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It was a quiet, eerily tranquil morning. I knew what I was doing was very wrong and I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. It was flesh-eating moths, not butterflies, which would inhabit it now. But it was too late to think about turning back. The money for my family would be well worth it.

I could not get it to stop stirring. This being before me could not stand still; it leapt bounds across my miniscule house and flooded the room with its desperate, longing calls. Despite it being only days old, its bipedal, vaguely crocodilian frame still towered above me as I struggled to pull it towards the door by a poorly tethered rope. "I need to get out of here," I thought to myself.

Walking upon the bridge connecting my home to the rest of humanity was always a journey I enjoyed. I'd always slow my pace to enjoy the foggy sunrises and distant melodies of avian lovers on my way to reconnecting with the rest of the world. But this morning made me yearn for the embrace of the water underlying the deep chasm beneath me. As I was devoting all my strength to not letting this miserable creature free, I could feel in the pits of my lungs that the air was different. It was heavy, wet and still. The sun barely shone through the thick curtain of clouds above.

But, just as quickly as it had bolted through my door, the creature was still. Only a faint wheeze escaped its lungs as its eyes focused on one subject, presumably deep in the forest. I pulled as hard as my limbs permitted, but to no avail. The reptile let out a single, ear-piercing cry that seemed to shake every bird from its nest. It knew what I did. It knew its mother was gone. So I let it go.

It jumped over the bridge and into the water. Into it's mother's embrace.

edit: prints now enabled!

Description

It was a quiet, eerily tranquil morning. I knew what I was doing was very wrong and I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. It was flesh-eating moths, not butterflies, which would inhabit it now. But it was too late to think about turning back. The money for my family would be well worth it.

I could not get it to stop stirring. This being before me could not stand still; it leapt bounds across my miniscule house and flooded the room with its desperate, longing calls. Despite it being only days old, its bipedal, vaguely crocodilian frame still towered above me as I struggled to pull it towards the door by a poorly tethered rope. "I need to get out of here," I thought to myself.

Walking upon the bridge connecting my home to the rest of humanity was always a journey I enjoyed. I'd always slow my pace to enjoy the foggy sunrises and distant melodies of avian lovers on my way to reconnecting with the rest of the world. But this morning made me yearn for the embrace of the water underlying the deep chasm beneath me. As I was devoting all my strength to not letting this miserable creature free, I could feel in the pits of my lungs that the air was different. It was heavy, wet and still. The sun barely shone through the thick curtain of clouds above.

But, just as quickly as it had bolted through my door, the creature was still. Only a faint wheeze escaped its lungs as its eyes focused on one subject, presumably deep in the forest. I pulled as hard as my limbs permitted, but to no avail. The reptile let out a single, ear-piercing cry that seemed to shake every bird from its nest. It knew what I did. It knew its mother was gone. So I let it go.

It jumped over the bridge and into the water. Into it's mother's embrace.

edit: prints now enabled!