Link to article: Of Butterflies and Boys - SCP 8980.
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[[include :scp-wiki:theme:night-rush-theme]] [[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] [[div class="xtra-div-3"]] [[include component:image-block | name=withoutregard.jpg |caption=Artwork depicting Dr. Lillian Marley. Deceased swallowtail and dried flora. | width=100% | align=center]] ---- > When I was in fifth grade, one day in the early spring at the playground, I had encountered my first giant swallowtail. It was the largest butterfly I had seen — graceful and delicate in the breeze as it floated along, mesmerizing me with its painted wings. A wistful and peaceful, a creature that held such a presence with a lulled silence that called me. My love of bugs, particularly that of moths and butterflies, teemed with fascination. With longing and connection. > My classmate's foot slammed her into the concrete. Her light snuffed out as the boys in my class gathered to look at what remained of the swallowtail, before they relished in stripping away her legs and plundering the delicate wings from her mangled body. > In that moment, his eyes met mine. > My palpable distress brought him a new kind of joy. The power to hurt innocent things. To know he could hurt me. > That I and the swallowtail were the same. > It still festers. The hunger to feel strong; to desire dominance and control over what is seen as helpless. The mangled mass of emotions that lead a boy to become a cruel man. The bugs they've killed, what would become the deliberate practice of ripping the wings of autonomy with slow, torturous pulls. Identity only reflected in the colors that are torn apart until that corpse can no longer be recognized for the butterfly it once was. > Insects; Delicate creatures beholden to the whims of the world and that ever-present cycle of nature. Fleeting. Fragile. Beautiful. > But in such a world, cruelty becomes an instinct among those who believe beauty is a weakness. That the fragile and the gentle deserve to be desecrated by the strong. The peaceful becoming the prey. > Lillian, what were you like before? > Would I have been able to recognize the patterns in the wings you once had? > Did you, too, feel the breeze before you were caught by hands that could never treat you gently? > ...Was your light the same as mine? [[/div]]