“Duuuustiiiiiin…” a ghostly female voice called out in the darkness.
He froze and looked up ahead. Then he looked down the staircase. Finding no one, he looked over the balustrade for a possible hint at the voice’s location.
“Duuuuustiiiiiiin…”
It was definitely coming from up the stairs. It seemed to be drifting in from the topmost door, which already sat ajar, and seemed to be waiting for his arrival. It was such a bad idea; he was sure of it. Even so, the voice called him once more, and his legs knew that she needed to be answered, even if his brain still needed convincing; he continued on up the stairs. Soon, he was running. The voice rang out for a fourth time and it was like a magnet, drawing him closer and closer. He passed several more doors and made countless circles around the staircase, but he kept going until he had finally reached the top.
A shiver of anticipation shook through him, making the hair on his neck stand up and he found himself needing to take a calming breath before he walked through the door. He pushed it completely open with his violently shaking hand and startled by what awaited him. The room appeared to have been the grand sleeping chambers of a castle or a palace. While it might once have been stately and luxuriant, it had become a worn out ruin, decayed and destroyed by the long, steady march of time. The walls were the ceiling was completely gone and the walls had collapsed in several spots. The candle fixtures that clung to what remained of the walls had been eaten and deformed by rust and all the paintings were faded and torn.
There were no candles to light the room, but none were needed. The moon’s blue glow had completely washed over the room and when Dustin really looked to the sky, he received another shock. There was no sky; only the moon, itself. He walked over to where a window would have stood and looked out to find that the moon had gone on as far as the horizon. He might have thought it to be infinite, had he not caught the tiniest sliver of nighttime between the moon and the earth. It was more unsettling to him, by far, than the outer space room had been. With every minute that he kept his eyes fixed on the lunar surface, he had expected it to come crashing down on his head.
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