The Horror of Dreaming Butterflies

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They arrive without wings at first—ideas, not insects. A pressure behind the eyes. A sweetness in the air like crushed petals and old dust. Only later do the wings assemble, tiled and precise, beating in patterns that feel learned rather than born.

In the dream, her hair floats as if underwater, each curl a corridor. Butterflies settle there, careful, reverent. Their bodies are cool coins. Their wings carry maps—veins looping like handwriting no one remembers learning. When they open and close, the room breathes with them.

She tries not to look at their faces. Butterflies should not have faces. But these do, faintly: impressions, suggestions, the memory of mouths. They whisper without sound, insisting that this is beauty, that nothing harmful ever arrives dressed so carefully.

The worst part is waking.

A dust remains on the tongue. Color lingers behind the eyelids—blue too blue, red too deliberate. In mirrors, her pupils seem threaded with motion, as if something small is practicing flight inside. She avoids gardens. She avoids books with margins that curl like wings. She avoids sleep.

Once, a single butterfly lands on the window in daylight. Ordinary. Harmless. She still cannot breathe. Its shadow looks wrong—too many joints, too much intention. She closes the curtain and the room goes quiet, but not empty.

At night, the dream returns, patient as a tide. The butterflies do not chase her. They wait. They believe waiting is enough.

By morning she understands the rule she broke: some symbols are doors, not decorations. Some beauty is an invitation that never ends.

Never dream of butterflies.