UnSeelie Dreams VII

He lifted his head from his arms, dazed, not knowing if it had been a dream or real. Was he really in on that cliff? He looked around and found he was in the same place he had laid down at in the tunnel.

Speak the name, whispered in his head.

"What name?" he asked automatically back. "Was it real?" He started to sit up and remembered the vines and kept low to the ground. "I'm dreaming this and soon I'll wake up." He stated firmly to himself.

"What issss dream?" it hissed in a slitherly voice. "Exsssplain, hunter."

Speak the name, the whisper came again.

"E-eco?" he stuttered, how did he know the name? Suddenly he knew, just knew, what the sithen was and what it was for. What had happened to him? He shook his head but felt a little stronger, more sure.

"Dream is human spirit realm." he answered with the only answer he knew from his childhood when he lived with the old village woman.

"Eco know of humansss and sssidhe." If the sithen could nod it would have at that point. "Sssidhe tricksss humansss.

He glanced up and realized that he could see in the darkness, quite easily. The vines over head and the deep rich soil he was covered in and under. Faint blue lights floated about his body. He attempted to brush them away and was pinched for his efforts.

"Ouch, damn it." he muttered under his breath. "Show me the door, Eco."

Laughter caused the ground to shake under him. He pushed up on his knees and gripped a root vine to stay upright.

"Eco sssshow portal," it responded to the demand. "Ssshe waitsss for hunter."

She waits for hunter, came an echo inside his head. She who? Miriam? he wondered. The insect on his cheek twitched but there was no sound, no voice confirming or denying.

"I want to go home."

Just the thought of Miriam made him long more so for day light, for her smile and soft touch. Despair hit his heart like a knife stabbing through to the core.

"Musssst ssseee Ssshee." Its hiss nudged at him. "Ssshee knowsss way. SSShee waitsss."

In that it promised him many things and yet nothing at all and what would it want in return? Touch the tunnel wall, whispered inside him.

He reached his hand out, feeling cool stone beneath it again. The hematite reappeared in front of him but this time he pushed against it and felt it give, melt around his hand. Startled he tried to pull his hand back out but found that it would only move forward, the stone would not release him.

He felt almost a liquid coldness that was beyound human comprehension and found himself being pulled toward the stone til he was totally emersed within it.