Message 1[]
Dear Professor Salvatore,
I got your email, the one about your study of the Mothman. I have some information you'd like to read. It's been well over forty years and this image still haunts me. It was 1966. I was just a freshman in high school then. I had a small family: a brother, mother, and father. My life was going well until it happened. I lived in West Virginia at the time; my family had been living there even before the civil war. One day my parents couldn't pick me up from school so I had to walk home. The day was bitterly cold.
My breath left a fog of condensation. It was the middle of December and the snow started to get higher. I walked towards my house. Each step made me very cringe. I kept going even though there was something was about to go horribly wrong. I took the forest trail that day. It was an unusual route for me, but there was some kind of accident up the road. It was getting dark and I didn't want to be late to dinner. I kept walking down the road when I gained a suspicion that I was not alone. I saw people in hoods slightly protruding out from the sides of trees.
I heard them whisper:
"We are just parasites living on a rock floating into the dark emptiness of space. We are like moths to a flame, basking in the warm glow of an ancient star. We do this because deep down we know all the other stars in the sky are long dead, and their light is just a glimpse into the past. Repent. Repent and reflect on the things we have done, for our time is short and our father's mistakes are ours."
That speech remained in my memory all these years. Writing it was lifting a burden from my shoulders. Those voices. Some of them were the voices of old men, some were young women. For some reason I ignored it. I ignored it like you'd ignore a wandering drifter in the street. In my mind, I was screaming. It was an out of body experience. They were chanting more. It sounding like something in latin. I could only make out a few words: "Novī Deī", which translated means "New Gods."
I noticed finally where I was walking. It was a cabin. A large cabin illuminated by a lantern. I reached the door and opened it. I saw four skeletons, three of which were horribly mutilated. I gasped and tried to run. I made it to the door, when I saw it for the first time. It was just a giant shadow then; a silhouette, still enough to haunt my dreams. Its piercing red eyes stared at me. Judging me. Judging my sins. I slammed the door in front of it. I was panting, gasping for air. I walked around the cabin looking for a way out.
I quickly examined the skeletons. There was a bullet hole in each of their heads. Three were in beds and were disfigured. Somehow they had an extra bone attached to their arm. I know this sounds weird but there was no other way to describe it. They were missing both their hands and their legs had been shortened. Their teeth were sharpened to a fine tip. They all were long dead. The other man obviously was the one who killed them. He wore a lab coat and had a gun in his hand. He probably killed all of them and then himself. I still had no idea why. There was a clock. The clock was stopped at 3:03.
I heard some kind of screech coming from outside. I picked up the gun from the skeleton and an extra clip I found in a drawer. I held the gun in one hand and the doorknob in the other hand. I somewhat knew how to use a gun from my uncle taking my brother and I hunting. I opened the door and ran. I ran back down the path. I heard it soaring behind me. I kept running. It started to pass me. I stopped in my tracks and slid a bit in the snow where it landed in front of me. I pulled out the gun and shot it. It staggered and started to fly away. It left a trail of blood behind it. I ran home as fast as I could. When I got in, I shut the door and relaxed. My mom dropped the plate she was carrying and my dad and my brother were staring at me. I was covered in blood and carrying a gun in the middle of the night. I explained my story and my dad got some of his friends.
We headed back to the spot and where I shot the thing. We followed the trail of blood and it led us to the creature. It was dead. We looked at it in horror because we saw what it was. It was human. We saw all the torn flesh and stitches. It had been reassembled from parts of other humans. Years later this seems impossible. One of my dad's friends threw up. It was physically painful to look at. Just glancing at it stung my eyes and blurred my vision. We brought the thing to the sheriff's department. They told us to leave it there and they'd call us in the morning. We never got the call. There was talk around town of men in suits stopping by the sheriff's office.
Four days later I was home when the news got to us. My friend came in screaming that the silver bridge had collapsed.
People talked about the bridge. Some of the people said it was that thing that we saw a few days ago. At least ten people said they saw the thing there. We decided to call it the Mothman. We called it that because a child who saw the thing was crying after the collapse. He was screaming, "Mommy! The Mothman did it!" News spread of the creature.
Most of it was lies.
Only the original ten who saw the thing knew the truth. Four of them went missing when the attempted to search for the creature again. One of the people who went missing was my dad. I still always felt responsible for my father's disappearance. My mom remarried a few years later to a lawyer. I went to medical school and settled down and married my girlfriend after I graduated. I'm 61 now, sitting here remembering these events like they happened just a second ago. My kids are in college now. My wife passed away. While I've been writing this I know the thing is watching me.
The Mothman is human. Its torn psyche turned it into a monster. There hasn't just been one, there have been multiple of them. Multiple men or women who have had their sanity drained and lives ruined. You have to tell someone, I don't think it'll know that you've received this email. Do whatever you want with this information. Tell people, or keep it to yourself. It really doesn't matter. Just... tell my kids I love them. I don't have a lot of time. I hear it screaming. It's coming to claim the soul of the one that escaped him all those years ago. I still have the gun from that night in my desk. I don't know if I'm going to kill it, but I'll try. Goodbye professor, just remember that your past will always come back to haunt you. Please take care of yourself.
Sincerely, Christopher Frank
Message 2[]
Mr. Salvatore,
We have been watching your feeble attempts to discover us. We know you have contacted your government. They already know about us. The clan of the mothmans will rise and destroy the sinners of the world. Spend what time you have left wisely. For the prophecy will be fulfilled. The world will know who we are. Our brothers who have been cleansed of their filthy humanity. They have been reborn in the image of our god. Repent, Jonah. Repent. The clan watches.