The Moth

The darkness was so complete down here, it was suffocating. But the dead don’t need to breathe, so it doesn’t truly matter. Down here, there are lines of the dead and decaying, walking. Nobody knows why they walk, or perhaps, nobody knows they walk.

In the dark, there is one that still waits for a miracle. Once upon a time, perhaps it was living. Though, it had to have lived, for it to have died. The creature does not remember such a thing. As far as it knows, it has always been walking, walking, walking. Waiting for its body to decay enough that it can no longer walk.

When a body dies, it joins the lines. They do not know where they are going, only that they must get there. The things at the beginnings of the lines are bones, mere steps away from their final death, when they can walk no longer. They will walk until their fragile bones cannot bear their weight. They will walk until their bones crumble to the ground and are trampled by the rest of the line. The backs of the lines might remember who they were. The creature does not know. It does not remember.

With the bits of brain matter the thing has left, it tries to remember who it might have been. It does not know. All it knows is the walking. It has walked, and its body has slowly decayed.

It cannot see, but its eyes are still partially intact. There is nothing to see here anyway. It cannot smell, for its nose decayed long ago. Or was it recently? The creature doesn’t know. Time doesn’t exist in the lines. There is only walking.

Out of the darkness and the gloom, comes a light. It illuminates trails of bones left behind by the former members of the line. The creature has grown so used to the lightlessness of the pit that for a moment, it is blind. Its eyes that have been slowly dying with the rest of it are suddenly needed.

Something living has joined the legions of the dead. The creature knows the name of this glowing being. Somewhere, in its decimated brain, a word lives, the word that will name this small thing.

Moth

The word emerges and gives a bright blast of something the creature has not felt since joining the lines.

Hope.

The creature studies the moth. It is lovely. The creature has not seen anything that could be described as ‘lovely’ since its skin had begun to fall apart, and its features had dissolved. No lovely thing belonged down here. Only death and decay. Death had no right to be around the moth. Its light was so bright, too bright to be among the lines.

The creature watches the small moth flit down the lines. Watches as the desolate faces at the front of the lines didn’t bother to turn towards the moth. Watches as the humanoid faces at the end of the line make something resembling a smile at the little insect.

The creature knew it was useless to feel such hope, when moments before it had not even known the word. It did not know why the glowing animal had given it hope. Or what it was even hoping for. The creature was waiting to be at the front of the line, waiting to join the bones surrounding the rest of the wayfarers on their march to a final death. This moth didn’t change that. The creature wanted to be at peace at last, and it was only a matter of time.

And yet the creature still raised its decomposing, grotesque hand towards the moth.

And the moth came to rest on the creature’s outstretched finger. The creature almost stopped walking. It marveled at the moth. The small glowing being that suddenly lit up a pit that had not seen light in centuries, perhaps longer.

The creature did not know why, but suddenly, it felt something towards the moth. It did not know what to call it. Its remaining brain cells scrambled for the word. Fear. Yes, that was it. The creature feared for the moth. Beauty had no place down here. It would be stomped out as thoroughly as the bones they walked over. The creature did not want that. The moth deserved to live. It did not deserve to be trampled by the thousands of festering limbs that were still walking in the dark.

Go the thing tried to say. Go.

It could not. Its lips had fallen away, and its voice had rotted with them. It could not speak. So it continued its marveling.

It had not felt the touch of a living being since before it walked. For the moth, the creature tried to remember. Who was it before the lines? Did it have a name? Did it have… What was the word? A troupe? A lineage? A family. Did it have a family? It does not remember.

It had not thought about such things since it was at the back of the line, maybe longer. The moth had brought these—these thoughts to the creature. The moth gave it hope that life still existed. It knew there was no chance for it to go back to the living. It didn’t want to go back to the living. But somehow, the creature was comforted by the knowledge that life existed beyond the lines. That there was more to the world than the lines.

That thought stopped it. For the first time, the dead thing stopped. Only for a moment, but such a thing had never been done before. The moth needed to go. It could not stay here. It could not give the dead hope of all things. There was no reason to hope. There was nothing to hope for, besides the final death to approach faster.

So again, the creature attempted to speak. GO.

A sound escaped its ravaged throat. It was not a word, but it was enough. The moth flew away, taking with it the last light the creature would ever see.

The creature kept walking.