Moths blended in with the crumbling wallpaper, fluttering their wings anxiously in the breeze that swept through the broken windows. The faint light coming from under the study door was new to them. Their generation had been born in the house that they had thought to be empty, just as the countless generations before them.
Now there was an unnatural light in their darkness and iron in the air that made them cease their usual nightly activities and wait, scarcely moving, hardly daring to breathe, waiting as the unrelenting vibrations coming from the study increased, the creature inside coming closer to the door.
They didn't know what the vibrations meant, if there was something inside making noise or moving about - it all felt the same to them. All they could do was remain silent and still in the hopes that whatever had found its way inside their home would either grow tired and leave or perish inside that room so they would never have to face it.
As the handle to the study jerked violently, most of them scattered in a light storm of fluttering whispers as they fled to much darker rooms, much better hiding places. Very few remained - either too curious or too scared to make a move as the creature inside stopped trying to open the door nicely, choosing instead to hold the handle down and ram its full body into the door again and again and again until the wood began to splinter and give way, age having rotted it to the core.
The moths that stayed behind met the wooden debris in a short but violent impact that left them as little more than yellowish stains and crumpled wing fragments that the creature, now free, ignored as it set about exploring the rest of its new home, intent on making itself the sole occupant.
Now there was an unnatural light in their darkness and iron in the air that made them cease their usual nightly activities and wait, scarcely moving, hardly daring to breathe, waiting as the unrelenting vibrations coming from the study increased, the creature inside coming closer to the door.
They didn't know what the vibrations meant, if there was something inside making noise or moving about - it all felt the same to them. All they could do was remain silent and still in the hopes that whatever had found its way inside their home would either grow tired and leave or perish inside that room so they would never have to face it.
As the handle to the study jerked violently, most of them scattered in a light storm of fluttering whispers as they fled to much darker rooms, much better hiding places. Very few remained - either too curious or too scared to make a move as the creature inside stopped trying to open the door nicely, choosing instead to hold the handle down and ram its full body into the door again and again and again until the wood began to splinter and give way, age having rotted it to the core.
The moths that stayed behind met the wooden debris in a short but violent impact that left them as little more than yellowish stains and crumpled wing fragments that the creature, now free, ignored as it set about exploring the rest of its new home, intent on making itself the sole occupant.
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