The Moth on the Windowsill

I woke up at 6:47 AM, which is unusual for me. Normally I’m a nine o’clock riser, but that morning the light slanted through the blinds in a way that felt… wrong. Not ominous, just off. I lay there for a moment, listening to the hum of the old refrigerator in the kitchen, the occasional creak of the house settling. It was a familiar symphony, but today there was an extra note. A soft, rhythmic tapping, like a fingernail on glass.

I followed the sound to the living room window. The one that overlooks the overgrown garden, the one I never open because the latch is jammed. And there, on the windowsill, was a moth. But not any moth I’d ever seen. It was larger than my palm, with wings like dried oak leaves, veined with silver. It tapped its antennae against the glass, not frantically, but deliberately, as if trying to tell me something.

I should have been creeped out, but I wasn’t. There was a calmness to it, a patience. I knelt down, my nose almost touching the glass, and it stopped tapping. It just looked at me. And I swear, for a second, I felt this overwhelming sense of comfort, like a memory of being held as a child. Then it fluttered off, vanishing into the morning haze.

That was the start. The next morning, I woke at the same time, 6:47, and the moth was back, tapping. I opened the window—the latch gave way without a fight, which was new—and it flew in, landing on the edge of my laptop. I sat down, and it just stayed there, watching. I had this ridiculous urge to tell it about my day, so I did. I told it about the weird dream I’d had, about the spider in the bathtub, about the letter from my aunt that I’d been avoiding. When I finished, it flew to the open window and waited. I closed the window, and it left.

This became our ritual. Every morning, 6:47, the moth would appear. I’d open the window, it would land somewhere near me, and I’d talk. I told it about my childhood, about the time I got lost in the forest behind my grandmother’s house, about the secrets I kept even from my wife. It never made a sound, but I felt like it was listening, absorbing. And I started to feel lighter, as if I were shedding layers of something heavy.

Then one morning, it was gone. I waited, but no moth. I went about my day, but there was a hollowness. That night, I dreamed of a forest, and in the center, a clearing. A figure stood there, made of light and shadow, but when it turned, it had the moth’s face, if you can call it that. It said, ‘You are ready.’ When I woke, the room was dark, and I felt something cold on my chest. I looked down, and there was the moth, dead. But it wasn’t just dead—it was desiccated, like it had been dead for years. And pinned to my shirt, there was a small, folded piece of paper.

I unfolded it with trembling hands. It was blank. But as I held it, the paper grew warm, and faint letters appeared, like they were being written by an invisible pen. The message read: ‘You have been chosen. Others will come. They will not be as gentle.’ That was two weeks ago. I’ve kept the paper, but it remains blank now. The moth never returned, but I keep the window open every morning at 6:47, just in case. Sometimes I think I see a flicker in the corner of my eye, but when I turn, it’s just the curtain moving. I don’t know if it was a spirit or my mind playing tricks, but I do know that I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been marked. That something worse is on its way, and that moth was just a warning.