Down the Rabbit Hole

Glad you could join us for the next mystical episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

The vision imploded to a whirling point of light, spiraling a widening hole into the ground, spraying soil to the sky, vanishing with Cassandra’s voice. Elliot was back in the nighttime woods reclined against the fan shaped fungus, the taste of dirt and mold in his mouth. Every muscle ached.

“What did Queen Reishi show you?” The words fell from the trees.

Startled, Elliot looked up to see the orange-eyed creature smiling down at him.

“Where did you go?” he asked her.

“Nowhere. Where did you go?”

Trying to shake the muddle out of his brain, he grunted against his stiffness to right himself. “Nowhere, apparently.”

“The Queen did not show you where to seek?”

Like a faded bloom, the pale image of a whirring nest suspended over a gaping hole hovered briefly in Elliot’s mind. “I need to find the wasps, but not the rebels.”

“Off you go, then.”

“But I still don’t know where to look!”

“Close your eyes and listen.”

On a wind seen first in far off trees, a sound approached silently. Blowing waves over meadow grass, bowing flower heads, it came, pushing breathless anticipation before it. Buffeting one side of Elliot’s shell, it swept over and around him, leaving a droning whisper as it passed.

“What was that?” he asked.

The creature’s orange eyes glimmered. “Your destination calling to you.”

Elliot wished he could see through those eyes into her mind. He tried to speak, but he could only nod. He turned toward the wind’s source and hurried forward, stumbling in the moonless dark, but pressing on. For hours. He heard only the rustling of his littered path.

Gray crept into the shadows’ edges as the hint of a whine pricked his ears, quickly overwhelmed by the pounding of his heart. Straining to see into the resistant night, he heard a sudden falling sound, like a shower of rocks down a well at his foot.

To be continued. . .

Previously, on Elliot’s Adventures ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Next time . . .