UnSeelie Dreams IV

Something cool caressed the nape of his neck causing him to shudder. His throat tightened in fear and he jerked away from the tunnel wall only to fall into more grasping tentacles. He screamed, thrashing about to get away while laughter echoed through out the ground.

Firmly they held him in place til all fight had gone out of him. He closed his eyes giving up all hope of ever being rescued.

I must have died in the woods and this is hell, he mused as his sanity began to give way to the nightmare.

"Noooo hell heresss," hissed what seemed like one and many voices coming from all around him. "Isss sssithen." The sound crawled inside his head.

Dread made him retch up the bile from his empty stomache. You have to get it together here, man. If you want to stay alive, keep it together. He opened his eyes to the darkness.

"Keep it together." chanted back at him like a taunt.

"Sithen?" he echoed back.

"Yessssssss, hunter."

"Where am I?" he demanded.

"Sssssithen."

He growled low with frustration at its answer.

"What is sithen?"

"Ssssithen is Eco and Eco is sssithen." Laughter burning into his brain. He felt much like Alice talking with the March Hare or was it some other stupid creature. Damn, Damn, Damn.

He shook his head trying to get the sound out of it. The aweful buzzing sound.

"Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn." It mocked him. It slowly dawned on him that it could read his thoughts, knew what he felt, and was loving every minute of his misery.

He hung his head down, beaten by grief, and lost to what to do next. The buzzing was becoming unbareably louder. He felt it would drive him mad if it didn't stop soon. Just as the thought touched his mind, it stopped and tunnel became quite still with anticipation.

Even the sithen seemed to hold its breath, waiting and watching, or was it all a trick of his demented imagination. He chuckled bitterly, maybe he was going insane.

Suddenly he noticed a barest silky caress of insect wings against his left cheek. Tiny legs settled on his mud caked skin. He blinked his eye as the antenae brushed his lashes. The wings lay so very softly, its span taking up half his face.

He flinched back when he felt the needle sharp prick under his eye. "What the fuck?" he cried out as he struggled against his bonds in order to dislodge the creature. Small drops of blood poured down where the insect had latched into his face. He gagged as he felt every movement as its proboscis traveled under his skin toward his left eye. He tried to rubbed it away with his shoulder but it wouldn't budge from where it had landed.

He screamed in pain as the proboscis entered into his tear ducts and moved onward into the cornea. Even without light, he felt blinded and helpless against the assault as it entered into his iris. Tears ran down his face. It was all too much, yet he knew it was not over yet.