By Spyridoula Giannika
Cho always loved visiting the forest near her house, early in the morning when she could see all those beautiful butterflies gently flapping their wings under the soft wakening of the sun. Cho*, what a beautiful name!
An early morning, while Cho and her nana where out tending their small garden, they noticed some new faces in the neighbourhood. It turned out that a family of foreigners had recently moved in. Later that day, they decided to go pay a visit to them and welcome them to the neighbourhood. They were a very welcoming family and turns out they had two kids around Cho’s age, Timothy and Elizabeth. Cho ended up becoming very good friends with both of them. She loved hearing their stories about their homeland and how different life is there from here.
Soon Cho decided to take Eli with her and share her favorite spot in the forest, where they could watch the early summer sun awake.
It was an early Sunday morning, what was Timothy doing awake? He had heard his sister leaving and out of curiosity, especially when he saw Cho, he decided to follow them for a while and then try scare them, a classic prankster…right? But they kept on going, walking further and further into the forest until they finally stopped and sat down on some blankets they had brought with them. They seemed so happy. What does Eli have that he doesn’t? Shouldn’t it be him there with Cho? He was frustrated, confused, hurt, what he saw wasn’t right.
Around a year later, Eli announced that she would be visiting some friends back home therefore, she had to leave for a couple of days. During that time, Cho’s nana passed away from old age, her last thoughts went to her granddaughter as she would be leaving her behind, alone. Eli hearing this, rushed back to Cho only to find her brother’s empty words. He says after her grandma’s passing Cho moved away to live with her aunt in Tokyo. He urged his sister to move on as Cho would never come back. Little did Eli know that there was no aunt but Timothy had made sure to take away Cho from her by any means necessary. However, Eli did try searching for Cho but couldn’t find anything.
Rumor has it that all the butterflies mysteriously disappeared from the forest that same day. And there is only but a shadow of a young woman left behind, who wanders every morning around the forest, sad yet angry, mourning for what was taken from her.
“While touching a butterfly’s wings may not kill it immediately, it could potentially speed up the fading of the colors on the butterfly’s wings, wiping out patterns that are used to protect the butterfly from predators. Touching the butterfly’s wings could potentially result in a shorter than expected life.”
- Butterfly Basics
*The name Cho is primarily a female name of Japanese origin that means Butterfly.
Also, a Korean name meaning «beautiful.»
