When every second counted Lex took one final look at his childhood room. In this room, he remembered long nights learning to read under his mother's tutelage. She texted him in ways he didn't understand at first. With each failure she became more sorrowful. It was his fault, if he had been more talented maybe she wouldn't have left.
Lex picked up candle burned down to flat wax. The glass casing around the candle overflowed with fuzzy pink caterpillars. Within he was supposed to see the candle's flame, he never could. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't perceive the flame. He could feel the heat from the burning and see the wax melting but the flame itself was invisible to his eyes. Anna could see it, Robert could see it, and even Tom could see it, could the worms see it too?
Lex turned the candle around to see a crack on the glass casing. A memory came unbidden. His mother slapped him spilling her wine on the carpet. "Why did you have to be born a BE type?" She gasped after she hit him and stared at her own hand. Soon after she vanished, and her face slowly blurred with her passing.
Her other words were incoherent in his memories. Lex flipped open a hole ridden journal. To save his memories of her, he had written them down. For a moment, he debated going through the journal for a final time. Could this be a final curse from his mother to get rid of the evidence? He shut the book knowing it for a lost cause. He tossed it into the burn pile.
Late through the night Lex worked to rid his home of its infestation. In his room most of his possessions were piled in the center of the floor wrapped in a wine-stained woolen rug. There was only one window in his room, and it was a massive circular thing. It was a behemoth of glass six inches thick and eight feet in circumference. Through there he would throw the infestation from his home.
The heavy oaken door to his room had been sealed with a healthy layer of crushed lavender. The scent of lavender was known to ward all manner of pest. Lex confirmed it worked on the dizzy butterfly at all stages. His childhood belongings were stripped from their places and piled in the center of the room. Hand drawn maps of the swamp, the hide of a sea cow, and most of his cloths were infested.
He flipped over his mattress to find a wall of cocoons and half hatched dizzy butterflies. Their purple wings drooped still too wet to flap and release their hallucinating dust. Eggs from the other butterflies infested his mattress. Their fuzzy pink caterpillars had already hatched and eaten most of the straw within. In a day they had destroyed the memories of his childhood. For that he'd burn them all.
Instead of fighting a losing battle Lex opened his window and tossed the mattress out. His second favorite pants lay under his bed half eaten by the vermin. Lex tossed those out too. Most of the furniture had to go too. A wooden dresser his mother had given him was particularly infested. All the books even those about the local flora and fauna were infested. Those that he couldn't read were little more than covers.
Babette covered the room in her web. Hundreds of the creature were wrapped up. She had worked tirelessly while he was gone. If any escaped his bedroom, he might have to burn the house to the foundation.
His room was empty besides Babette's web and a healthy layer of ground lavender. Lex was forced to pluck every purple plant he could find. Moth's like the dizzy butterfly couldn't handle the stuff.
While the creature was technically a moth its local name was dizzy butterfly.
He kept his window open giving the vermin only one exit.
Behind the dresser, he found a book he hadn't seen before. It was covered in three inches of dust which probably saved it from the infestation. The binding was similar to other books his mother had given him. He couldn't remember one being missing.
Was this a book that he had never seen? He stopped himself from opening it. As much as he craved to read the book, he needed to start the fire.
Under the light of the moon, he bundled enough straw to make a nest. He slid flint against steel and watched the sparks struggle to catch in the nest. Lex took off his clothes leaving himself naked, everything the vermin could eat had to be burned. That would leave him with only a single set left.
The nest caught and he added tiny sticks to it and quickly brought the flame to a blaze. When his mattress caught the fire couldn't be stopped. The wind blew and bits of ash spiraled up like a dust devil. For a time, Lex watched the vermin burn with his childhood memories.
In that quiet moment watching his memories burn away and spiral into the open air as ash and smoke. A part of him was lost. The connection to a past that grew blurrier by the day was severed. Whether that had been through a mistake on his part, or the machinations of his own mother Lex didn't know.
Lex shivered as a chill fell over him. Beyond the flickering flames a figure watched him from beyond the gate. It was human shaped, but he didn't recognize them. He reasoned it wouldn't be unusual for someone to check on a fire starting in the middle of the night. But this figure didn't announce themselves.
He'd heard stories of creatures deeper in the swamp that looked human. A tribe of Kroctar was said to live deep in Yellow Blood Swamp and serve a swamp dragon. He shivered at the thought of one scouting out their village. Humans were too small game for them to bother with usually. They were far from the tribe and Faithful village's territory wasn't considered valuable to the Kroctar. It was possible their dragon decided that a village of humans sounded like a nice snack.
He felt around but his club was missing he'd used it to prop the door open. At this time of night when the door shut it locked automatically.
Lex cursed himself for not carrying it. Apprenticing under Tom had made him lax. He used to carry his club everywhere. If it was a Kroctar then Lex wasn't winning a fight unarmed. The iron gate wouldn't stop the lizard man from climbing over.
Lex snatched a burning table leg from the fire and approached the figure. Before he'd taken two steps the figure vanished. He thrust the fire over where it had been and inspected to tracks it left behind. They were human. That made him relax a little.
A lot could be learned from tracks. He knew enough about tracking to stay away from the areas where the more dangerous animals roamed. Being able to determine freshness of a track and the size of the animal was important. Bull swamp cows were more dangerous than females, unless the females had a calf. In either case it was good to know. Sometimes it gave him the precious few seconds he needed to scurry up a tall willow.
This track was human and by the size he'd guess female or a child. Whoever left it was light on their feet. Despite the mud they barely left a mark.
He felt something slimy crawl across his foot and spotted another damn worm. Its too bright yellow appearance disturbed him more now in the torchlight than it had in the day. The glow came from its own inner light. He shifted his foot away from the worm and squished it into paste.
"Hello Lex," A feminine voice whispered. Lex raised the torch high until a shadow became visible. The voice sounded distantly familiar. He'd heard it before but couldn't place it to a name.
"Who are you and why are you spying on me?" Lex demanded. As he raised the torch higher, the figure fled to the edge of the light, and Lex spotted more worms sprouting from the ground. A revolting scent of rot filled the air as they squirmed out and inched towards him.
"Enough," at her words the worms froze before slithering back into their holes. "Put out the torch and we can talk." Lex felt his world closing in all around him. The command became all he could think about. Resisting never entered his mind.
Lex walked back towards the campfire. With every step his mind seemed to clear. When the torch fell back into the fire the haze vanished. Something had happened to him and he wasn't in a hurry to approach the iron gate. Here near the bonfire, he felt safe. "Come here Lex." The words surrounded him again until they hit a wall. Lex took another step towards the house. "What are you doing? Come here this instant." This time he felt nothing from the words.
It was the house. The house was protecting him from whatever that woman was doing to him.
"No don't go. Lex don't you remember me its Emily. Please come back. I'm Emily, say my name and remember me." Lex yanked his torch from the campfire and threw it at the gate. He heard a viscous shriek and Emily shot away before the torchlight could shine on her.
Lex wanted his club. He needed his club if only to feel better. "I don't know what you are, but Emily is dead." As if some gate had been unlocked Lex suddenly felt less safe.
He heard a ghoulish shriek of joy. "Yes, my name you've said it. Once said you've invited me. An invitation once given can't be rescinded." Emily cackled. Lex took a step back as he heard the wind shift around him. He needed to get into the house and get to his club. On the edge of the firelight, he saw a shadowy feminine figure land on his side of the gate.
Lex turned and ran for the front door. He could feel the house coaxing him to come. Some presence he couldn't detect urged him into an all out run. Fortunately, he's had a lot of practice running.
His only hope was the powerful door of his home. On the souls of his feet, he felt the gooey pop of those disgusting worms. Every step was followed by a horrible wet squishing sensation between his toes. Worse they were slowing him down. He made it to the stoop of his front door before a bitterly cold arms wrapped around his leg. The weight of a 90lbs girl crashed into the back of his knee slamming it hard into the stone stoop. His face slammed hard against the stone with a loud crunch. Lex screamed in pain and threw himself into a roll. His other leg was already up. He saw a flash of white from his attacker before he kicked her in the face. A painful pinprick shot through his leg just as he kicked.
The pain vanished and with it the feeling in his leg. The leg he kicked with quickly followed and the one she grabbed failed to support him. He crawled for the house and saw his club leaning to prop open the door. She leapt just as he grabbed for the club. His hands were shaking, and he felt them weakening. The numbing sensation traveled past his waist. He couldn't feel his nose anymore only the blood dripping down his chin.
He felt a terrible pain in his shoulder from a terrible bite. The numbing that took his legs stole his left arm in an instant and traveled fast. His hand gripped the club and he dropped himself and swung hard.
If it can stun a yellow tiger, it should at least hurt her. Lex's vision went dark, but he heard the crack. The door closed on him, but he couldn't feel it. He stretched his hand out and grasped his mother's favorite carpet. The gruff green hide that hurt his feet as a child helped him pull himself the rest of the way inside. When he heard the door click shut, he drifted off.
When he came to it was still dark. A pounding headache greeted him for his trouble with streams of sticky dried blood covering his thigh and shoulder. He was still naked as he had been. The rough skin of the carpet under him made that clear. When he tried getting to his feet, his head pounded worse than before.
Lex used his club as a cane to maneuver to the kitchen. Unlike the other houses in the village, his mother's house had running water. He turned on a facet and threw his head under the flowing water. The cool water soothed the dull ache and let him focus his thoughts.
Would anyone believe him if he said that Emily had become a monster? Those worms obeyed her. Had she become a witch? What could they even do to her? Witch hunters wouldn't brave the swamp for them. The count wouldn't lose men for them. Faithful's main tax came in the form of ale and mead. They barely covered the cost of delivering them to the count. Being remote might protect them from outside threats but what about this new one.
It didn't feel like one of Yellow Blood Swamp's monsters. What Emily became was alien to the swamp. The worms she controlled didn't blend in well. Lex thought about what he knew.
The creature didn't like fire or light. It was susceptible to a club swing, but Lex didn't dare open his door to check for a body. Lex left the kitchen for a large, padded chair in the sitting room. It was no bed, but it would do till morning.