My Thrilling Forth NaNoWriMo Installment.

He could see the stars from where he stood; nothing but stars. A pale red planet with dazzling porcelain rings drifted past the doorway, as if it were close enough for him to reach over and touch. Dustin stepped closer to the threshold, completely awed by the overwhelming splendor of the infinite chasm that stood before him. A deeply sapphire world had also floated past at such a distance that it looked like it might have been a marble. Further, still, he noticed specks of what looked like dust, traveling in a stream and knew that it had to be an asteroid belt. He leaned his head in for a closer look and had actually gotten inside the room.

Blinding tangerine light had briefly disoriented him and he realized that the door was located in the side of a sun. The sun’s gasses burned all around the opening, but the intensity of its light was ever present, the sun’s heat was nowhere to be found. The wonder reflected in Dustin’s eyes as brilliantly as the sun’s fire as he gaped at its vast surfaces. Without even thinking, he reached over and touched the surface. It felt like a marshmallow, just having been briefly nuked in a microwave; it was hot, but not scolding, and it was soft and pillowy to the touch. As he ran his hand over it, warm bliss had sprung up inside of him, along with an insatiable urge to go out there and lie on it; it must have been extremely comfortable.

Before he could act on his impulse, however, Dustin had noticed something out of the corner of his eye, to captivate his attention. In a corner of the velvety blackness of space, he had noticed a spot; a pinprick, darker than the space around it. He might not have given it a second glance, except that everything else had abruptly begun to drift toward it and the closer things got, the larger that whole seemed go grow. Soon, it had grown from a pinprick to a dime, and then a nickel; a quarter; a Frisbee; a pizza pan… it just kept growing and growing, while everything around it seemed to be shrinking and disappearing.

The moment Dustin realized that he was staring at the swirling vortex of a growing black whole was the moment that he had been ripped off of his feet and sucked through the door. He had only just managed to reach the door handle and cling to it for dear life, before he too, could be yanked painfully down the cosmic drain. As he tried to claw his way along the door, he heard it buckle and groan under the stress of gravity’s unbearable pull. He knew that he had less than seconds to make it of the door, or else he would be irreparably thinner, so he gave it his all and threw himself out onto the stairwell. Again, the door was slammed shut.

“Hooo-oo-oly shit,” he shuddered, lying on the cold stone.

A Little More NaNoWriMo

Dustin hastily leapt ahead by five or six steps, not knowing that he could jump that far. Though the stairs above the door seemed stable, he was not about to take any chances. He walked onward, with much greater urgency, though was not yet to the point of running. On multiple occasions, Dustin had looked back to make sure that the dissolving steps were not closing in on him; he had an indescribable feeling that that would be a possibility. However, the steps the he had passed had all remained precisely where he had left them, and it was only when he had reached a second door that he had given the matter another thought.

This door looked just like the first and he was hesitant to so much as touch it. He stared intently at it as though trying to see through the door, so opening it would be unnecessary. He continued staring until he realized that he had no superpowers, and by then, his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Anxiously, he took the handle of the door and tried to open it. It had worked and the stairs were still where they were meant to be, so Dustin breathed a sigh of relief and shoved the door open. A giant eyeball, wide as a tractor tire, floated within what looked like a salmon-colored cloud. It was terribly bloodshot with a sickly brown iris and it glared at him with the utmost annoyance.

“What do you think you’re looking at?” a haughty disembodied voice exclaimed from within the cloud.

“Oh… um… I was just…” Dustin stammered.

“Go the hell away!” The voice spat and the door slammed hostilely in Dustin’s face.

He felt both disturbed and embarrassed, as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

“What the hell…” he muttered to himself. “…such an ass.”

A little more indignantly, he had ventured on up the stairs. He was now stomping more than he was walking, while fumed about the atrocious manners of floating eyeballs hidden behind the closed doors of creepy, ancient-looking castles. Lost in his own wandering mind, he had only just decided that perhaps it might have been more appropriate to knock first, when he realized that he had overshot the next door by twelve or thirteen steps. Looking back and seeing it, he doubled back down. He stopped in front of this door and had a moment’s hesitation before he finally knocked. There was no response so he decided it to be safe to open, but before he had even taken the handle, the door had swung open with a heavy jerk.

NaNoWriMo... The Continuation

As he put his first foot onto the bottom step of the staircase, a piece of the stair crumpled beneath Dustin and he felt the unmistakable lurching in the pit of his stomach that comes with a swift drop. Yet, he had only stumbled and hardly at all. Still, something felt completely off about the staircase; as if he was certain that he would melt into the steps as soon as he might begin the climb. His back foot was his anchor and he refused to take it off the reassuring comfort of the solid floor until he was certain of what he was about to step onto. He closed his eyes and took a breath, waiting as if for the proper moment to reveal itself.

However, a small voice inside his head told him that time was quickly dwindling away and the minutes were too few to waste in meaningless waiting. He gripped the balustrade for support and, closing his eyes and saying a brief prayer, he shifted his weight to his front foot. While the stone step seemed to crack and shift with his growing weight, it seemed solid all the same. Dustin walked up the steps as though they were covered in eggshells, while gripping the balustrade hard enough to feel it pinching his fingertips. His mouth became dry and his breathing, forced, as he slowly took one step at a time, waiting for an inexplicably certain doom to befall him.

Emerald shimmered in the corners of his eyes and he became aware of the candles on the wall. They ran along every fifteen stairs and their alluring green flames swayed hypnotically in an enticing dance that had made Dustin stop and lose himself in watching, at least three times. He kept one hand on the rail and one eye on the rippling candles as he continued onward, and he had only stopped doing either of them when he had come across the first door. It was a heavy wooden door, much like the last that he had passed through, and it had popped up some one hundred and twelve steps up.

There was no landing or leveling off of any kind at the foot of this door. It had simply just seemed to be a natural part of the wall, almost beyond notice; Dustin certainly nearly missed it. He grabbed the door’s handle and tried to push it open but the door wouldn’t budge. He put his shoulder into it and the door still remained firmly in place. The door started to feel less like wood and more like solid stone, just like the walls around it, so Dustin had nearly chocked it up to being a figment of his own imagination. However, thick ooze seeped out from beneath the door that had not been really there; it had the dark crimson appearance of blood, yet it reeked of gasoline, and as it ran down onto the steps below him, the steps had dissolved away into blowing sand.

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.

The Shower

The Shower

By Brandon Palzkill

            The warm water cascaded down Marcus’ face and it was exactly what he needed, just then. Quite frequently, he would come home after a long day and take a nice warm shower, keeping his tiny bathroom cloaked in darkness. It was a very Zen-like experience for him, as the darkness kept the anxieties of the world far away from him for a few minutes, while the warm water swept his every trouble down the drain. More often than not, he just needed the peace that it provided.

He comfortably let the shower drench him, while he closed his eyes and waited for the water to expel all of his daily negativity. His stiffened muscles had slowly started to unclench under the heat of the therapeutic fluids and part of him felt tempted to lie down in the bathtub and take a nap. The creeping feeling of utter relaxation had reminded him of why this was his preferred unwinding method and a content smile had crossed his lips.

As he stood there, letting go of his day, the shower curtain moved in and brushed against his arm. Marcus thought little of it and batted it away from him. In that moment, he felt something out of the ordinary, though he didn’t immediately register the sensation; it seemed like a hand had been on the other side of the curtain and pressing inward upon it. When his mind finally made that connection, a brief spasm of wariness overtook him.

He felt an odd momentary chill that didn’t fit in with the warm water continuing to pour down. For reasons he didn’t understand, or just for his own peace of mind, he quietly peered through the crack of the curtain’s edge. The cramped bathroom was otherwise empty and the adjoining hallway seemed equally sparse. Writing it off as a figment of his imagination, he resumed his shower and tried to erase this new tension from his body. Soon, however, the curtain waved in once more and again he was met touch the pressing hand on the other side.

Once again, he silently chanced a glimpse through the infinitesimal crack, and once again, he saw nothing but his own solitude. Marcus could feel his heart beating faster as a cold sweat beginning to ooze out of him, mingling with the warm rain. He quickly decided that the shower was over and what he really needed was a stiff drink. Turning the shower off, he reached out to throw the curtain open, but he felt something to make his racing heart nearly pause. The hand was there still, but pressed much more forcefully from the other side.

“Who’s there?” Marcus finally exclaimed.

Marcus cautiously returned the force of the hand and it immediately retracted. In the next instant, the curtain was hammered with what seemed to be a pair of fists, violently punching it over and over. Panicked, he grabbed the first thing within reach; a shampoo bottle, and tore the shower curtain open, nearly yanking the bar off the wall. He frantically scanned the miniscule room while his chaotically hurried breaths made his lungs sting. The room was still empty, as was the hall, but his stomach immediately dropped as his eyes brushed over something.

A shadowy outline of a figure stood in the closet across the hall. Yet was it really standing? As far as Marcus could tell, it didn’t seem to have any legs to stand on, but appeared to disappear below the waist. It was like a silhouette given solid form and Marcus couldn’t make out any of the specter’s features apart from the eyes; blood red and burning with the utmost malice. Marcus had almost leapt back against the shower wall as its stare burrowed into him.

“Who are you?” Marcus demanded, raising the bottle over his head.

The being said nothing but continued to stare at him.

“Answer me!” Marcus shouted. “Who the hell are you?”

The person held to their silence but suddenly glided toward Marcus, a menacing hand outstretched. He heard a slow, wet, raspy voice scream that seemed to echo within his own head, and thought that the voice, alone, would be the death of him. Overwhelming dread engulfed him as the thing drew nearer and, in a moment of reckless desperation, he leapt from the bathtub, bottle readied to strike. This did nothing to stay the creature, and when it was within ten feet of him, he knew the full measure of its hideousness.

The moldy gray thing looked like a decomposed body covered by a wispy transparent sheet. Bits that Marcus could only assume to be skin seemed to be peeling and hanging off of its body, exposing its decimated organs. However, it was in its face, where the true terror of it was clear. Its vengeful eyes were alight with a demonic fury, but the rest of the face seemed emotionless and resembled melted clay, where the mouth and nose had sunk down to sit unnaturally around its cheeks, while its ears seemed to be stretching down near its neck.

 A loud, ghostly war cry echoed from the creature’s deformed lips as it pushed forward, nearly causing Marcus to cower at his knees in abject horror. Just as the being reached the bathroom door, Marcus desperately hit the light switch in the hopes that it might momentarily get blinded into confusion. The entity, suddenly bathed in the blinding glow, let out an unholy shriek of agony as it crossed the threshold into the bathroom. The disturbing sound lasted but a second before the creature vanished as inexplicably as it had appeared.

Marcus stumbled back into the tub and took deep steadying breaths as he tried to make sense of what had happened. His gaze wandered around the restored emptiness of the room and uncertainty had engulfed him. Could any of that have been real? If it had been real, would anybody believe him? If it had been in his head, was he losing his mind or just in dire need of a vacation? He grappled with all of these important questions and was certain of only one answer; he was never going to shower in the dark… ever again.

Hunger

Hunger

By Brandon Palzkill               

He treks beneath

the silvery blue luminescence,

and bares his jagged teeth

at the impenetrable darkness.

Streaking, hurling, growling, howling,

an alluring scent has found its nose,

across the shimmering midnight breeze…

he smells his new prey.

The ground disappears beneath his paws,

faster than the hummingbird’s wings.

Broken, crooked trees stand aside

as he bounds savagely onward,

ravenous hunger guiding him

toward his sacrificial lamb.

Nearly there; nearly upon it;

the pungent scent smothers his face.

He licks his watering lips,

savoring the aroma’s flavor

while his eager face stings

from the succulent winds;

he wants now; he needs it now.

He finds his target,

the unsuspecting victim,

and nothing can stop him now.

He growls again,

yet, no louder than his panging

stomach;

he runs faster, it draws nearer,

he bears down on the poor creature

and he pounces...