Let this confession flutter into your hands like a dying moth. I have no time for poetry—only truth.

If you could see him now, poised to deliver the killing strike, you’d understand. Even in this final moment, rage sharpening his features, he remains the most radiant creature I’ve ever beheld. Forgive the comparison, but you—whoever you are—could never rival him. Had fate woven our paths differently, I might have pursued you with the same fervor, but destiny chose Arthur. Always Arthur.

Are you a priest? A jury? A childhood companion who once hid with me beneath creaking floorboards? Or simply a phantom conjured by my desperation? No matter. I beg you: withhold judgment until my final breath. Let me shed the titles forced upon me—monster, predator, pest—if only for these fleeting seconds.

My family thrives in shadows. We are connoisseurs of scent, artists of suffering. My mother taught me to hunt before I could fly, her lessons steeped in blood: “Detect. Discern. Juxtapose. Never settle for the first pulse you hear.” Our rituals were sacred: pierce skin, taste life, repeat. To love without drawing blood was heresy. To crave tenderness was weakness.

Yet I dared to love.

I met Ambrose—Buzz—on a Grecian beach reeking of sunscreen and cheap ouzo. Mother scoffed as tourists paraded their vulnerabilities: sunburnt shoulders, sweat-glazed necks, the sweet rot of overripe fruit clinging to their pores. “Pathetic,” she hissed, dragging me toward a woman whose armpits smelled of apricots left to ferment in the sun. But I lingered, memorizing Buzz’s salt-crusted laughter, the way his pulse quickened when our limbs brushed on a splintered folding chair.

Mother’s voice clawed at me: “You want offspring? Prove you’re worthy.” So I returned to Neos Marmaras, the cove where Buzz once sipped peach nectar, and began my apprenticeship.

The Mediterranean sun baked my sins into ritual. I hunted tourists bloated on baklava and retsina, their blood tinged with garlic and honey. I haunted moonlit bathrooms, alleyways, the sweat-damp sheets of rented villas. Each sting was a prayer: Let my eggs be strong. Let Buzz love me.

But then—Arthur.

Arthur, who smelled of sea foam and linen dried in coastal winds. Arthur, who kissed Sophia under lemon trees while I watched, hollowed by hunger. Arthur, who reduced my existence to a punchline: “This mosquito’s obsessed with me!”

For 28 nights, I mapped his body like scripture. Each bite was a sonnet; each welt, a vow. He never understood—how could he? To him, I was a nuisance. To me, he was a cathedral.

When he locked me out, I became my mother’s daughter.

I invaded his rented bungalow, nesting in curtain folds and shower drains. He’d swat, curse, hurl slippers at my wings. “Die already!” he’d roar, and I’d whisper back: “You taste like hope.”

Tonight, he finally sees me. Truly sees me. His palm descends—not in fury, but recognition. I let him crush me against his sunburned arm. Let my last breath mingle with his scent: salt, sweat, and the ghost of pineapples.

“Got it!” Arthur flicks my crumpled corpse into the sink. Sophia glances up from slicing tomatoes, their flesh bursting with vulgar redness.

“Thank God,” she laughs. “That thing was relentless.”

He washes his hands, my remains swirling down the drain. Outside, the Aegean whispers secrets to the moon. Somewhere, my daughters rise from stagnant puddles, hungry.

Detect. Discern. Juxtapose.

The hunt begins anew.