🦋 Am I the Asshole for Sacrificing My Friend to the Bloodmoth?

by Ben Lockwood

Hear me out. I (26m) am socially awkward. For no discernible reason, I cannot make simple conversation at parties, I botch every joke I try to tell, and, until now, literally nothing interesting had ever happened to me. This has culminated in my completely unremarkable life as a single, mostly forgettable, data-entry technician at a mid-sized insurance firm. 

My friend (27m), Jamie, is not socially awkward. He’s handsome, charismatic, and worst of all, an all-around great guy. This is the type of dude who could get mugged on his way home from work and instead of getting his wallet stolen he’d end up having the thief over to his place for his beers, probably helping him turn his life around or something. For work, Jamie is developing a web app to connect nonprofits with local restaurants, to collect food that would otherwise go to waste. His girlfriend is the lead singer in a cool punk band, his smile is perfect enough to make you sick, and the two of us are so unalike that it’d be downright unbelievable that we’ve been friends since college if it wasn’t for the simple fact that Jamie is friends with everyone. 

For context, the events that led me to sacrifice Jamie to the Bloodmoth began about three months ago, when I temporarily joined a cult. Now, I know that doesn’t sound great, but my lack of social skills can explain most of it. Without getting into how it all happened, let’s just say that I went to some shady locations, repeated some questionable chants, and for a few weeks, was a member of a group known as The Brothers of the Moth. 

I only went to four meetings. That was long enough for me to see something I’ll never forget, but I’ll get to that later. 

While I was getting into (and out of) the cult, Jamie was getting into pickleball, because of course he was. After a couple weeks he started inviting me to play. At first, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less, but he insisted, and eventually I thought at the very least the physical activity might be good for me after all of the cult stuff. So, I went. 

Maybe the most surprising part of this story is that it turned out I was actually pretty good at pickleball. Or so I thought. That first day I beat him three out of the five games we played. We went again the next week, and it was the same. After that we made it a weekly thing, and every time we played, I beat Jamie more than he beat me. It felt good to finally be better than him at something. I think it helped my confidence a lot. During that time, I was getting out of my apartment more, being more social, and Jamie and I were spending more time together than any time since college—even outside of playing pickleball. That was how I eventually found out the whole thing was a lie, and that he’d been letting me win the entire time.

I was at his place when I overheard the conversation between him and his girlfriend, while I was in the bathroom. She asked him how things were going with me, and Jamie told her that he thought I was “doing a lot better emotionally”, so it had been a good idea to let me win a few games to “help me out”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only had everything good in the past few weeks been fake, but he’d even let Trish in on it. I was in shock. It was a level of pity and condescension I couldn’t believe. So in a fit of rage and embarrassment, I immediately started planning revenge. Maybe I overreacted. 

To begin my plan, the next week I convinced Jamie to meet me at a different park than our usual pickleball spot. This one happened to be at a park in the historic part of the city, near an overgrown cemetery, at the center of which was an old crypt—the very crypt where The Brothers of the Moth held their meetings. It was raining when he pulled into the parking lot (luckily, since my plan depended on it). He wanted to reschedule, but I told him that the park had recently built some indoor courts just on the other side of the cemetery, and that we could walk there in less than a minute without getting too wet. It’s easy to lie to someone who thinks you’re their friend. 

He agreed, and I led him into the cemetery. We had to push our way through the weeds and tree branches. The rain came down harder, and Jamie never once questioned where we were going. He followed me to the center of the cemetery, right to the top of the stone steps that descended below ground, into the crypt. When I turned around, he only looked slightly confused, as if maybe I’d gotten my directions mixed up somewhere. I’ll never forget that look, just as he was about to say something, when I slapped my pickleball racket against the back of his head, sending him toppling down the steps. 

When he hit the bottom, he was dazed, but still conscious. The noise must have woken what was inside the crypt, though, because as he tried to get up, the stone door at the bottom slid open, and a creature emerged from within, standing on two thin legs, with wings and huge, bulging eyes. Jamie screamed when its proboscis wrapped around his legs before he was quickly dragged through the doorway and into the crypt. 

Then, the stone door slid shut again, and suddenly, it was silent in the cemetery, except for the rain. The Brothers of the Moth have welcomed me back, and Jamie won’t be lying about pickleball ever again. I do have some nagging guilt about the whole thing, though, so I wanted to ask the internet: am I the asshole for sacrificing my friend to the Bloodmoth after he pretended to lose to me at pickleball?