They were pretty.
Our city hadn’t had fireflies since before I was born.
My mother talked about them and how they would light up the back yard in the summer evenings.
She loved the warm yellow glow of them.
She looked like she had more to say but thought better of it.
So imagine my joy when I caught one in a jar. I was so proud to show her.
It’s cool blue light flickering in the dark.
The forest was quiet that night.
That should have been my clue that something was off.
My mother freaked when I showed her.
You could imagine my confusion when she snatched the jar out of my hand and threw it back into the woods.
Confusion turning to concern when she closed all the windows.
It was going to get muggy in here. But whatever I guess.
I stopped her when she started to take duct tape to the edges of the windows.
She just grabbed the tape back and kept sealing all the windows.
Told me it was for my own good.
She was really freaking me out now. I had half a mind to call my father to come home early since she’d never acted like this before.
Before I could explain the full story though, she’d grabbed the phone from my hand, told my father to stay at work, and turned to me absolutely furious.
She screamed at me.
Shocked, I just went to my room and locked the door behind me. I’d only seen her raise her voice maybe 3 times in my life. She’s always told me that once yelling is involved, you’ve lost.
I could hear her and the ripping of tape all evening.
Well if she was going act crazy, I wasn’t sticking around.
I snuck out the window that night.
That wasn’t the move.
I was talking on the phone with my friend about the whole weird situation when I spotted another one.
A pale blue firefly.
Then I saw another one.
There were a bunch out here all of a sudden.
I was mesmerised.
One even landed on my finger.
I was staring at it in wonder as I’d never seen one in real life before.
Then it bit me.
I quickly shook the thing off of me.
It really stung too.
My friend on the other line asked me what happened.
“Fireflies don’t bite”
Well, something glowing and blue just bit me.
“We don’t have the blue kind in this region”
I should have gone home.
Instead, I went over to my friends place.
When I arrived, he let me in and asked me what in the hell I was on about.
I explained the whole situation and showed him the bite on my finger.
We were looking up what it might be and arrived at the conclusion that a different bug must have stung me or something while I was staring at the firefly.
I mean, climate change could explain what the blue ones were doing so far north.
The whole time, my friends little sister was asking us what we were doing.
She eventually gave up and went to play in the back yard.
We lived in a very safe area so we didn’t think anything of it.
That’s when my mother called. She was furious at me for leaving and demanded to know where I’d gone.
When I told her I was at a friends, she said she was on her way to come get me.
I told her I could walk back when she chilled the hell out.
She was really freaking me out with this whole firefly thing.
While I was on this call, my friend called out to me.
His sister wasn’t in the yard.
I told my mum that I’d call her back since my friends sister appeared to have wandered off.
She was yelling at me again not to go outside but I hung up.
It was starting to get really dark out so I turned on my phone flashlight and headed out the back to help look.
I remembered there was a swing set off a little trail in the woods near their place.
I was a little hesitant to check it though.
At the time, I chalked it up to my mothers freak out getting to me.
I told myself to stop being a baby and go check.
It was really quiet so she might have fallen off the swing set and gotten hurt.
I picked up my pace.
I heard crying.
I started running.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw next.
His little sister was at the swings set but cowering in fear from another kid.
I ran up ready to give this boy an earful for scaring my friends sister but the words caught in my throat when the boy turned to face me.
He looked completely normal except for where his eyes would be.
Instead, he had those weird cool blue fireflies.
They were flickering and floating in and out of his empty eyes.
The boy was seemingly unbothered by this.
I just stood there, frozen.
It was my friend coming up behind me who snapped me out of it.
He had no reservations about screaming.
That was also not the move.
We heard rustling in the trees and the whole forest lit up.
It would have been gorgeous if not for what I was seeing in front of me.
At that point, my friend shoved this other kid to the ground, picked up his sister and started running.
When his hand made contact, the boy collapsed to the ground as a swarm of fireflies all dispersed from his eyes and from under his clothes.
All along the path back, we were swarmed by those blue fireflies.
They were biting us.
As we ran and screamed and swatted at them, we heard a long honk from a car.
It was my mum.
“Close your eyes and breathe out!”
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even think. I just did it.
Next thing I know, we’re being doused in some kind of spray and being thrown into the back of the car.
My friend and his sister stayed the night at our place.
We didn’t sleep a wink that night. Those awful little bugs were all over the trees outside.
My friend and his sister were picked up the next morning.
I wasn’t willing to see them off outside.
They understood.
I asked her that afternoon what the actual hell those things were.
“I don’t know. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer. I just know they aren’t fireflies”
As for what she sprayed us with, it was DEET.
It’s been years since that horrible night.
I’ve not seen those things again since but I still carry bug spray with me in my backpack wherever I go.
I’m currently camping with a few friends.
“Oh check that out, I’d never seen a blue firefly before!”