My death could probably be called ironic.
My name was Drury Sprany. I was just your average DC comic fan, a part-time electrician, and someone who had always preferred moths over people. I liked what moths symbolised; chasing that pull toward light, no matter the consequences.
Looking back though, that might've been a warning.
On a cold winter night, I was called to a factory to repair a failing overhead light. The place was empty, the silence broken only by the low hum of old machinery. I set my ladder beneath the flickering bulb and lit a few nearby lamps, forcing back the dark just enough to do my job.
It should've been routine. I'd done this kind of job dozens of times. But as I unscrewed the old bulb, something in the ceiling stirred.
A small cluster of moths burst out—no more than a dozen—freed from a narrow space between the fixture and its wiring. They drifted down toward the lamps, drawn in immediately, circling in uneven, restless loops.
I paused, watching them—watching the soft flicker of their wings in the light.
Then one brushed my cheek. Another struck my eye.
I flinched.
Then ladder shifted.
And I fell.
Glass shattered as I hit the shelf holding the lamps, then the cold, oil-slick floor. The impact knocked the breath from me. Above, the lights flickered... then died.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Only a faint buzzing remained.
The moths flittered closer to my prone form.
I felt them. Soft touches against my skin, they seemed to what little warmth, leaving me to the cold.
I'd always hated the dark. And maybe that's why I took a job about fixing lights, keeping things bright, so no one has exist in the quiet, creeping darkness.
Now I lay bleeding out on a factory floor, surrounded by moths...the only things that loved the light as much as I did.
"…That's ironic."
The cold crept in slowly after that. The pain dulled. The buzzing faded into the background.
As my eyes drifted shut, something felt… wrong.
Like I wasn't there anymore.
Like the ground had vanished beneath me.
Like I was falling.