2020-04-08 1:23:51 ¶ ●

## Chapter 9

Eldritch Corruption: Human

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/52812334

A world of shadow begets ever more darkness, the clutching fingers of night and doom never resting in their quest to squeeze every last drop of hope and resistance from those that lingered in it. The damned clawed their own eyes from their skulls in the deepest, most desperate desire to escape it, and yet it still seeped into their minds, their hearts… their very souls.

It twisted them all, flesh and blood and bone, and still there was no relief, naught but the release of death the promise to end the madness.

It ate them all to damnation, and cared not.

Yet in the most encompassing dark, there was light, bright as flame, guiding and true.

It came in the most unexpected of ways and forms, so fragile that a breeze disturbed it… a mere insect, graceful and fleeting. It rode the winds that reeked with disease and the end of all, above reproach and corruption like none else in the world.

It carried on with single-minded purpose, knowing of things no mere bug ever could, moving the most reluctant and unsure to action and greatness. It stood in the path of destruction despite the pain it would suffer, and knew no fear.

It had the bearing of one now passed, an angel and a savior, and could tell none of the truth of it.

It mattered not. Anonymity had been her way in life; it suited the butterfly just fine to toil in silence and unrecognized deference. There were more things at stake than ego. There was the universe to save, numberless souls to redeem… an innocent’s way to guide.

And so the insect carried on, the only light within a world of nightmares and eternal night, come whatever end.

She would go to her end when her work was done, and not a moment before.