Prelude

Raker wakes up.

  Thump.
        Wake up.
        Thump.
        Wake up, friend.
        Thump-thump.
        He was not aware that he was holding his breath, but when he opens his mouth, he sucks air in lungfuls, drinking it in like a man three days parched. Stale air, rank with the sickly sweet smell of freshly turned earth…and beneath that? Something sharper which he cannot place his finger on.
        Thump-thump.
      Up
        The thought does not feel like his own. His brain churns sluggishly, sifting through the course of events which brought him to this place.
        Nothing comes to mind. He pushes deeper.
        Pain.
        Not yet. Up first.
        Thump-thump.
        His eyes snap open, though the blackness is so deep that there is little difference besides the burn of stale air on sensitive eyes. Where was he?
        Thump-thump.
        GET UP, DAMN YOU.
        Definitely not his thought. Someone else. Slowly he lifts a hand, reaching out for the voice’s owner, someone who could tell him just what the hell was going on, someone who could explain the riotous pain in every fiber of his being, someone who could explain the throbbing behind his eyes. His hands quest forward, groping in the black, and scrape against a barrier.
        Wood.
        With a sudden churn in his stomach, the pieces fit together. The smell of wet earth, the sickly tang of decay, the dark, the wood. A grave.
        Get up…not done yet.
        The voice laces into his brain, curling about the base of his spine and dancing along every neuron. It sounds like his voice, but colder. Like himself speaking through a vat of liquid nitrogen. Him, but not him.
        Not done yet. Not after what they did.
        A flash of a forgotten memory blurs before his eyes, shattering the dark and still. There were five of them…a woman and four men. He sees their faces, remembers the way they sound, the way they smell. Feels it all ingrained at the molecular level.
He knows it’s important, knows that something terrible has happened. He strains to remember, but the memory is snatched away just as quickly as it came. An animal scream of frustration is torn from his lungs and he pounds a hand against the wooden lid of his tomb.
     Good…
     Again the fist pounds against the lid, rotted and soft with exposure to wet earth. Again…and again. He feels it give way, feels the voice in the back of his mind laugh with delight.
The first of the wet earth falls into his little tomb, coating his lips in a fine powder which tastes of death and freedom. With hands, curled into claws, he tears through the loose soil, burrowing upwards with startling rapidity.
     Thump-thump, thump-thump.
     He feels the steady rhythm of his heart, pushing the life through his veins. It burns like liquid fire, pushing consciousness into the parts of him that have lain dormant for far too long. He feels the grave-dirt catch beneath his fingernails, feels into cake onto his face, his bare chest, falling into his eyes and pulling at tears which won’t fall ever again.
     Almost…
     With a final bestial surge his hand finds open air, a fist from the underworld held up in mute defiance. He lingers for a moment, feeling the cool rush of air upon his dirt-streaked arm, held for so long in the jealous embrace of the tomb. But then he is moving again, pulling himself up, burrowing through the dirt with a single-minded fervor.
     Welcome back, Dorian.
     He breaks the surface of his grave, bursting from the earth like some demon of the ancient world. His face is a mask of gravedirt masking the exultation of an escape from death itself. He stands, slowly, coming to his feet atop a mound of funerary dirt to feel the gentle light of a rising moon.
     No time to soak it in, friend. Bloody deeds ahead, I'm afraid.
     Dorian Raker stands atop his own grave, casts a look around the quiet of the graveyard, and angles himself toward the imposing wrought-iron gates.
     Five of them…five to drag back to Hell with him.
 

Reviews

[Magnolia Belle]

Shawn - hi. I've read a lot of work on this site and rarely review any of it. (There's simply too much wrong and I don't know where to begin.) However, at first blush, you are one of the genuinely skilled writers here. This prelude creates the confusion, the atmosphere, the scene with such conviction that it places the reader IN the grave, fighting for breath. That is a skill many don't ever achieve. (At the end, I was looking for dirt under my fingernails.)

Kudos to you!

Belle

[Creepy Swine Guy]

This is awesome stuff Shawn. Your descriptions are beyond vivid ... they are acrid with the smell of death and the burning cry for vengeance. Your prelude is a perfect hook setting much of the scene for what is to come and demanding that the reader click through to the next chapter ... which I must do now.

PS ... send a damned group message out the the group of your fans when you put new stuff out. We signed up because we want to know.

[Kaitlyn M.]

Gah! I hadn't realized all of my reviews for this work were gone. Well, I'm about to fix that. I needed a break from reading Blood and Chocolate anyway.

First off, I suppose, shall be the description, which, while consise still hits like a full-on freight train. It makes my chest hurt and that mysterious substance called adrenaline pump through everywhere, making my fingers tingle. It's eerie. It's spooky. And most of all, it WORKS. You don't pull a Tolkien, and you're not overbearing. Your word choice, as always, Mr. Thesaurus, is impeccible.

Secondly, this is a FANTASTIC way to open a chapter. Once again, it's concise. And it helps build suspension. It's so short that I want to know what happens next. Why in the hell is this guy digging himself out of his own grave at the bidding of a voice in his head that isn't quite his? It's a very nice twist on The Crow. It's exciting to see a motive/helper that's a bit more internally (or I guess at this point, ambiguously) placed.

Thirdly, the ONLY thing I have a bit of an issue with here (and it's going to sound very Knutsen of me to say) is that I cannot place Raker as a person. I see him as a silhouetted and rather ambiguous figure, and the only thing we know about him thus far is his goal. Which, really, is a nice thing to know, as you're setting the pace/plot for the entire rest of the book here. I'm not even sure I really NEED to see Raker at this point, especially since I know from a previous read through that you get to this later. But you know Knutsen will say it, for one. So I suppose this is really less my issue and more a warning for what you may be asked later? Whatever.

I've never really had an issue with this part of the book, and I still don't. It's rather visceral for being so short, but you're not the long-winded, Oscar Wilde wannabe, blowhard that I am. So I should expect that. Honestly, I'd say it's rather solid at this part. I have no issue. And I'm on to read more of it.