Butterfly Moth (GxG)

• lycaenidae •

Lycaenidae: The second-largest family of butterflies with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly species. The family comprises seven subfamilies, including the blues, the coppers, the hairstreaks, and the harvesters.
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10

Hemera Leora was beyond relieved when she remembered that cheer practice was Wednesday through Saturday rather than on a Tuesday. When school was let out, she briefly spoke to her friend Kylie, before walking home by herself and heading straight for the yellow house at the dead end.

Her mind was constantly contradicting itself with what it chose to think. One moment, Leora was excited to try to find out more. It felt like a mystery that only she knew about. That made it enthralling. Then the next moment, she was freaked out. She remembered that something odd, nauseating even, could be happening and she was the only one who would look into it because she was the only one who knew.

Due to her constant swaying of thoughts, it made it impossible to decide on which emotion to go with, so she kept the excitement to a dull roar and the fear to a minimum.

Getting into the same spot that she had the last few times that she tried to reach out to the unknown figure in the house, she knocked only once to let them know that she was there. "Hello, I'm back."

She found the inside of the house to seem very eerie, since it was always shrouded in darkness as she spoke to it. It was like she was speaking to the house itself, or possibly even a ghost.

Suddenly, Leora's blood ran cold. Was she seeing a ghost? Was that eye an apparition of someone who died in that house? Was that why the skin was so pale? Maybe that was why she only saw a shadow the first time she lifted the mail slot. But then, how did it knock in response?

"Remember, one for yes, two for no." Leora reminded the potential ghost. "Are you alive?"

The silence that followed was deafening. Leora knew that it was a bit of a dumb question to ask a possible spirit, but she preferred to cut to the chase rather than work her way around things. So she did her best to wait patiently for a response. To her dismay, one did come.

One knock.

They weren't a ghost. That made the fear of messing with spiritual happenings fade, but the fear of all of the things that humans were capable of never left. Leora knew that she was already too deep into the lore to back out. Her life seemed so boring up until that point. Now she was the only one who knew that Miss Alisman had a person living with her. And that could have meant a plethora of things.

"Are you a boy?" She then chose to ask, praying that she would get another answer. If the person didn't want her to talk, then they were simply going to have to endure her thoughts. If they didn't want to endure it, then she would simply have to tell the higher-ups about all of it.

Two knocks. Her eyes were zeroed in on the couch, watching it, hoping to see a glimpse of the person. They turned out to be a she. That was Leora's guess, but by seeing such a small fragment of a person's face, it made it painfully hard to be sure. "Are you young, like me?"

Leora didn't know how much she was planning on getting out of this, but she wanted to know everything. There were so many questions, so many things she wanted to know. Who was the hidden girl and why was she hidden? Was she being hurt, or was she simply a hermit?

One knock. That caused for the potential scenarios to get a bit darker. What was Miss Alisman doing to that girl? Why hadn't she left? Too much curiosity, and not enough time. That was when Leora realized that the sun was beginning to burn gold as it sunk to the horizon line. Molly wasn't going to be happy when Leora came home.

"I have to go." Leora quickly told the girl. "But I promise that I'll be back. Sunday morning, don't forget it."

Then she turned around and took off down the street to her home. On her way, she forced her mind to think straight long enough for her to come up with an excuse as to why she wasn't home yet. Kylie needed help with an important assignment. But even though she was thinking about excuses, her mind couldn't leave the unknown girl and her diamond eyes.

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