NaNoWriMo ... The First Five Hundred

Here is the opening five hundred plus words of my NaNoWriMo project. This will give you the opportunity to see my work in the early stages (roughly a stage and a half before it would usually appear here). I plan on posting more sections throughout the month, so I hope you find them to be worth the read. Thanks!

             As Dustin glanced around the dimly lit entrance hall, many questions repeated in his mind. Why am I here? Haven’t I been here before? Where is everybody? He kept his senses alert for signs of any movement around the room, but he didn’t get his hopes up. The room was about sixty feet across and forty feet wide, completely made of stone, and with the limited light that the flickering torches had offered him, he was certain that he was completely alone. Still, he was unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched and so he proceeded with the utmost caution.

The dust was so heavy in the air that it seemed to be floating, and as he crossed the room, he seemed to carve a path through it that lingered long after he had passed. It was nothing compared to the inches of dust that layered the floor and was as of a dry patch of soft snow beneath his feet. Cobwebs were spun over the six or seven time-worn painting that hung on the walls and a mirror that hung to his right was so tarnished that it no longer offered a reflection. Combined with the dimness of the torches and the noticeable chill in the air, Dustin was confident that this building, wherever it was, had not known any habitation in decades, maybe longer.

Every step eternally echoed off the stone bricks, making Dustin’s ears weary and sore. As strong as the echoes were, however, they were not quite capable of drowning out the bass drum that was his anxiously pounding heart. In fact, he was so unsettled by his surroundings that when he had finally reached the door on the other side of the room, a little voice inside his head was praying to anyone who would listen, hoping that the door was unable to open. As he stood before the door, he almost stopped himself from reaching out and taking the handle.

To his great disappointment, Dustin had finally grabbed the door’s handle and found that it did open without any complications, whatsoever. He pushed the door open gingerly, uncertain of what had waited on the other side and ready for any horrors that he might face. He peered through the first sliver of space between the door and its frame and saw nothing but a faint blue glow. As the gap enlarged, he had taken a breath of relief and courageously dared to believe that there was nothing in the next room, so he gave the door one last shove to get it out of his way.

Dustin felt his sudden rush of courage falter and he poked his head through the door with the utmost caution. The door led into a great circular chamber, easily five times wider than the room he had just left, and the walls were lined with a large spiral staircase that almost seemed to go on for miles, before it had finally reached the ceiling. It had shocked him to learn that the eerie blue glow as that of the moon. Its light shone down from an enormous skylight that took up most of the ceiling and the moon beyond it seemed gigantic to the eye as it took up the whole of the skylight.