Magda struggled to open her gritty eyes, struggled to blink, several times, until her blurred vision stopped swimming, until she was at last able to focus on what lay in front of her. Not her room at Dan’s, not Talia’s flat either, but a cold, dreary office littered with the musty detritus of many years, a couple of old chairs and wooden desks with dusty drawer handles. Along the back wall, next to the open door in the corner, stood a row of tall, metal file drawers; between the desks, the grimy glass of a lone window, one broken corner covered by a patch of cardboard, barely let the bleak light of day stream in. She was bundled in something warm, though it was a sleeping bag and blankets rather than her duvet, and could barely move her fingers, not with her hands and forearms—
A strangled cry rose in her throat, turned into a whimper, then a short cough, upon sharply inhaling this stale air with its strange undertones of—rot? She knew that feeling before even looking at herself, knew the touch of cold iron biting into her wrists, keeping her chained to the old radiator in the cellar they called the Atonement Room, but it didn’t make sense, it didn’t, because she wasn’t supposed to be there anymore, and there was no such furniture in that cellar anyway, so where was she?
I use "bleak" a lot, so that was an opportunity to see if I also use "dreary"!
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Context: that part of the story where Magda finds herself in a lot of trouble. (Office description based on actual photos of actual Thruxted Mill 😭)