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Lepidopterophobia

You are dying. 


Doesn’t matter how. 


Feels so far away now— doesn’t it? 


That’s it. Take it easy. Let that last breath slip away, like the warmth that comes in a killing cold. Gentle into a silent night. No more looking up at those crowding, concerned faces; a herd of pale, pained moons. 


- - - - - ___________



A dark tunnel. Familiar, but not. You’re welcome all the same. Hands groping, grasping against glassy coolness, stumbling— 


Light. The most perfect, pure sunlight. Every idealized summer, every perfect candlelight and warming fire, all that condescend sun-sure dances across a lifetime of days. It’s mere existence is the most pristine invitation. In illumination alone it says come closer. If you had a heartbeat it would be racing. 


Up. Up. Forward. Scuffing, almost tripping. Surging forward, hands outstretched. 


You’re here. 


The Light. The Light  


It’s so— wrong. It’s purity vanished, replaced with an organic and oily sheen. Like firefly glows made rotten, morphed in the shape of nightmares. Those summer days vanish into the maw of wildfire glare. 


Hateful, no— hungry.    


You try and fail to scurry back just as the first lancing pain latches into you, a barbed horror burrowing deeper inside like it’s alive and probing. 


A shape in the light. 


Terrible. Beautiful. Inconceivable. 



Great wings—

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