Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge?  Are you open to sharing your dark side?   Then read on.

---

Do you have a dark side?

Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so,  join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.

Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday

Share your dark side?

I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.

---

dark | side | thursday | seven

“Don’t let him, don’t let him take it, not now, it’s so close. Please…hear me…”

Her voice faltered. The empty feeling in her belly, the pain, coursed through her.  Her eyes closed.  She lay still. Alone, again.

His eyes ran down the page, the words scratched into the yellowing paper. Words he had read countless times since that first time.

“When the time comes, there will be no time, you will know what to do, inside, you will know, as I did. I tried, I wanted to stop it. It was too strong, she was too strong. I had no time, so please for Hid’s sake, when the time comes, don’t think, act, or you too will have no time…”

He pushed his chair back, stood, again took his flask, drank, his throat burning. He knew that time, his time, was fast approaching. He turned back to the desk. The box waited. The key waited. He reached across.

She screamed. No sound would come. Her mouth stretched open and she could not scream. The pain slashed inside her. Raging, searing hot flames burned into her, smearing her, undoing her. Screaming silently, her mind splintering, not like this, not alone, not this way. No. Her mind collapsing, panic ripping through her, smoke filling her lungs. Not like this. No.

Inside the pain she felt cold fingers. Cold fingers running along her arm. Her eyes snapped open. No flames, no fire, only fear. He was there, beside her. Blue eyes looking into her, through her, his fingers running over her skin. He reached underneath her, she felt his fingers, felt his arms wrap around her as he lifted her, pulling her tight against his body.

She breathed. The fire had gone. Realising now it had not been real, she exhaled. She felt him breathe, felt his need, his fear, it.

She pulled away. The pain there still. He stood beside her, his fingers in hers. Her belly ached, the emptiness churning inside her. Holding his hand she turned and took a step forward. Toward the stone steps. Leading the way, she felt the cold stone under her feet as she walked forward and stepped down into the darkness. He followed.

He reached across the table, to the box.

He wanted to open it. He could not. Withdrawing his hand he pushed the seat back hard. Stood, walked to the window, driving black rain filling his mind, he looked out into the darkness.

Turning again, back to the desk. He found the box, pressed the button, slid his fingers slowly inside, opened the box. Released the key, driving black rain filling his mind, and walked back toward the door.

He knew the time had come. It always surprised him. There never was time. He felt the key in his hand, and stepped back into the corridor.

They stopped at the foot of the steps. She felt his fingers slip out of hers.

In the distance she felt footsteps approach.

It was time.

---

The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.

seven | fiftytwo