Dead Factory: Preface

A pulsing, consuming pain burned and echoed within my cranium as I awoke. Though, was I awake? My eyes felt open but all around me was a thick impenetrable wall of darkness. My fingers and toes flexed, followed by my arms and legs. despite my head, and a slight aching in my neck and chest, I was okay.
"Hello..."My voice sounded more airy and raspy than I remembered.
"Hey! Anyb-" A large hand clamped tightly around my mouth, pulling me back into a brick wall of a chest, and only the pressure of those fingers contained my cry from the pain that exploded in my head. I felt light and dizzy; on the verge of passing out.
"Ssh," came a soft admonition. "They'll find us."
I promptly hushed. Who or what would find us wherever we were was a complete mystery to me, but the male voice was the only concrete thing my mind could grasp or understand at the moment so I obeyed.
Slowly, as if to make sure I wouldn't bolt or cry out, the hand grew slack on my mouth and released me, only to grasp my hand and pull me along through the darkness.
"Where- where am I?"
"Underground. Hush for now."
A Silence so complete followed his words, and a cold spread through my being. Something was off. No light source, no soft cricket calls or wind whistles, no life! This world was dead from the core. Where was I? I had to know!
"Where am I!"
My finder stopped suddenly and grabbed me around the throat, making my eyes bug in shock and lack of breath.
"Shut-up! I'll leave you behind if you draw them to me." His hissed words were so low I almost missed them, but the venom in his bite struck its mark and I nodded without further comment.
Again we headed off in the darkness, through this new, foreign, lifeless place.