fishing and I was just walking along the shore line because I didn’t have anything better to do at home, and then I noticed something gigantic floating in the water. I couldn’t tell what it was, so I asked my Dad, but he couldn’t tell me: Or rather, he refused to tell me what it was. Then I asked him for a nickel just to see what would happen if I threw it into the water, and he gave it to me. I threw it at the thing to see what it was, but it didn’t respond. There were a lot of butterflies in the air, and I wondered if it had anything to do with them. But still, why would there be something like that in the water? It looked like a giant egg. Or maybe some sort of creature, because that’s just how Florida is sometimes.
Suddenly, I saw my dad’s skin flash open as a swarm of moths fluttered around him, and once they cleared up, then I saw another one of those gigantic creatures. I was so close now that I couldn’t tell what it was, because when you’re close to something that big, you just can’t see anything at all. A little blue butterfly landed on me as I backed up to take a closer look. I only ever saw orange butterflies in person, but I always liked the blue ones more. Unlike the thing in the water, this thing was black. My dad was gone and I was horrified: had I watched my dad transform into something else in front of me? I picked up his fishing rod and started calling out for him in a panic as tears filled my eyes. I must’ve been panicking so hard I fainted, because everything went black and when I woke up, I was in this bizarre place.
It was a cave, decorated like a home with lots of tacky stuff with butterflies on it. It was cold in there, which was an odd feeling because I’ve never found a cold place in Florida. There was a station filled with twitching cocoons, as if something was trying to get out of them. An even deeper pit formed in my stomach now. My first thought was that I was having a horrible nightmare, but no—nightmares are never this vivid. They just can’t be, can they? There were very strange humanoid butterflies and moths running around, giggling. Most looked to be girls, but I saw a few boys here and there. One of the female moths came up to me. She looked to be around my age, and she had two huge, dark voids for eyes and wings that looked to be at least three times longer than my arms. I stared at her in horror, and she said “Oh, look who daddy brought home!” My first question to the girl was “Are you gonna eat me?”
“No, Daddy doesn’t eat humans. We prefer raspberries!” she giggled, her antennae twitching. “Did you hear about the man who got dragged out of his car by moths yesterday? We didn’t even eat him even though he killed hundreds of us!”
I had so many questions, but I guess the first one to ask was “What did you do to him?” I hadn’t heard the story because I was out by the lake. Wait, yesterday?
She replied “We decided to show him a lesson. He’s still alive, we’ll go show you how he’s doing.” So I followed them, really worried, and saw a cocoon at the “nest station” that looked pretty close to hatching. There was a lot of kicking inside, and I could just barely see inside the cocoon. All I saw was a terrified, brightly glowing eye that looked at me. The thing inside tried to say something, maybe “help me,” but it only came out as a hiss, and I said
“Y…you…how do you do that?“ and they kept mentioning some weird Daddy figure. I was really stunned and scared, and I kept wondering if I should ask if they were gonna turn me into a weird butterfly thing too.
“Oh, our Daddy is a very powerful little butterfly. He can even trick people into thinking he’s a human! He’s the one who gives us the power we need to cocoon our targets.”
“Are you gonna transform me into a moth?” I asked her, knowing it was the obvious question.
“Why shouldn’t we? I bet you’d make a wonderful butterfly! You’d have big, beautiful wings and you could soar over the world with me and my siblings!”
At this point, I had a lot more questions, so I’d just keep asking away.
“So, those you transform — do they keep their mind. Y’know, like memories and stuff.”
“Well ummmm...” she began to stammer as if she was trying to break some horrible news to me. "Well, sort of. The memories are there, we just make it hard for them to remember or miss. Sometimes if we cocoon families, we have to do something to make them remember who they all are. Usually we get them to stick together pretty close."
“If you cocoon entire families, why didn't you just take me too?”
“We like to get to know our new friends — usually, they end up developing personalities just like what they had as humans!”
"Then why didn't you give my dad any warning?"
"Do I look like I know? That was Daddy's work, not mine! I just followed him"
“So, what were those things in the water by the lake? I saw a lot of butterflies and moths around when the weird gigantic things appeared.”
“Oh, you never realized? Those were cocoons.They have to be extra large, gotta give the new butterflies room to change and grow! We took you in because none of us had the heart to change you just yet. We had to save you for later!"
Then, I regretted saying anything at all after the moth lady asked “Are you feeling it now?” And by that I knew she meant was I ready to be transformed, so I said “Hell no…I don’t wanna die!” and I began crying and demanding to see where my dad’s cocoon was. She asked if she could carry me because she thinks it helps when their victims are scared, and I reluctantly agreed. Moths have very fluffy necks, especially when they’re human-sized and humanoid, so it truthfully was a pleasure. After a few moments, she set me down and told me she couldn’t be sure if it was my dad’s cocoon, but it was also a huge black cocoon, just like what my dad had turned into. I touched the cocoon and hoped I wouldn’t die.
“Oh, be careful with those things.“
“What, will i turn into one of you?”
“No, but it can really scare our children.”
And then I began to wonder about how my dad’s childhood was like and I just began crying. Everything was just slipping away from him, and the chances were almost zero that either of us would ever see my mom or my little brother again. I’d never be able to take little Ryan to the amusement park near our house anymore, we’d never make homemade ice cream again. Unless there was a way out, so I asked her about any possible ways out, but she just shrugged and said “You’re in too deep, but if Daddy lets you, he’ll let you go.”
Suddenly I had a lot more hope, so I just said “Take me to your daddy.”
Before I knew it, I was in front of a massive humanoid butterfly, his wings looked like stained glass and I couldn’t see anything above his waist. When I looked up, a fear settled in as his deep red eyes looked at me, and I decided to back up. He was very muscular and looked at me curiously, then he asked the brown moth "Oh daughter, are you bringing me another person to turn?” and while she was stuttering, I asked for her name.
“They call me Harriet! And Daddy, she wants to know if there’s a way out.”
“Oh, it’s the girl who was at the lake where we cocooned that man. I didn’t know he had a daughter!”
“Yes! You killed him! And here I am, watching it all unfold. When he gets out of that cocoon, you made it so he won’t be able to remember anything. possibly even his very own daughter!”
“Well, we can make arrangements for you guys to meet once you’re both done transforming, and you can refresh your bond together, now just as moths.”
“So…what is it gonna be?” I asked him. And he said “We’re gonna cocoon you.”
And that’s when I knew my fate was sealed. But I wanted to ask more questions.
“Will I become a butterfly or moth?”
“We turned your dad into a moth, so you can become a moth too. Maybe of the same type as him.”
“What kind of moth is he?”
“An emperor moth!” I guess the brown moth girl wanted to answer for me.
“And I forgot to ask — what kind of moth are you?”
“Herald!” she giggled. “On your way to our cocoons, you should meet my sister, she’s a Luna Moth, sort of like a moth version of Daddy!”
“O…kay.” By now, my eyes were filling with tears and I just wanted to go to the cocoons.
Halfway there, Daddy said that one of the cocoons was opening, and we stopped to watch it open, and I noticed it was the cocoon for the man they’d stolen out of the car. Out of it popped a little black moth who didn’t want to leave the cocoon, he just peered at us with the same red eyes that I’d seen earlier. His hair was messy and his antennae twitched. He shook and shivered and tried to flutter out slowly, but then he crashed and hid behind another cocoon that was on the ground. I wondered if we’d be close once I became a moth. So I guess now, one of the last questions I want to know was “Do they know how to talk out of the cocoon?”
“Well, not really, but they learn over time from hearing us! We don’t even need to teach them. They just learn English on their own!”
Now that most of my questions had been answered, I just kept walking until we got to the cocoon. At this point, I realized I’d forgotten to ask about the Luna Moth, so I asked Harriet what her name was, and she said “Her name is Aurora. I think its too late now, once you hatch in two days, we can meet her!” Then I closed my eyes, and the last thing I whispered as a human was “I love you Dad, I can’t wait to see you again.” I think I might’ve made the herald moth girl cry with that. Anyways, how do I even remember all this stuff? I feel like I was lied to at some point. I just don’t want to think about it right now.