"Think of me as your fairy god-problem," she said. "You want mosquito powers? I will grant your wish."
"Are you drunk?" I asked, too shocked to proceed what was happening.
"No, you are drunk. Are you backing out?" she said.
I stared at her. The insanity of the moment clashed against the ache in my chest. Against Tina's kiss. That damn caption. The lie she let me live in.
"You're serious?" I asked.
She snapped her fingers. A moth fell from the ceiling, twitching.
"You have 24 hours. Be the bug. Get your bite. After that, you will turn human again. Slightly more tragic, slightly more itchy."
"Wait, no, I didn't actually mean..."
But it was too late. My body folded, crunched, warped.
Bones disappeared. Limbs shortened. My mouth shrank into a straw. My eyes sharpened. I could see heat, smell sweat, taste perfume in the air.
I was small like an airborne. I was a damn mosquito! Is this a dream, I screamed and only an annoying eeeeeeeeee- came out.
Aedes aegypti. Vector of rage. Prophet of petty justice.
My wings buzzed. The sound was high-pitched vengeance. My senses tingled. I could feel her somewhere in distance.
The fairy's voice echoed faintly.
"Go get her, dengue king."
So I did.
No more poems. No more being the soft one in someone else's story.
Tonight, I will bite her. Tina, the antagonist of my love story.
---
I was flying at the glorious speed of… 2.5 kilometers per hour.
Majestic, right? Like a paper plane caught in a sneeze.
But then...ugh. Hunger hit me like a hangover after three sips of boxed wine. My belly growled, or... buzzed? Whatever mosquitoes have instead of stomachs. Point is: I needed blood.
There! A human! Walking, full of juicy, oxygen-rich hemoglobin!
I could already taste the iron. And I had just acquired a brand-new blood sucking straw. Top of the line, it's sleek and shiny. FDA unapproved.
I needed to test it out, make sure it wasn't some cheap knockoff that came with mosquito scam ads: Suck better, fly faster! Limited time proboscis upgrade!
My tiny wings buzzed with every flap—eeeeeeeeeeeee- so high-pitched even I was annoyed. I didn't even know mosquitoes could get tired, but here I was: Aedes Ciliano, emotionally unstable and physically done, about to pass out mid-air like a drunk drone.
My compound eyes were glitching like a shattered phone screen after a toddler's tantrum. I had no GPS, or mosquito version of Google Map, there was no mosquito instincts left in me. Just sheer desperation and spite.
And vengeance. I can't forget vengeance. This wasn't just about survival.
It was about Tina.
Yes. Her, my ex Tina. A 24 years-old, average-looking human who I once thought was beautiful until she turned out to be a lesbian and used me... ME as a heterosexual decoy!
I wanted a payback. The mosquito version of a bitter breakup text. Dengue, to be precise.
Then I heard a whoosh. A disturbance in the wind. A cruel reminder that even the air hated me.
I had to zigzag, like a drunk pigeon, to get back on course. There! I spotted her. Or… wait. Him?
I landed on an arm. A man's arm.
Whoops.
Okay, maybe not ideal, but blood is blood, right?
I rubbed my tiny mosquito hands together like a mad scientist. Polished my bloodsucking straw. Licked my nonexistent lips. It was time to pierce some skin.
But then… something felt wrong. I hesitated.
Why don't I feel thirsty anymore?
Wait… no.
No. No no no no.
I remembered in a blinding flash of existential stupidity.
I'm male. And male Aedes mosquitoes… don't drink blood.
We sip nectar. Friggin' NECTAR. Flower juice. That's what I came into this world for? Pollination and disappointment?
I can't even bite Tina. I can't infect her with dengue. I'm useless. A fraud. A winged imposter in the mosquito mafia.
And that's when it hit me.
Not the realization. The hand.
A massive, human hand, rising like a vengeful god in a tank top. Before I could even gasp, I saw it through a million fragmented lenses, coming straight for me.
"Oh no," I whispered. My thorax twitched. My straw curled up in sheer terror.
This is karma, isn't it? I muttered. This is for trying to infect my ex. This is mosquito hell.
I flapped my wings, desperate for lift-off, trying to abort mission, pull an aerial U-turn, but it was too late.
SMACK!
The sound echoed across the street like a meaty exclamation point. A dog barked somewhere, a grandma clutched her pearls.
And as I spiraled into darkness, spiraling down like a failed parachute, my mosquito life flashed before my eyes: getting wing's, learning to hover, practicing stealth flight over Tina's hairy arm.
And then… blackness. With my last breath, I croaked, "I'm doomed."
And I was.
Not from blood loss. Neither from heartbreak. But from the sheer cosmic comedy of being a mosquito with a vendetta and no fangs to back it up.
---
As the author's perspective:- dear readers, let me clarify: that's how I really died in my human life. One tiny, perfectly timed slap. Took all the breath out of my lungs. I had wings, I had a vendetta, I had a bloodsucking straw polished to perfection… and none of it mattered. Karma? Oh, she wasn't subtle. She didn't whisper or nudge. She slapped hard right in the face.
I wanted to bite Tina. I wanted dengue revenge. I wanted to taste the sweet irony of ex-relationships like a fine wine… But nope. Reality pulled a hard reset, and suddenly I'm on the floor, mortal coil deactivated, wings still flapping, straw still shiny, buzzing in vain.
Moral of the story, readers? Never underestimate karma. And also… never trust a fairy who calls herself a "god-problem." Seriously. I should've listened.
---