Great review! Rob really deserves some recognition toward this story. Not to mention that this is his first go at storytelling.
The one thing I have to disagree with you on is the descriptions. I thought they pretty darn close to perfect. There may have been one or two descriptions that seemed slightly redundant, but for the most part I felt as if they were helping to build the anticipation. It's like, when you're nervous about something, your mind looks for things to distract you from the situation, so when something important is coming up in a story, and the character is getting closer and closer to certain doom, those descriptions help make the moment seem more real for me.
For example, if I had told a really big, fat fib to a friend, became guilt-stricken, and decide to tell the truth, The entire walk down that hall would feel like an eternity. Or, at least, that's the way I saw them
Any-who, I give this story two-thumbs up. Except for the cliffhangers. I could do without those