1. The Deep End

Our dark, twisted sci-fi fantasy fiction novel begins... Enjoy the ride.

408

 

"Does a man miss his soul if you take it from him? Is he trapped then - or liberated?"

- Shin Tao

1. The Deep End

 

 

Voices, a million indiscernible voices, muttering. Close, yet far away. Were the voices real, or were they in his head? Thinking about his head suddenly brought an intense, blinding pain behind his eyes. Well the pain was real enough. The sensation brought an awareness of his body position, which was face down on what felt like a warm, stone floor. The recognition of his body was accompanied by a dull, aching sensation in every one of his limbs. This felt like the hangover to end all hangovers.

He risked flicking his eyes open. They took some time to bring him any information beyond being surrounded by a reddish-brown blur. Slowly, painfully, things began to take shape, yet it made such little sense that he decided to painstakingly pull himself into a sitting position. Every new thing he saw brought more questions than the last.

He was in a room, a roughly-hewn square rock room with no doors, yet an entirely open wall in front of him seemed to serve this purpose. A glance left and right revealed vertical metal bars stuck into the floor and ceiling - a prison cell. Yet what sort of prison left an entire wall section open? His eyes still adjusting to the reddish gloom he began to crawl forward until he was at the edge of his cell. Grasping the ledge he eased his head over and saw exactly why his room was completely open. It was a sheer cliff; he could see roughly a hundred meters down before the floor was swallowed in a bottomless darkness. He gazed, transfixed for a moment before wrenching his eyes away and looking around, his eyes which were now properly adjusted to the low light.

He saw his cell was one of hundreds, no, thousands of identical rooms embedded into an earthen rock wall. It stretched down away to infinity yet up only a few floors away from his own cell. Each cell was roughly equidistant from the next; close, yet far enough to prevent any movement between the cells in any direction. Each cell had bars dividing the cells it bordered on either side, offering a limited view into the neighboring rooms. His eyes were drawn upwards once again, this time to a huge cylinder which hung from the roof and stretched down into the inky depths. He could faintly make out moving writing on the cylinder, and it took him a moment to realise he was staring at a giant screen in the shape of a column. The screen appeared to be showing a list of numbers in vertical order...he shook his head. It was all too gargantuan to take in at the moment. He shuffled back a little from the edge and just sat staring, trying to comprehend everything beyond his own pounding headache.

"Quite a view, isn’t it?" growled a voice to his right

He started, his head snapping around to the right and taking in the man who stood there, casually leaning against the bars from his own side. His first thought was that he hoped to never get on the wrong side of this man. His face was a patchwork maze of scars and gouged skin, what little remained of his ears looked melted and misshapen. Perhaps he had been white, once, now he was so tanned as to almost be black. He stood a little over 6 feet tall and was built powerfully, but not excessively. At odds to all this was the man's choice of clothing - he wore a lurid purple shirt underneath a tight brown leather vest, black jeans and lethal-looking Doc Martins. His salt-and-pepper hair gave no clue as to his age as it fell carelessly over bright green eyes which watched him bemusedly take all this in.

"It's rude to stare, kid" he said, still a growl, but slightly amused. He looked down at his fingernails as he continued to talk, "Before I introduce myself I want you to think about the last thing you remember..."

The young man looked down and thought hard. It was something that had been nagging at him since he opened his eyes, but now that he thought about it properly, it was downright terrifying. Where had the last few days gone? Or for that matter, weeks...further back...but no, there was no further back, only pain, a throbbing pain and an empty darkness where a life should have been. His eyes popped open in a frenzied panic and he looked to the other man.

"Who am I?" his voice shook, his heart was pounding against his chest, screaming to get out, he wanted to run, to hide, yet he just stared, open-mouthed as the older man made a gesture for him to look upwards. Dreading what he might see he let his eyes roll upwards as slowly as he dared, and there, on a bronze plaque fixed into the ceiling was his answer, the number: 408.

He stared from the plaque to the man, back and forth until the man smiled. "Ah, there's the look of pure terror I've been waiting for, welcome to the deep end, 408".

Author's Note

© Chris Chalmers 2014

Reviews

[kclyaine]

Sorry for not reading this earlier than I should have. The story is interesting. I wasn't really sure of the image at first though. But it made sense a little as I continue on. Maybe I'll understand it fully in next chapter.

[L.E.Osborne]

I like how mysterious it is all the way through and I really love that the reader and the character discover and learn new bits of information at the same time. I can't wait to get onto the next two parts! :)

[Lotus Flower]

The very beginning had me drawn in. How intricate this scene was woven. The amount of detail really helped me picture everything!

[AprilRN1210]

ok... let me start this review by saying that I am so not an educated "technical" person.. I don't know proper terminology, all I can do is review like the reader that I am.. The basic story line was interesting and I enjoyed the flow and evolution of the tale.. the ending was a nice hook that neatly tied this chapter into a bow and prepared you for the next.. I will say the descriptions in some places were lovely and vivid, but in others left me wanting more, a little disappointed.. in the beginning especially.. give me more of the scattered, just waking up, hangover feeling instead of "telling me".. there are a few words in there that are used quite a bit that you could substitute to cut down on repetition. Overall, this was VERY nice.. the ending was my favorite.. the last three paragraphs especially.. so well written and entertaining.. got me ready for what is to come.. It is refreshing to not have to concentrate on grammatical and punctuation errors and allow yourself to get immersed into the story..

[Christopher Robin]

Thanks for the detailed review, I've specifically set my sights on an 'action' novel so I don't want to linger too long on exposition, there's a plan for the evolution of the story so anything that feels particularly left out is probably done on purpose to be a more dramatic reveal later on. I want people to be more absorbed with what is happening rather than where they are, because that's what the protagonist is doing. I understand what you mean in terms of phrasing things in particular ways though, there's always room for improvement and I definitely don't want to fall into being repetitive so when it comes to the final cut it will be something I will cast my red-pen eye over. Thanks for pointing it out though it will help me to perhaps use the thesaurus part of my brain a little more in the future. All that being said, this is aimed at young adults, and I'm primarily concerned with the action and the unraveling of the mystery at the moment. Not to say I'm putting exposition aside, read on and the details will trickle slowly and subtly...The task I've set myself for each chapter is : at the end, do I want to read the next one? Do let me know (if you have the time to read on) if i'm achieving my task :)

As always I adore you stopping by with two cents ready, to me that's more valuable than any real money.

-Robin

[AprilRN1210]

I can understand that you want it to be more "action", but the beginning is where readers decide if they want to read or not.. it is where you grab their attention and set the scene, the mood.. not saying go all out.. it just feels more like you are telling than showing in those first few.. and of course I am going to read on!.. wahoo! finally found a use for those two cents.. now, if I only had some sense to go with it.. :)

[KWP]

Deep end indeed - this proffer's up many questions, which I am sure will be answered. Can a man think, act, observe and engage 'normally' if he has not recollection of who he is or where he has come from? Interesting, great visuals within the description.

I noticed you used the word 'Well' in the second line, I find that interesting as I do the same thing, is it an Aussies thing, do you think it is acceptable? Just a question.

One description that fell short for me was 'lethal looking Doc Marten's' now I know the boots, but what makes them leathal looking?

Overall your words gradually drew me in which was a treat cos I didn't know if I was up for it :) ...

Nice work .. great to read something other than poetry on here for a change xx

[KWP]

oh and that quote .. great !!

[Christopher Robin]

As for the shoes, Doc Marten's are lethal as it is, no one want to get stepped on by those things! I was more making the point that Phoenix looks lethal by wearing them, the impression I want to give of this man is one of power and danger. We see things from 408's perspective, when he first takes Phoenix in he's very intimidated by him, so it's the thoughts that go through 408's head that make even the shoes 'lethal looking'. This (as always) is clear to the author, but also good to know if that's not clear to the reader, easy to revise if need be!

Thanks for the quote! Came to me one day and kick started this whole story :) spoiler alert! It has more to do with the story than you think...

-Robin