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

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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.

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dark | side | thursday | twentytwo

The harsh clanging of the bells filled the chamber, filled the chambers of his mind. Drove all other thoughts from his mind. What little remained of his mind.

If he still had one.

He was no longer sure. How could he be?

About anything. Or anyone, least of all himself.

Or her.

After all that had happened.

It had all become too much, too overwhelming, too intense, too many competing, conflicting emotions.

He felt her arms slip away from him. Leaving an empty space where there had been passion and warmth. And hope.

Hope that had again been dashed.

The soft tender warmth of her lips, the feel, the urgent burning heat of her body, her leg entwined around his, began to fade. His hope, his love, held on.

It was all he had. That, he knew, that, he could not let go.

The sweet taste of her mouth, her soft lips, her love, her desire, replaced by the taste of bitter smoke and death, stone and dust, a hole in space, a place that had vanished. Changed.

The clanging of the bells ceased.

Abruptly.

He fell to the stone floor of the chamber. He was alone. The stone figure, the woman he loved, the woman he had hurt, gone. He could not breath, the tips of his fingers had become numb, his chest tightened, his vision blurred. All that had passed before clouded his mind, his pulse raced, his heart stuttered.

He turned.

Walked out of the chamber.

Back out to the staircase, the one he had climbed inside the tower.

It was gone.

The stone staircase had gone.

In front of him, the door to a lift slid open. In a daze, unthinking, he stepped in, saw it in the mirror. He saw, but could not see. Glass, the smell of fresh paint, instructions in case of emergency. It all meant little to him.

Not now. Why would it?

Clouds enveloped him. She, enveloped him, absorbed him. Her shade. Her hand in the hand of the man in black, her eyes cold, the taste of smoke and death and despair.

The lift dropped down. Inexorably. Taking him away from her. From the stone cold figure, the taste of smoke and death.

The door slid open.

He stumbled forward, he pulled the heavy door open.

Walked out into emptiness. The square empty, the people gone, the clock continued to mark the passage of time, for what purpose he no longer knew nor cared.

He walked, one foot in front of the other, no longer aware of his surroundings, just walked. It was so cold. So very cold.

He remembered.

The cold.

Her hand in the cold. He held her hand so tight, too tight, he knew. Even then, before it happened.

He fell to the floor, the pain in his arm ripping through him. Snow piled on snow, his way blocked yet he continued. What else could he do?

And then.

In front of him.

Her eyes. Dead inside.

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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.

twentytwo | fiftytwo