“I live in a boarding school in America. Well our school is in a hood so crazy sh*t happen here. Our school principal always tell us not to ever go out of the school campus. Unless there a gaurdian with us. But who even bother his words, People sneaking out of here is rather normal.
Well me too. So one time, me and my friend sneak out by the dog gate at the school playground to go outside.
We trying to buy and sneak some snacks inside. But it’s nearly bedtime so we have to be quick. However, the sky is kinda darker than usual, and there groups of moths around here, which is rare as they always gather around the spruce forest at night. But none of us care, we having some business in mind.
At the grocery store. We separated to gather the snacks. When we starting checking out, the siren have already announced that the store is closing. But we can’t find one of our friend, Daniel. We was kinda worry knowing that he hasn’t come back since the time we separated and we still have to come back to school before the teachers start checking rooms to see if anyone still awake.
“Daniel, where are you?”. I shouted loudly No response.
“Maybe he has already check out and already come back to school”. Betty, another friend of mine said, trying to calm me down.
“Hope its true then” So we just come back to school and go back to bed, hoping that Daniel was already at his room, safe and sounded, sleeping.
Tomorrow morning, me and my friend Betty ask Daniel during the art class why did he left the store without telling us.
“What do you mean? Yesterday I wasn’t going to the grocery store with you guys, I was sleeping early”. Daniel answered with confusion
“Wait,… So who the guy that went with us?” I wondered and started to get some shivering up my spine
“Rodger, Betty, Daniel, stop chatting in class” Our art teacher said. So we just stop asking him
Later that day. There are things that I feel strange, the group of moths, things that was mine, it wasn’t look familiar. Like something “replace” and try to be it. For instance. My ink pen no longer works. I feel tickle when holding it and sometime it’s secrete red ink. So straight to the trash bin.
I ask if my friend also feel so but only the ones who follow me to the grocery store that night have the same feelings of the moths around our school, their items no longer works. While Others don’t even know the existence of the phenomenon.
Are we hallucinating? I don’t even know. What if the food we bought from the grocery store contains addicting substances? Nah no way. Are we having psychosis? My mind is messing up with me at the moment. I felt like throwing up put can’t. No I felt like a… Unless there a moth in my mouth…
4 years later. It’s nearly the time that I gonna leave this boarding school to travel to a better place instead of keep living in Ohio. Me and Daniel hug each other for the last time. He gave me a box and said it’s nice knowing me. Then we both burst in tears as this might be the last time we gonna meet each other. The “moth” (we named it so) case that we have been investigating has now been closed.
Yes, me and my friend Daniel has figured out that the moths around us can morph in to items. That’s why my pen was weird. It’s strange how the moths in this bizarre place can change colour and shapes. But I think when I leave this place, it’s will no longer haunt me.
Before coming to the airport. I come to the grocery store for the last time. To remind me of the first time we encounter the moth morphed to our item. Yea we figure that out. I bought all the snacks that I used to love. Marshmallow, KitKat. Skittle, oh wait there one more, Daniel favourite chocolate, Hershey kisses. I went to the chocolate category which is situated in particularly in the store corner. No one ever come there but Daniel, as no one in this hood love. I went there, all the chocolate are outdated, the shelves are rusted. I go to the Hershey place. Buy a Hershey kisses which was made in 2014.
But… Is that a man sitting in the corner? I don’t even know how long this man has been, no one ever tell me there a man who looks like this. He have long a$$ hair, mostly naked. There are bunch of Hershey wraps around here and
“Holy sh*t, you have no leg”. I shouted.
“Help me, I have been trapped here for years, its cut my leg so I can’t move” the man said.
I was scared, but the voice, it’s sound familiar, just deeper than somebody I used to know
“Daniel, is that you? Daniel, how did you get here?”
“The moth Man, he,… he trapped me when I was buying chocolate with my friends, he morphed to me, please, go away from that Daniel. Please believe me, I’m Daniel Riverine.” He cried out, stammering word by word as he hasn’t communicated to anyone in years.
I drop my shopping basket with all the chocolate inside. Ran out of the grocery store. The cashier try to stop me as she though I was shoplifting. But with the emotion on my face. She know something isn’t right.
At the police station, I told them everything I’ve seen and heard. They were thinking I’m a maniac. So they just sent 2 officer to the scene. But, they come back talking their chief.
“Sir there no body was there, only some p00p stain on the floor and some long a$$ hair, this dude is messing around” one of them said.
“No I’m not, how could you find p00p stain and long ass hair in a grocery store unless there someone being held hostage there”
“Sir, that is the most normal thing in Ohio” he replied to me
“Now sir, GET OUT OF HERE before I bring you to court as you are messing around with the OPD”
So I just left the police department. With a face full of fear with all the thing that have happened in a day. I just went straight to the airport. Get on my plane and fly to California.
I opened my computer and see the Reddit post I wrote years ago. I just write the things I experienced to day in it, at the same time reading the lines I wrote before. I relieve as I’m not living there no more by then I, is that moths on the plane wing?
After that long flight. I finally settle in California. Unpacking my packages and start to decorate the house that I rented for 400 bucks a day. But then I lifted a box that was rather light.
“Oh this the goodbye box I’ve received from the fake Daniel” I said.
“After a moment of thoughts flowing by my mind”. I’ve opened it.
What I saw in it made me call the police immediately. It was Daniel dismembered body. The same hairstyle and beard. When the police came, they ask me: “How did you get this box?” I was just to worry that the police keep telling me that I’m a maniac if I mention about the moth man. So I just said:
“A mailman deliver this to me”
“Mailman? This building wasn’t even registered for postal code, and you just moved in” one of the police said
At that moment, I knew I got in a BIG trouble
“But this way of killing is actually like the way of the new serial killer roaming around here, this dude just went from Ohio, so he couldn’t be the killer” the other police officer said
“So you trying to tell me, this is the killer prank?”
“Yep”
So the police just tell me I gonna be free until the moment they call me for interview. When they left, I collapse on the couch, not be cause I found Daniel died body, but moth man give the box to me before I encounter that Daniel in grocery store. So… Who the dude I met? …