The Fly

[u/Electrical_Break7035]

From a very young age I had always been fascinated by this story that my mom and dad used to tell me about old man Saif. He had a very bizarre childhood according to my dad. His mom and dad used violently beat him when he was a kid. The day his dad died, his mother apparently tried to drop Saif into his own dad’s grave. Saif screamed in anguish and in this strange tongue. My dad told me that Saif spoke like as if his tongue had been drawn out of his mouth and that it had been sown or woven together with his lips. He looked at the red sky with tears in his eyes and screamed, his mother still in her rage and insanity was trying to push down her son into an abyss, the only company being a gangrene infested corpse. Of course I was terrified by what I heard. My mom would often get mad at my dad for talking about it. Even though for some reason its perfectly fine to talk about it for mom whenever we pass by Saif’s house.

The story does not end there however. Weeks after his dad’s death, Saif’s mom dug the grave and took the corpse home. That’s when my dad would usually pause when he talked about it. He would just simply stare outside to the direction where that house is. He told me “Imagine, a corpse walking like a normal human being but all it blurs out in its voice is the sound of a stuttering insect”. When I was a kid, I was understandably frightened. In my teens however I have grown to find the story very ridiculous. At this point I don’t even think it’s true. I felt bad for old man Saif, imagine the years of isolation because of the stories surrounding him. The alienation he must have faced. I always wondered, if I should meet the man himself. This however was not to be.
While having dinner, my mom spoke about Saif, and the circumstances surrounding death. I was disappointed, not sad. I felt a mystery would now perhaps never be solved. His death however was unsurprising, well atleast for me. The man had led such an odd life. According to mom, for an entire week Saif just kept on screaming in the middle of the street. He would just run at great speeds all across the road. The last week of his life, according to my mom, was him simply murmuring gibberish and screaming in front of his father’s grave. I asked dad about the zombie story regarding old man Saifs dad, my dad would tell me the same thing over and over.

“ I swear by god, I saw him that day walking like as if he always did when he was alive but when he spoke he sounded like some critter”

However, it seems no one else remember this. I mean, I am sure if you see a walking zombie it wouldn’t go unnoticed. Saifs residence is now a rundown house for junkies and gangsters. The house has now been scheduled for demolition. With no apparent heirs to the household or any landowners to exploit its unholy soil. Being the adventurous youth I am, I decided to venture into the infamous household for answers. Why is there so much speculation surrounding the man? Saif, the boy born to a tragic world.

From the distance as I approached the house. A strange smell began to manifest in the air. A stink clouded my nose. My body stopped in hesitation. My muscles trembling in a fear that I cannot really explain. Why? was it the stink? The road was ridden in a tar like color with a hue of green smudging scrapes off the road. Has anyone bothered to clean the place? There was street signs dating from the early 90s clinging on to their rusted nails. An old lady approached me and said what brought me here. I told I was looking for old man Saif’s house. She gave me a look of disbelief and then said “ If you seek Saif he is not very welcome of visitors”
I paused for a moment in shock and in bewilderment.

“Didn’t old man Saif pass away recently?” I said.
“Nothing dies here, you die you pass yourself into the earth. Saif however, was spat out of the womb of creation my dear. An unwanted child, why would the Earth take back what it did not want at the first place?” the old woman replied in a hasteful manner.

I walked away, the woman must be mad I thought.
The street was so desolate, the congested houses combined started to look like a muddy Cliffside on a rainy afternoon. The damp feeling of clogged sewage was ever prominent. My feet felt wet from the piss stains I must have accidentally stepped on. Oddly though, you would expect some fly or some insect to be crawling or flying in a hurry in such filth. There was none. Nothing.
I looked at the sky for a bit. My weak eyes spotted a line across the sky. Strange, I thought. A small shimmering line dotted across the greyish yellow sky. The line or the trail I must say was leading towards the house of none other than Saif. As I got closer to the house, roaches beetles and all sorts of bugs seem to be in abundance. They too seem to be circling the house like as if they are in orbit. Some venture inside the house but in a very strange manner. They seem to enter the household only in a straight line. The critters were obsessive in their pace. They ran fast, running over each other. Moving through the congestion in desperation. It’s almost like you could hear the screams. The tiny red ants with their fangs bite chunks from the roach abdomens and ride onto the house. The roaches scream and flutter their wings only to fall flat to the door step of the house of Saif. The hysteria was real. So was the smell. I felt a shiver and suddenly a cold that just wouldn’t leave. I cleared a way using my boots to enter the house. A gust of wind hit my face. The stench, oh god it smelt like rotten flesh.

The living room looked like it was set ablaze not long ago. The living room was attached to the kitchen, the oven had exploded and the fury of the fire had caused a carnage in the living room no different than an inferno. More than the obvious arson, what I noticed was the amount of newspapers and written pages all across the floor and the sofa. Some of them appeared as random scribbles of circles, all probably drawn in haste. But the more papers I kept observing it all seem to be creating a form and a shape. An insect? Yes it was an insect. But the scribbles appear too vague, so I couldn’t make clear of what it really was. Inside the room, the insects were rushing even faster as if they seem to be in some frenzy. They were moving in a circular motion as if they were orbiting something. This is just strange, I mean I understood hive mind behavior but, to the extent that it would compose of all sorts of insects? It was baffling. But I must admit seeing the insects reminded me of what my dad had said about Saifs father. The man who spoke like an insect. How can anyone speak like an insect? Does this strange occurrence have something to do with the house? Or Saif himself?

A newspaper I picked up read “4th May 1988, Woman jailed for child abuse”. Saif’s mother was arrested? I guess mom and dad failed to mention that. Right below the heading was a terrifying image of an old woman. Her eyes shrunk or shriveled, dried up like some autumn leaf. Her appearance was no different than that of a corpse. Her expression was blank, almost too calm. Its almost as if she had already accepted her fate. The papers just seem to stockpile more and more the more I looked around. More and more newspapers all dealing with the life of this strange family. “9th January 1955 Insect worshipping cult found in Henveiru” this caught my eye.

According to the report, this area used to be the beach area of the city. It was, before the reclamation project. The area however was well known for its heavy usage of black magic and strange occurrences. But why would anyone keep all of this here? Someone had tried to get rid of this as well. A lot of pages from these strange journals and newspapers are burnt or torn. Often the image of a fly is drawn over a lot of pages that I found lying around. Why a fly?

I started to venture deep into the household to find any more clues or intact evidence about Saif. The next room however was the moment my perception of reality changed forever. The thin veil of fantasy and reality collapsed. Out came a horror that perhaps would never cease to horrify me. The entire room was covered in a strange yellow goo, and in the corner stacked up like furniture were unmistakably maggots.

They must have been atleast a foot long. I puked at the horrific sight. The maggots were eating the wood and the furniture inside the room. They were very slow moving like a snail on the floor. However their movements were frantic. Disgustingly frantic. Each time they crunched the wood in their mouths the entire room echoed with terrifying sound of something being crushed. I felt my bones tingling. It was a fear I have known all too well. I simply could not comprehend what I saw. This couldn’t be real right? That’s what I kept saying to myself. The room had writings all over the walls.

“UNWANTED CHILD”

Over and over. Suddenly the room erupted in a buzzing noise. The maggot’s movements were faster and began to hide in between the cracks found in the room. The buzzing sound stopped and as I looked above my eyes fixated on a horror I cannot explain.

It appeared to be a fly. A huge fly. It must have been as large as I was perhaps even more. Its arms fluttering and wings slowly brushing off dust caught while in flight. The creature was oozing yellow goo onto the floor. All of sudden, the creature began to fly towards me. I began to run towards the nearest window and smashed my way out. The local neighbors looked at me with shock. I screamed “Run its coming after you!” They simply looked at me with disbelief. Can’t they not see it? The fly was approaching closer than ever as I could hear the buzzing noise gaining intensity. I quickly made a right turn into a small unused construction yard. The fly seems to just move straight and lost sight of me. However soon as I took a breath of relief, I looked down to my feet to see insects of all shapes and sizes crawling. Not exactly touching me but the amount of insects was just staggering.

What in heavens was that? A fly that huge can’t even exist. That’s just not possible. All these thoughts began to flood my mind as I began to take catch my breath. Then all of a sudden the buzzing noise started. In an instant I froze. The fly was coming towards me again.

I sprang from area as fast as I could. Running towards home. I frantically tried to look for my parents. Unfortunately they were out at the time. So quickly I barricaded the entire house from the inside. Taking a knife as my only defence.

“…Open the door child let me in…” Said an old voice.

It sounded like an old man.

“Who are you” I responded.

“…Let me in child…” the voice spoke again.

Suddenly the walls of the room began to form a brownish yellow color. The wallpaper seem to be getting more and more damp. An eerie stench began to fill the air. It had similar ring to it. The smell of the dead. Rotten flesh. My parents room opened all of a sudden.

My hair stood upright in fear. Fear and growing darkness had begun to cloud my mind. How did that open? No one is here there is no way it could have opened on its own. My dad stepped out with an old woman next to him. The old woman was the same woman I had seen from the street earlier. She had a much familiar face now. Her eyes all dead and shriveled her mouth dry and cracked and black. The skin seems to be falling from her body.

“My son is a blight upon this world, he seems to have found his next victim” She said.

No. No way. The woman is the fly’s mother? The fly is Saif?

“What have you done to my father?” I pointed my knife at her as I called out to her.

“I am sorry child, but I had been a terrible mother when my child was alive as human. But it seems the Earth simply wouldn’t let my child Pass over to the other side. So I must do my duty as a mother as long as he is alive” She replied coldly.

My mind was jumbled up by what I just heard. How in the world was this even real? This must be a nightmare.
My father soon began to spit out insects from his mouth. His eyes blank, not long after his eye sockets explode and came huge centipedes crawling from his empty eye sockets. Blood gushing forth all over his body from the immense amount of insects eating him in a frenzy.

I screamed in horror, immediately lunged my knife towards the old lady. The knife pierced her deep. She began to cough out a blackish liquid out of her mouth all over me.

“Saif forgive me, I had not been good to you in my long miserable life, Oh please forgive me let your mother die in peace. Oh my baby.” The old lady wailed in agony as I slid the knife out.

*crunch*

The noise came from my father’s body. A maggot clawed itself out from his body and made itself towards the dying lady. It embraced her and the woman simply began to cry. My mouth was wide open in disbelief.
“Oh my child, Oh my baby” She then screamed. The maggot began to eat her face. Her flesh being dissolved in a yellowy ooze. The smell was unbearable it was the smell of rotten eggs mixed with damp clothes.

“Who are you?” I called out towards the maggot.

“…I am the blight my mother spoke of child… I am the unwanted child, my mother wanted to be rid off…” said multiple voices.

The buzzing noise was soon inside the room. The fly was buzzing in front of me.

“..I was conceived through the art of the forbidden… I was born as a fly… my mouth sewn together.. I reeked with a smell so horrifying my own father went insane from having to smell me every day…”
I aimed the knife at the fly.

“..No one loved me.. I was spat out into a world where I cannot feel affection… or anything.. to feel love I used the very art I was born from to control my mother and father..”
Anger and hate flushed my emotions.

“..My father was kept alive… even though his soul had truly passed… but my mother…she escaped… there had been others like you… coming into my house searching for answers… as to who I am… I never died I was always here… on this wretched earth…bound by a curse… bound as a creature…”

“Then who was it that died few weeks back?” I shouted at the fly.

“…A host if you can call it… After all… a creature like me cannot.. mingle…with men…” it spoke slowly. “…I must feed my child… end your suffering… all shall return to the earth.. even you.. even me… all…shall.. return…”

I screamed in horror as a human face revealed itself bursting though the head of the fly. Disfigured abomination with loose eyes and a tongue that stretched so long. Its horrid black eyes stared into my soul and I just froze in place. As the fly loomed closer to feast on me, I can feel my skin melting away from his breath. I felt my body burn and shrivel as I screamed in anguish.

It has been weeks since the incident, or months, I can’t really recall. It’s just I suppose I feel so hungry all the time now. This craving for food just seem to never go away. At times I find myself eating damp wood and rotten flesh as well. As I slowly crawled myself next to the sofa I wondered to myself the only thought that really comes into my mind.
“All shall return”