Redux, so far

I've retooled the manuscript, a lot. Kept the same setting, some of the same characters, added a bunch of new characters/locals, and changed from third person to first. Here's a sample:


I was taken violently from my home world like so many others but I was unaware of why. I was ignorant to the vast system of checks and balances that keeps the omniverse in a constant and tenuous state of equilibrium. I failed to realize that I was only currency, another flesh-coin from some out world that had to pay its tribute to the Telek.

“Ted,” I whispered, “you there?” A chorus of stifled sobs echoed off of the cold metal walls.

“We’re dead man, dead.” A voice whispered in the darkness.

“Ted,” I whispered again, “Ted, you there?” Someone close by was mumbling what might have been a prayer. I felt along the wall whispering Ted’s name as I went.

“We’re dead. This is it. This is hell.” The voice was louder this time.

“We’re not dead you idiot. We’re in some kind of cell.” A soft voice from the black answered the morbid fellow. “This is some kind of holding tank.” Knuckles rang against metal.

“Stop it you fool,” a woman cried, pleading, “they’ll hear you.” Fear blossomed in my mind. Fear of what kept us trapped. Only once had the deep blackness surrounding us been breached. A circle of light had formed and inside the circle stood a creature out of nightmare, all scales, claws and teeth. It had reached out and snatched a gibbering man from the floor and dragged the poor fellow screaming into the shining circle, the death circle. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light winked out silencing the doomed man’s pleas for help. Everyone began whispering after that.

The silence was palpable as I waited in the cold darkness, waiting for the death circle to shine down again like God’s wrath. Silence for an hour, then two. I renewed my voyage through the sea of bodies whispering for Ted. Listen, whisper, listen. Always keeping one hand on the solid metal wall. Despite the numbing sensation I experienced after only a few minutes contact with the freezing surface I refused to step away. The wall was the one remaining bastion of reality in the waking nightmare in which I found myself.

As I passed along I could feel knots of bodies, people crouching in groups of three or four, whispering, crying, huddled together for warmth. Other travelers passed by me unseen whispering the names of friends or loved ones, groping through the blackness for a familiar touch, scenting the air for a lover’s perfume or the scent of a favorite soap.