[Xar]

Chapter 2

Xar awoke with a start, panic consuming him, before remembering what had happened the night before. He had awoken just as he was being dumped into a holding tank full of other paramites by the sligs that had captured him.
The noise that the Paramites were making had been so loud that the sligs had filled the tank with some sort of sleeping gas, so he hadn't had a chance for conversation, but he did now.
First though he surveyed his surroundings, he was still in the holding tank, which he sensed was completely dark. All the other Paramites still seemed to be sleeping. Outside the tank walls he could hear a kind of slicing grinding noise, which mildly agitated him. But as he couldn't do anything now he sat down to wait for someone else to wake up.
A few moments later the paramite next to him started to stir, Xar helped him up. This paramite appeared very old, and one of his finger appendages had been torn clean off by something or other.
The Paramite said "Thankssssss, my name isssss Throxssssss, who are yousssss?"
"I amsssss Xar, are yousssss knowing where we aresssss?" he said.
Throx replied "No, but I knowssss whatsss happened to usss. Beforessss I have heard voicessss like theirssss followed by criesss for helpssss from our own. I've watched it fromssss treesss, I trysss to follow but theyssss go to fast. They ridesss away on big animalssss pulling wagon of cagessss."
Before Xar had time time to take this all in he heard raspy voices outside the cage.
"The grinders about warmed up now, lets go get them paramites over here"
Xar was just about to say something to Throx when the top of the tank opened up, and the tank started being pushed across the floor. They were moving closer to the grinding noises.
As they got closer to the noises, a horrible smell drifted into the tank.
Xar wasn't sure, but he thought it smelled suspiciously like blood, bone, and dead paramite...