Darkness was once merely a Plague, but in the body of Haskel Edelstein, its role had been transformed. Plaguehunter, HE was now, slayer, killer, ender of Eser HaMakot. HE was a slave to the millennia-old curse of Exodus. HE was its master and partner in murder, and in liberation. An old man, a tired old man with great fire in his eyes and greater duty before him: the destruction of the remaining four Plagues of Egypt, and their bearers.

"This is too terrible a duty," HE had once said, "for such an old man." HE only said such things to himself, alone in the Darkness. No ordinary man could know of his power, none of his peers could know of the mission with which HE had been charged.

A slave no more, thought HE, as he penned the letter to Death,

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NEW

Darkness was once merely a Plague, but in the body of Haskel Edelstein, its role had been transformed. Plaguehunter, HE was now, slayer, killer, ender of Eser Hamakot. HE was a slave to the millennia-old curse of Exodus. HE was its master and partner in murder, and in liberation. An old man, a tired old man with great fire in his eyes and greater duty before him: the destruction of the remaining four Plagues of Egypt, and their bearers.

A slave no more, thought HE, writing the letter to Death, a young woman named Amira Tal, weakest link on the long chain of Tals, her and her dear Aunt Kelila, the brilliant bloodbearer whose emotional instability prevented her from leaving the compound in Dimona. Amira would come, eager and unknowing prey,

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This is part of a series of stories I'm working on in my "Ten Plagues" milieu, and I've just started working on it. Hoping someone could let me know what they make of its opening, etc. It was a clean thirteen, at least before I added line breaks to make the paras read clearly

[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited May 21, 2009).]

Also, the excessive capitalization and use of dialog as internal thoughts was distracting to me. And a title like, "Death and Darkness," seems a bit melodramatic.

Sounds like you do have a fairly well established milieu, though, and you've given your characters and their lives some thought. That's half the battle.

-Oliver

The slave no more, is a hook , as a reader I’m interested to know why the character was a slave and too what? I’m still confused about who he’s writing too? Is he writing to death who happens to be a girl called Amira? The flow is lost here. Also I think you are introducing too many names so I’m loosing track of who is who.

The slave no more sentence is a monster of a sentence and needs to be trimmed down, there is too much information. This sentence dissipates tension especially when the phonetics appear not to be English, making the reader struggle even more. You bring the tension back with description of Kelila and her emotional instability. I like this, however I think the inconstancies of the other sections cancel these hooks out.

However I’m judging just on 13 lines, and after all rules are meant to be broken. I’m just given my opinion.