The Perceptions Of An Observer: A Short Story Collection

X. The Butterfly

The life cycle of a butterfly is a simple concept. Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult. Four phases, each with a significance and an impact.

And The Butterfly was no exception to these phases.

First, he was an egg, a youth, ruled by innocence. It was just him, unfalteringly and faithfully flanked by The Angel, The King, and The Fish, his childhood acquaintances who he thought he'd have forever.

That is, until he hatched into a caterpillar, was exposed to the real world, and was almost squashed a countless number of times.

Squashed mainly by those he trusted.

Squashed mainly by The King and The Fish.

The Butterfly never thought they'd hurt him. They were his friends throughout his whole life, acquaintances he thought understood him.

He thought wrong.

It was The King that spilled the first drop of poison that would bring The Butterfly crashing down to earth. Nobody knew why he poisoned the waters of the world primarily for the targeting of The Butterfly, but one day he just seemed to merely come to the decision that his old friend wasn't good enough for the world he wanted to see.

And so began the breakdown and downfall of The Butterfly.

The treachery of The King and his assistance offered by The Fish would eventually be forgotten by many. It would be the only major damage done for a long while, the gaping stab wound compared to a scattering of scratches that couldn't cut nearly as deep.

That could, in part, be intertwined with the isolation caused by a pandemic that locked everyone away temporarily, isolated the world. It locked away The Butterfly into a premature chrysalis, one not made for his time quite yet but one that was of utmost necessity with the state of the world at the time.

For better or for worse, the abusers past and future of The Butterfly were also locked away. For better, they were barred from access to him temporarily, allowing a healing and rebirth to occur in their absence. But for worse, they were growing in power, in cruelty, in pure toxicity and manipulative poison.

And for the worst of all came the birth of The Puppet Master in his cruelest form, with a target on the newly bloomed Butterfly's wings.

The attacks on The Butterfly regained its old, slow traction on a miniscule scale. Slight snideness that could be easily brushed off like snowflakes on a shoulder. Out of sight, out of earshot, out of mind and never believed as a threat. Everything unraveling behind turned backs, out of The Butterfly's range of flight.

Or so it was believed.

What The Puppet Master didn't know is that, as his attacks and schemes were more brutal and elaborate, The Butterfly was learning to cut through the person he used to be and see the cruel mastermind he had become.

This awakening was when the attacks turned from sneaky, behind the back snideness to something more direct and deadly.

Not only was this the opening of the gates to an indescribable hell, it was also the reemergence of a past abuser The Butterfly had to fight against in his caterpillar stage, one that arguably inflicted more trauma upon him than The Puppet Master did with his greatest efforts.

The King had, after the isolation, returned to his throne in a much more dangerously power hungry fashion than ever before and with a renewed intent of tearing apart The Butterfly's wings.

With every glance of ice cold eyes, The King found a new characteristic of The Butterfly to create a fault out of. Every detail, no matter how miniscule, was to be excruciatingly scrutinized and torn apart until it was reduced to mere threads of the fabric it once was.

This scornful rule, mixed with the continuous abuse from The Puppet Master, was tearing The Butterfly to ribbons little by little. Harsh words became an incentive to hide away. Scornful looks became all he needed to shrink himself down in size, and to continue to do so until he gained the approval of those ruling over him. Offhand comments translated to tears in his wings, self inflicted to find some sort of safe haven from the thoughts running torturous circles in his mind. A general disregard for him manifested into a general disregard for himself, a new plethora of risks to his safety seeming to fall straight into his lap, no need for anyone to know how intentional danger could be.

The Butterfly thought he couldn't be saved, that no one would notice the red flags that needed to be addressed to save him.

Quite frankly, he didn't want for himself to be saved. He was done fighting to find his worth and a place in the world. All he was looking for was the escape he was never going to get.

He had learned to accept the abuse. After all, there's only so much violence that can be handled before peace is made with it. That's what you have to do when there's no way out, he believed. No one was going to save him, or cared enough to see his pain through the wounds he patched up, blending in with the melancholy blue of his wings.

But the patches were just visible enough for the most trained eyes to see.

Trained eyes, belonging to the one who was always by The Butterfly's side, unfalteringly, through thick and thin from the beginning of his time. Trained eyes that refused to let his time end. Trained eyes belonging to the one that could be described as a best friend, a brother, a soulmate, a one true love in the brutality of a cold world.

Trained eyes that belonged to The Angel.

Somewhere in the blossoming of youthful years, The Angel had fallen in love with The Butterfly, found the brother he never had in him and from him learned what it truly meant to love with your whole heart.

He couldn't let the one he had loved for the majority of his life leave him behind in a broken world. He needed him more than anything in the world, and would not let him slip in between his fingers and into oblivion.

Because if The Butterfly became lost, so did The Angel.

The Angel couldn't see a world for himself without The Butterfly in it, and refused to imagine what such a world could possibly look like. It was too painful of a fantasy to even cross his mind, let alone cross into reality. The Butterfly was essentially his brother, his first love, his soulmate, and he would not let the spindly fingers of a world's dark heart steal his best friend from him.

He had no choice but to save the life of someone who didn't want to be saved, who he couldn't live without but was no longer fighting to live at all.

Even with his extensive knowledge of The Butterfly, even with unfaltering support through many years, there was nothing easy to be found in this momentous task. Even with assistance from The Archer, there was almost no relief to be found. All he wanted was nothing more than to fly away forever, leave the world as it had become and free himself of the torture from tyrannical rulers.

It no longer mattered to him what price freedom came to. Priceless, sacrificial, it no longer made any difference. Whatever it took to make a grand escape, The Butterfly would do it.

He was blind to the hearts that would be irreparably shattered without him, deaf to voices begging him to stay just a little longer, forget lost battles and win the war itself. Unfeeling to the comfort his allies and protectors were trying to provide.

He was too numb to feel anything at all.