Unease reverberated through her thoughts, desperately pushing to the front. She felt it drop in her stomach as her shackles started their cold quiver. She gulped a polite smile and started to ease away, unsure why she entered in the first place. The room was the colour of moss adorned with rodent droppings and mould. Light filtered through floral terracotta sheets with vibrant rays stealing through rips in the worn fabric. Beyond the dusty smoke that danced with every footstep, a couch lay sunken with gloom. Faces with gollum eyes stared unblinking and wretched as their lips perspired despite the chill that lifted from the floor. Limp gestures were exchanged like acquaintances on a video call…
Despite being interrupted mid-session by barking dogs that needed corralling I'm actually really happy with this. At first, I was worried that I was going to fall into the same narrative that had the characters in this scene speaking but thought it would set a better scene to establish what it was that the girl saw which prompted her to be fearful.
“Shackles started their cold quiver” was my attempted at goosebumps crossed with a shiver down the spine. I think, if I wrote this again, I would go slower with describing the elements of the room. Maybe using longer sentences to make it feel drawn out as though its something you want to escape but can't.
For example, I would take this :
The room was the colour of moss adorned with rodent droppings and mould. Light filtered through floral terracotta sheets with vibrant rays stealing through rips in the worn fabric.
And make it:
The damp room was the colour of moss sadly adorned with rodent droppings and creeping mould while a sad light filtered through sepia floral sheets, stark rays stealing through jagged rips shredded into the sorry fabric.
Or perhaps:
The porous room breathed with moss's shadow and ammonia, and pulsed with a creeping mould that festered on your lungs while sad sheets of sepia gardens kept at bay the desperate light which screamed across its edges, tearing jagged beams across ashen monuments sunken upon the floor.
Well that was amazing fun. Changing it from two sentences to one and then lengthening the second version. I was even trying to use descriptive words that were at least two syllables to draw out the length.
Highly recommend that exercise!