Return Point

It's been a long time since the last time I written, about anything really, especially in english, so let me start by telling a little about myself.

Determination is something that has never been one of my qualitys, unless it was about something or a totally selfish motive, I have always lived my life with a motto similar to Mad Max, "I will have my peace, even if that means starting another war," has worked. Until now. I learned to be like a lone wolf, one who misses something, his pack, and at the same time has complete knowledge that is all alone, but ... that changed some time ago, well, there's something I need to share, something that happened to me, something that you probably already know about, just never looked at it in such a way.

The Return Point.

We all have that moment when something happens, something that changes your life, your reality, your relationship with someone forever, and that moment always comes in three forms. The first one is when you find yourself in a situation that you have to make a choice, one that will drastically affect the course of your future, usually you do not have the full sense of it until it's too late. The second form, is where you choose to "do nothing," keep going on as you are, whether it's bad or good, whether you're happy or not, but you're too weak or too unmotivated to do anything about it, THAT, is also a choice too. And there is the third form, where you have no power over what will happen, and just watch in horror.

This is the point of return, the line that after being crossed there is no turning back, that moment, that fact, that you remember for the rest of your life, that marks you, and you are not always in control when it manifests itself in the universe.

This is where I begin telling you about my past, about a day when the rain, flooded my basement.

Return Point Reached - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Continue reading?

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Lilly was weird, she was the only friend that I ever had, everyone around here knew how beatiful she was, so much that people avoided interacting, she never had the knowledge of that, or chose to ignore, but her natural beauty was different, her hair was black as the night, long and smooth, which contrasts with crystal blue eyes, like a pool illuminated at night, small mouth with a white choker on the neck, and this grace that is difficult to put into words. I never saw her using makeup, or if she ever did it was to subtle to me and the other girls ever notice, she hardly spoke in public, she knew the art of ignoring everything around, she hardly said anything really, and when she did, it was just to me. Her hands were also commonly found brown and nails filthy with dirt. Bur her strangeness came from a peculiar taste she had.

Lilly loved insects.

Bees, flies, ants, spiders, beetles, even cockroaches, if it was small and grotesque, she adored it. There was a small collection that was her most valuable item, those old, large, hard-edged "notebooks" with needles and markings all over the pages as a kind of own sewing for it, where she put the most exotic insects which she captured, the vast majority with my help, according to her, this were "the nobles of the insect world," of course, she had her favorite creature.

Butterflies.

It was incredible how Lilly could talk for hours and hours without getting tired of them, everything she did not say in normal conversations, she used the words for butterflies, how beautiful they were, their transformation from larva to cocoon, and then, wings, a small creature that floated on large shiny leaves of tens to thousands of different colors, much larger than their own tiny body, she said that there was something magical about them that could never explain, but felt immediately at the very glance of one floating on the wind.

I knew exactly what she was trying to say about that feeling, and was after a butterfly that it all happened.

It was summer, and it was constantly raining the last few days, Lilly and I had known each other for some time, and we became close friends almost immediately, though we were both very shy, her willingness to talk about insects and mine of being a good listener, were enough to bring us to know each other, what exactly she saw of interesting in me I never knew, to be honest I think she just wanted someone to talk without judging, so, she found me. Obviously, it took me a long time to get used to her obsession with insects, but she admired them, and in time I learned some of that passion, both for insects and for Lilly, and it was not like she got them to eat, right?

That end of afternoon, I was at our local college waiting anxiously for the bell, the vacations would start together with my last semester in that circus of fools. After the bells ring, I rushed to the door, I was crossing it when I heard a voice call me, before I could be officially released from school for the rest of the season, Miss Moriá called me to her desk waving a heavy notebook in her hands and an expression of disgust on face. It was Lilly's notebook.

"Luna! You were forgetting your ann ... notebook, thing ... just take it from here! " - she practically threw it at me, I almost knocked it over, that woman was not at all subtle and kind, if it did not have a seal could have damaged its contents, I tried to recover, how could Lilly have forgotten something like that?

"Again, this notebook is not mine, it's Lil..." - I tried to say.

"Yeah yeah, right..." - said Miss Moriá, interrupting me in a voice of debauchery, "your friend Lilly, of course, where is she by the way?"

Where was she?

It was only after this comment that I noticed that I had not seen her leaving the room, could swear she was sitting right next to me, leaning over her old MP3 listening to music on headphones, I even remember it was Red Hot Chilli Peppers that was playing, one of her favorite songs, "Dark Necessities". Confused I put the notebook in my bag and went to the patio outside. I was used to the looks of other students, Lilly and I were the strangers of the place, which always attracted unwanted attention, fortunately I was the main target, so name-callings such as disgusting, dirty, insect-eating and all teasing were always directed at me, so I learned to ignore the world and to be this lonely wolf, as well as Lilly, which wasn’t a bad thing, I would feel worse if they were directed to her, mostly because I believed that part of those insults were precisely because I was friends with someone as peculiar as she, but today I was alone, and yet they came without fail. Lilly never said anything about it, and I never asked, but I felt, we felt, that this would change one day.

On a long walk, three hours passed, it was already dusk, and the way to my house was nothing very interesting, after the streets of the small town beyond the gates of the college, I had to make some curves in isolated blocks until the road for home, it was a unique trail of land that was located in a corner away from the city, because it was near the forest, fireflies danced through the air on all sides and crickets sang, she adored them. I was already at my house gates when I heard her familiar voice ring in my ear and a rustle of leaves.

"The Insect Court! We can complete it today Luna! "- coming from nowhere, Lilly, clearly excited by her statement, jumped out of a thicket beside me and came towards me with a smile on her face, dirty as ever, she carried a small net we had built a few weeks ago. How long was she there? And how she get here first than I? Didn’t make any sense.

"How do you do that?" - I asked, confused for the second time that day.

"Come on we do not have much time, I found it! I swear I found her, come on! "- her voice was practically begging for me to follow, I noticed she was barefoot and wore a small blouse and green robes, something unusual even for her, but my friend was so light that no footprints were formed on the earth, like an elf of Tolkien's tales. She quickly investigated through my bag and took "The Insect Court", the name of her collection.

My weird friend constantly surprised me with these apparitions, but something in her eyes were different that day... I hesitated.

"I don’t know Lilly, it's already dark, and you know that my father will be here soon, and I promised him that I would take care of some things at home" - I tried to argue, I felt something on my face, “see, it's even raining, are you sure about that?"

She did not say anything, just held out her hand and waited, I felt cold, she was just standing there, staring at me, still with that smile, with that look on her eyes.

Was enough.

Return Point Reached - Follow Lilly? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Yes.

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We entered the forest, I was clearly uncomfortable, no lanterns, no direction, only Lilly leading me through the darkness, the trees near my house, they were not usually so tall, but everything was different, I felt something in them, bigger and darker with sharp leaves, the rain was starting to get stronger, but my friend did not seem to mind anything that night.

"What did you find?" I asked, unquiet.

"The Queen, I found her" - she looked at me and her eyes glittered, I knew that expression of hers. Happiness, "A beautiful white butterfly, the largest you'll ever see in your life" - was the answer, and soon I understood why so much haste and the unusual situation.

There is something I think I should explain at this moment, you see, Lilly had named her notebook "The Insect Court" as you probably figured already, she separated them one by one as if they were royalties, dukes, princesses and princes, earls and countesses, their pins were their thrones, we would dry them and use spray that honestly I was not sure what it was for, in Lilly's words, was to make them "beautiful and imposing", in a way it was true, because they always looked shiny and hardened after using it, and after pages and more pages of lords and servants plus other titles of the genre, there was the first page, the most special. We captured the king almost a year ago, it was a large and imposing Dynastinae, also known as the "Rhino-Beetle", he was hidden near the mountains miles away from my house, I had never seen Lilly as happy as that day when we found him, and her moments of joy were contagious, I felt her happiness running through my entire body, even my father noticed that I was smiling more than usual that day after our discovery, since then I help her in the tireless hunt for the last royalty, the last pin to be filled. The mysterious queen. She thought to have found her that night, after countless black trees and boulders, there she was.

It was impossible not to notice, it was perched on a branch, height of our heads, the white butterfly was indeed enormous, the size of a bird, and was shining in the light of the moon that passed through the cracks on the tops of the forest together with the watery glow that fell, the creature was so beautiful as it was scary, her whole body was white in light blue and silver details, her wings, these had a different twist of red and black spirals, as if they were eyes, watching, waiting. I felt a shiver down my spine immediatly upon seeing her, at the same time that I felt her magic, my brain screamed how impossible it was that my eyes were saying to be real. Lilly took my hand, she made a sign of silence for me with her index finger over her lips, and pulled me subtly so that we could approach slowly.

It all happened way too fast, as we tried to get closer, a loud noise came from somewhere to our left, I got scared and stumbled straight to the ground, a gunshot echoed, my ear burned like fire, noises of broken branches, a strong white light between the leaves directly on my face, and the butterfly flew.

"Hey! What are you doing on my property, girl? "Said a man's voice as I tried to shield my eyes from the strong light," Out of here! Or the next shot will not miss! Now!"

The whole situation was bizarre, I had no idea how far we were, that lunatic was armed with a large hunting rifle with a flashlight at the end, as i pass my hand over the side of my hair, I could see blood, and feel the pain of a wound that could have killed me, that was way too close, I was sure he had not missed the shot on purpose, hunters do not miss, they go for the kill always. Adrenaline and fear was on my veins, and i did the one thing my body could during that moment. Get up and run.

Lilly was by my side, euphoric as we ran through the trees, but while I was terrified, she was smiling, she was feeling excited, I was about to get her attention when she pointed to something forward, luckily the butterfly had chosen the same escape route that us, without saying anything, we pressed even harder to reach it, the light ahead intensified, the rain too, creating a nocturnal blury scenery, after a few minutes, the trees opened and then I saw.

We were back to my house to my surprise, I noticed that we had passed and turned around part of the valley, I could see the back yard where my father's small plantation was, our makeshift garage with metal frames, along with a small window close to the floor in the far left of the house. In the distance, the white butterfly leaned into the air and went directly to that small opening through it, seeking shelter from the rain and entering the house. The window was open, I had not closed it because I forgot that it was one of my father's requests for when I arrive at home that day, as I said before, it was summer, and it was common to open it to get some air and soften the heat that was downstairs in the basement. As you must be imagining, yes, water, mud and dirt were going through the opening, furiously at that very moment.

Return point Reached - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I didn’t close the window.

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"Quick! Now is our chance, she has nowhere to run! "- Lilly shouted marching forward. Again I'm in a situation that i’m not sure how to put it into words, but I felt something strange at the moment, my friend looked me in the eyes for a second to follow her, and I was cold, very cold, the rain was very strong, my ear was bleeding, but it was something different, a presentiment perhaps, as I said, I do not know how to describe it, just understand that something inside me was screaming like a survival instinct, but ... it was Lilly, and she needed me, in a way or another. My sentiment for my friend overcome the feeling, ignoring it, i ran after her, Lilly noticed that it would be risky to enter through the same opening, and to prevent more water from entering or the butterfly from escaping, we decided it was better to close it, so i did, with difficulty because of all the water and mud, I managed after several attempts to close it alone by supporting a piece of wood thrown next to the plantation fence, the lock was inside, but that was enough, for now.

We ran around the house and jumped in the front door, I knew I should be worried about stuff like "dirt in the house," as we were both soaked and filthy on mud, even though Lilly incredibly managed not to soil a single wall as I noticed later, plus the situation was so out of the ordinary and crazy that I just wanted to catch that damn butterfly and wash my wound. That moment i started to feel hungry for some reason, but that could wait, i went into the kitchen to get a flashlight from one of the drawers while Lilly went ahead, after a few moments i approached the place, the path to our basement is one of those old classic entrances, wooden door under the stairs leading to some small steps, but the door was broken on the corner, the strength of the water accumulated by the volume had opened it with force breaking all the knobs apart , and almost half of the entrance was already underwater. For the first time I thought about the size of the trouble I would get into with my dad for that whole situation.

The basement was flooded, and I did not see Lilly anywhere, she had left the net at the entrance, “right fucking now? where did she go?”, my choices were little, so i jumped on the water and started to make my way forward, i felt anger on the first sight inside the basement.

The butterfly. She was at the top of a bookshelf in the far corner of the room, I tried to drag myself across the water with difficulty towards it, "Come on your stupid butterfly, you've already caused too much trouble for today!"- I said angry and afraid, several furniture and various utensils were thrown all over the room and bouncing on the water, making it even harder to pass along with the mud on which I was stomping, the basement was all enclosed and had the size of a large living room, the air was heavy, damp and smelling strong, my eyes watered a little and I struggled to control my breathing, because of all this, it took me some time to reach the shelf. But fate did not want to be me the one to capture it.

I tried to climb the shelf to catch it with the net in hand, a movement in the water came from nowhere without me noticing it and made little waves, I lost my balance and the grip, and kicked the wood forcing it back, the whole shelf shivered and fell on top of my body, I screamed in shock as I hit the water, trying to move to the side but unsuccessfully, my entire body began to sink along with the furniture on my waist, for a few moments I was able to put my head out of the water forcing air into my lungs, quick enough just to see a scene, my friend had reappeared, ignored my state and was completely occupied with something else.

Lilly had catched the butterfly, it emanated an intense white glow in her arms, her expression is something I will never forget, tears streaming down her face, joints of a huge unhuman smile, Lilly made a grin out of her teeth, something insane, and then a bite on the creature, another, and another, and started to tear the now white mess on her hands apart, with a bluish liquid between the teeth and pieces of the now dead butterfly, with a soft voice she talked to me, "Thank you, you are my most honorable knight, Luna, rest now, I'll need you sooner than you think. "

I didn’t say anything, how could I?

The water reached my head, as I wrestled my body with terror, i felt a strange and horrible taste in my mouth, and my lungs began to burn, I was drowning, the lights started to spin, and i succumbed to darkness.

Silence... everything went dark, several memories passed in front of me, but all were distorted, were... different. I saw myself in the forest, in the mountains, digging on the ground and climbing trees, I saw myself dirty, I saw other people calling me names, repulsive, disgusting, cockroach lover, they were avoiding me, I saw the other girls look at me with contempt, how Miss Moriá always hated when she saw me with my notebook in the bag and an MP3 in my ears or when I forgot to wash my nails before going to class. I saw myself in the forest of the great black trees, running for no apparent reason with a net in my hand behind a huge white butterfly, a hunter almost killed me with a blind shot when he saw a girl running alone in his lands, I ran to my home and entered the flooded basement, and after an accident with the heavy bookshelf I was trapped in the wreckage and began to drown. All those memories were close to how I remembered them, of how I had lived them, but altered, "it's wrong!" I tried to scream, but there was no voice in that place, and then, to my misery... I understood.

In none of those memories Lilly existed.

When I finally woke up, two figures were close to me, I was dizzy, confused, and I had lost all sense of how much time had been gone, the more I felt reality spinning back in, i could tell that one of those voices was from my father, he asked me worriedly what had happened as he shrugged my arms and stroked my hair, taking care not to touch in my now bandaged ear, my voice was weak, my lungs, throat and teeth burned and I felt a pain I had never felt before, I was lying in my bedroom on the top floor of my house, but several things were out of place, and others I did not remember ever having now existed in that space. After hours, I managed to get up and explain to him what had happened, he told me that I went in a catatonic state for 8 whole days, the doctors where worried but still let him keep me home to take care of me, saying that it must have been some sort of heavy PTD, my father seemed not to notice the third presence while trying to bring me back to our world. I remember my father's expression as i mentioned the name Lilly and told him about the butterfly, he started to cry and left the room saying that needed to make a call, and then... only the stranger stayed, I did not recognize him, I don’t even know if he was a person, a sort of bulky, black man who for some reason only i saw him, he had a big ornament on his head, a sort of T-shaped horn on his forehead, and beckoned me to follow him, with difficulty I did.

Do not ask me why, my mind was in a totally confused state, and questioning or judging the reality in front of me was not something I was worrying at all about, as weird as it sounds. The figure accompanied me back to the basement, the door was closed and arranged rustically enough for it to close, the great being made a reference bending towards the door, I did not understand the meaning of it, yet I opened it and went inside, but the vision I had was far from being a place I was familiar with. The whole basement was overgrown with vineyards and what I can describe as "pieces of something" on the floor, mostly green, gray and black, slimy pieces, white shapes around the walls and corners, shapes that looked like eggs of some sort, and in the center, a large white cocoon surrounded by insects of the most different types and forms, worms, cockroaches, beetles, ants, and bees, all surrounding and traveling in perfect synchrony, the place was old, very old, the walls were greenish with moss, but I had no idea how the water had gone or what in the world happened to that room.

The cocoon cracked and i jumped hitting my back on one of the walls, pieces started to fall apart with loud noises, and all the insects ran madly in all directions, I saw what seemed to me transparent and gray wings leave the coccon, a bluish and green liquid quickly fluing like veins on the wings, a loud cry emanated through the room, and a voice echoed from within, a macabre voice, raw, that made me lose my sanity completely.

"Do not be afraid Luna, it's me, your friend, your queen, the most beautiful butterfly, you know my name."

But what I saw coming out of the cocoon... that... thing. It was not Lilly, it couldn’t be. The immense creature now talking to me and slowly crawling in my direction was not a queen, neither a butterfly.

It was a Moth.

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Return Point Reached ...

Submitted July 30, 2018 at 04:08AM by LunaValkyr https://ift.tt/2AlJcyL