A few nights ago a moth flew in through my open window. For hours the giant thing circled around my tiny room, bouncing loudly against the light overhead over and over again. After a long time of this nauseating creature I decided it was time to get the pest out of my room. I opened the door, turning the overhead light off so that it would follow the hypnotic rays from the halogen light glowing softly in the hallway. The moth made no move towards the hallway or the open window. After about a half an hour I had had enough of an oversized moth wasting my time and patience. I opened my drawer and pulled out my air-soft pistol. The pistol was heavily weighted and was shaped like a desert eagle. I was very familiar with the powerful rod. It seemed by far the most humane way to kill the bug. I was lucky enough to hit it square in the back on my first shot. It was a short victory, however. I watched as the beast crawled warily out from the shadowy corner, spreading its wings with indignance and rising into the air and rushing straight at my neck. I panicked, dodging to the side and sending a hail of yellow bullets rocketing through the air. The first two missed the moth altogether. The second ricocheted brilliantly off of the concrete wall and into my left eye. The pain, however, did nothing to spare the moth from being struck viciously at the base of its wings by the third bolt. For a long while it seemed I was rid of the moth. Pretty soon I was able to sit and watch the television with peaceful satisfaction. It was so relaxing, in fact, that I fell asleep in my chair. I was awoken by some loud noise on the TV. I looked at the clock; it was almost 3 in the morning. As I stood up, moving towards the bed I heard a familiar sound. The grating, nauseating sound of a hairy, scaly hard head with two bulbous, faceted eyes cracking into glass over and over again overheard. The damned beast was still alive and it didn’t even care if the light above was off. I lost my patience altogether, going after it with a golden baseball bat I keep right next to my bed. It was a desperate, violent battle. I completely lost myself, surrendering to primal, homicidal emotions. Eventually the moth grew tired, alighting on the wall beside my door. This is it, I declared, your time has come, bastard. And suddenly it had become an execution. With the tip of my barrel an inch away from the furry demon, I pulled the trigger. The crack of plastic against reinforced dormitory wall crackles through the air. It happened too fast for me to see anything but a rumpled shape falling slowly towards the ground, an exaggerated splatter of insect blood darkening the pure, white wall, a deep, perfectly round dent in its center..

So, this was it, I thought with a deep sigh. My hands were shaking violently. After a long pause I decided it would be best to check the state of the moth’s corpse. I got up to look behind a stack of books at where the carcass had fallen. And there the beast stood, looking up at me with a single eye full of a simple rage. Half the moth’s body and part of its head were crushed but it was still alive, standing and staring. It looked somehow disgusted by me, like I was the bug and not it. I completely lost control, shouting nonsense to no one as I dove across the room to my roll of paper towels, clumsily tearing off long strips. As soon as I could I threw myself back at the creature, putting all my weight behind the wad of faded, brown rags in my hand. I crushed at it with a sort of hatred I’ve never felt before, finally wrapping it into a tight cocoon and crushing it between my hands, twisting it violently both directions until it was compressed hard as rock, sitting perfectly still in the center of my palm. I stared at it but nothing happened. I still couldn’t trust it. I had learned that it was better to be safe. I carried the wad out to the nearby lounge, planning to throw it off the common room balcony. Then I screamed aloud. It had started vibrating; my hand felt putrid with its sudden, violent struggles. I threw the undead cocoon on the floor ran back to my room to get the only reliable thing I still owned and believed in: my Golden Bat. I sprinted back into the dimly lit common room and smashed the heavy, metal bat against the little parcel in a desperate frenzy until it was nothing more than a flat pile of brown paper, a tiny, dark stain in its center spreading slowly outward across its surface. I kicked it out onto the balcony and slammed the sliding door before stumbling back to my room where I slammed the door and then the window. Then I turned on every light source I own, gripping my bat to my chest and scanning each surface I could see for flickering brown shapes.

I eventually killed that horrid creature but every night since I have had a dream that I am lying in my bed completely paralyzed while white moths fly into my open window dancing lazily towards my mouth and stealing my teeth one after the other. It’s four o’clock in the morning, I just woke up in a familiar cold sweat. As I blinked the sleep nervously out of my eyes I heard the sound again. The monotonous, tinny plink of an invisible moth against the glass above my head. Goosebumps spread relentlessly across my bare arms I turned on my computer monitor, shaking as I began, at last, to chronicle this weird, haunting tale, perhaps with the hope that it might one day fall into the hands of someone who can relate to others these recorded events of what happened during these nightmarish, Loathsome night of the Devil’s Moth.