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Grade
10

The faint scent of mint hangs in the air, tinted by a sharp tang of disinfectant. The still, unnatural silence is broken only by the click of your shoes. In this pristine, meticulous room, you are the only one here. You are the only one who has ever been here.

 

You stare at your fingers as they brush the chalky, uncovered paths of the wall, then at the mounted frames above, and finally at the specimen under the glass. A smile plays on your lips.

 

Yes, what a fine specimen that is.

Dark veins, beautifully patterned over a scarlet gradient. A fine one indeed.

 

What’s more, this isn't the only one. Your walls are covered with them.

 

 


 

 

February 15, 199X

Changi, Singapore

Cethosia hypsea hypsina

__________

 

One of them disappeared from its case today. In its place, a thin piece of paper with messy scrawl.

 

We’ll come back.

 

 


 

 

Ever since you were a child, you’ve had a love for them.

 

Thinking back, your mouth twists into a thoughtful frown. You recall the things they said back then, and you recall the things they would say now. How you were ‘weird’ and ‘gross,’ how it’s not ‘right’ to take them from nature, about how “they have lives too!”

 

Your nose wrinkles. But it’s better this way, you think. It’s a dangerous world out there, after all. They would have died anyway.

 

 


 


July 3rd, 20XX

Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico

Mimoides ilus branchus

__________

 

More of them missing, more slips of paper.

 

You’ll pay for this.

 

 


 

 

There’s no one more qualified for this job, either. You spend everyday collecting and preserving them, away from people, away from the judgment. You are very good at it; perhaps the best there is. You know everything there is to know about them, too. For instance, the audience probably didn’t know that some of them drink tears because of their need for salt. But you did.

 

 


 

 

October 12, 200X

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fountainea nobilis titan

__________

 

You’ve started seeing things in your peripheral vision. Small things. You could never catch one directly but you think....you think the colors kind of match up with the ones missing from their cases.

 

Another note.

One day, it’ll be your turn.

 

 


 

 

Your favorite part is mounting them.

 

Delicate limbs, beautiful vein patterns. It’s a privilege to touch them. You make sure their bodies are treated with the utmost respect, and that no part of them is harmed.

 

Moreover, seeing them framed under glass is the final reward; a sign of a job well done.The vibrant colors pinned on the walls of your clean, silent room is very satisfying.

 

 


 


December 20, 201X

Here.

Ascalapha odorata

________

 

Today; the cases on the walls are empty. The stench of mint is suffocating, and a constant, incessant buzzing fills your ears. It’s deafening.

 

They’re just bugs, you think. They can’t hurt me.

It’s supposed to be the other way around. It was always the other way around.

 

You are curled up in the corner of your study, knees to your chest, arms pressing against your head. The forceful beat of your heart and the blood rushing in your ears is almost enough to drown out the buzzing. Almost.

 

No, this is it.

 

You see them skittering everywhere, coming out of every corner, every crack, every narrow slit where the wall meets the floor. Each tiny limb and erratic movement is disturbingly clear to you. Your throat closes up.

 

You can feel them crawling on you, under your clothes, on your neck, in your mouth, they’re everywhere, God, they’re everywhere. They go for your eyes, for your tears, and the last thing you see under the black veins and scarlet gradients are hundreds of black bodies crawling on the back wall. They know how to spell.

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