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 | sixteen

The grating turned slowly, then came free. He lifted it and, with care, laid it on the sand next to the hole that now lay beneath him. A fragment of lyrics from a long forgotten song ripped through his mind without warning

‘Want an axe to break the ice Wanna come down right now..’ ^⁠1

Looking into the hole he had opened, he took a step forward. One small step for a man. Or, as would realise, much later, perhaps a giant leap. Into the dark.

Falling through the freshly opened hole, the sandy floor flashed past his eyes as he fell.

She lay still. Unmoving. The gentle movement of her breast stilled as her breathing had ceased. Wherever she was now she was beyond caring, beyond help. Beyond pain. Gone.

He hit the bottom. Ahead of him a sandy path. His arm hurt, again, the impact as he hit the unforgiving ground had ripped into him, hurt him in places that already hurt too much. His thoughts muddled, he lifted himself, one foot in front of the other, he set off, the only way he could. Forward.

The path twisted ahead of him. The walls narrow, the passage tight, constricting, claustrophobic. The path seemed to angle towards the right and upward. One foot in front of the other, no thought, just one foot, then the other, over and over, over and over. Again and again.

The path spiralled upward, ahead of him he saw glowing sickly yellow light. The walls opened around him, he was in a chamber, a circular portal in one wall looked down into the spherical chamber he had just left through the grating. The path he had taken had wound around the outside of that sphere. In the chamber he now found himself in, the floor was rough stone and uneven. At the centre, another box, a casket, fashioned from dark splintered wood. At the head of the casket a wooden carving, a figure with empty birdlike eyes and a crooked broken nose stared lifelessly back at him. In the wall on the far side, a heavy iron door.

He walked to the casket. Again took the key, slid the key into the narrow opening at the head of the casket. It vibrated in his fingers as it turned, the mechanism clicked. Once more he raised the lid.

This time she was there.

Grief welled inside him as he took in her shattered lifeless form, ragged finger nails, torn and stained white shift. Eyes wide open frozen in terror. He bent down, kissed her cold cheek. Tears stained his face, he made no sound, he was beyond words, beyond any pain he had ever felt.

He bent into the casket, his arms around her, he lifted her broken body. Standing, his back wrenched, he held her body in front of him, and staggered across the rough stone floor, towards the door. As he approached, the metal door began to swing open.

He stumbled across the threshold.

¹ Lyrics from Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie

---

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.

sixteen | fiftytwo

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 | fifteen

The key turned. The screaming filling his head. The cold, foul smelling water seeming to rise.

As the lock clicked he bent over the box, and with both hands carefully raised the lid. The hinges along one side groaning, rank fetid air spilled out of the box.

Then, the screaming stopped.

Removing the key, and placing it back in his pocket, he threw the lid back roughly against the dripping wall of the corridor, and looked inside.

Trapped, exhausted, fingers bleeding, mind broken, she stopped moving. She heard a sound, oh so far away, a metallic grating noise. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding. The darkness pressed against her face. Hope mixed with terror. Her hands clenched, her fingernails digging into the palms of her bleeding and bruised hands.

The box was dark, darker than hell. And it was empty. And not merely empty, the darkness seemed too intense, seemed endless. Then in the gloom he saw. As his eyes adjusted to the murk, he saw a flight of ancient stone steps leading down into the dark. Without thinking he stepped into the open box, the rank air filling his nostrils, making him gag. Holding the sides of the box, the splintered wood piercing his palms, he reached down with his foot to the first step, letting go, he began to descend.

The noise had gone, she could hear nothing. Only the pounding of her heart in the confined and terrible space. Dark clouds of despair filled her mind. She was stuck, there would never be any escape. Here in the dark. Alone.

The steps were cold, so cold his feet became numb, and wet, filthy water cascaded from the roof, from the open bottomless box. He reached the bottom. The floor was sandy. He raised his eyes and as he did so the gloom seemed to begin to disperse, two faint circles of glowing sickly yellow light flickered high above him from what seemed to be windows in the curved wall. He was in a circular chamber, as the gloom lifted he realised he was inside a hollow sphere, in the centre of the sandy floor a circular grating.

He turned, and there in front of him, the faceless figure stood once more. Blank face seeming to look toward the grating. The palms outstretched in supplication. The air in the chamber was foul, a brew of the familiar acrid anaesthetic and something rotten, something long dead. His mind reeling, he turned toward the grate in the floor.

The dark surrounded her. Her body cold, wet, unmoving. Her mind began to close down. Then, another sound, still far away, she heard another metallic scraping sound, a sound of ancient metal, screeching.

He had reached down, slid his fingers into the lattice of the grating and began to turn, following instinct, or some long buried memory. The grating groaned, the rusted metal screeching as it turned in its base. Finally, it was open.

Slowly, he lifted the grating.

---

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.

fifteen | fiftytwo

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 | fourteen

He pushed the door open, there, in front of him, his desk.

And on it the box lay open. He had taken the key when he had last left this room, walking along the corridor, expectant, remembering his anguish as he reached the dark stairwell.

And then? What? His mind blank. Or unwilling to comprehend, not wanting to believe.

And yet. The acrid taste in his throat, his nostrils, tugged at his memory. Sharp scratches scored deep into the flesh of his back demanding he remember.

Remember her? And then he did. And what he had done. With, and to her.

He sat down heavily. His elbows on the desk. His head in his hands. Her screaming echoing in his skull, would it ever stop? He reached into his pocket, took the flask, pushed it against his mouth, drank deep. Then drank again. And again.

Fighting for air, gasping and straining. Her eyes blinked open. Darkness. Endless total darkness, no sound, nothing. She was freezing cold, soaking wet and shivering. She moved her hand, intent on raising it to her face, her hand struck something, hard and unyielding. In the darkness fingers scraped against splintered wood, sharp slivers sliding straight under her split and torn finger nails. She tried to shift her body, realising she could not move, jerked her head from side to side, scraping her face against more splinters, more blood flowed. Then she realised. She was trapped. Inside a box. Nausea overwhelmed her, she frantically pressed and heaved, and once more began to scream.

The clear cold liquid burned down his throat. Flared inside his belly. Easing the pain that coursed through his entire being. He slammed the flask down on to the desk.

The screaming inside his head, her screams, the screams that had driven him deeper, would not stop.

He felt the key in his hand. It felt alive. He ran his fingers over its dark indentations, imagining it sliding slickly into the opening for which it was designed, wanting to turn it, feel the movement, feel it unlock that which should never be released.

And that screaming. Would not stop.

He turned his head back to the door, at last realising the screams inside his head were real, not merely the remnants of what had gone before. Real screams, screams of terror and panic. Her screams.

He stood, again, and walked back to the door. Opened the door and stepped once more into the corridor.

His blood froze as he saw the rough hewn box, wider at one end than the other, that lay in the corridor, the floor covered with dark foul smelling water, water running down the tiled walls, dripping from the ceiling, water lapping against the side of the box. The screaming, frenzied, despairing, came from deep within.

The key. The key was in his hand, still. He knelt in the water. At the head of the box, in the centre, a dark slot.

He slid the key inside, and turned.

---

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.

fourteen | fiftytwo

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 | twelve

It began to speak.

Words, shrouded, strangled, in dust, and darkness, unintelligible, grating, spilled into the tiled room, cold damp air spreading, from tile to tile.

Its featureless face, unmoving, unyielding, held their gaze as the words, dark, meaningless, toxic, words poured out. Its hands, palms turned open, extended toward them, inviting, offered no comfort, no hope, nothing. Only sorrow. Terror. Mindless terror.

She turned away, recoiling from that blank hopeless empty face. Recoiling from her perceived horror of words, unintelligible, yet seething with morbid meaning. Squirming and oozing meaning, miserable, mindless. Black, terrible meaning. Meaning with no hope. She held her belly, tears dripping down her face.

His arm tightened around her. Its words splintering in his mind, grating words that scarred and seared, burned and blackened his soul. Or what passed for it. His soul. His soul that had burned in hell. Back then.

Something struggled to the surface of his mind. The smell of burning flesh. A woman’s cry. A child’s terror. The anger. It broke wind in his mind, toxic and stale, the cries, the black terror, the flames.

Its blank face exploded. A dark terrible black bloom of barbarity. Blasting across the room. Bilious clouds of desperation smeared across the cracked tiled floor.

Dust blew across the tiles of that confined cell, as the face, the body, its body, blew into a million pieces of detritus, the white tiled walls blasted and smeared with decay, death, despair.

Its out-turned palms, blackened, erupted, sprayed across the room.

He held her tight, arms wrapped around her, so hard. He felt her body quiver, felt her tears on his chest. Felt her body pressed into his. Perversely, as its face exploded, covering them in the dust of hell, he wanted her. Wanted to pin her down on that metal cot, wanted to fill her belly, wanted her, to take her. Again.

She felt his need. Felt his grip on her tighten. The emptiness in her belly unfolding inside her. She pulled him hard against her. Wanting. Longing. Needing. Hoping. Remembering, him.

His arms tightened around her. Pressed against her, hard. Wanting her. Pushing away the darkness, the flames, pushing it all away.

Wanting him, needing him, she took him. Enveloped. Encircled. Enclosed him. The emptiness inside her aching to be filled. Yearning to be fulfilled. Pushing back the flames, the smoke, the horror. Tightening. She cried. And then, screamed and screamed.

The darkness devoured him as he lost himself. Fabric of the room ripping out of shape, her screaming flooding his mind, dust his eyes, darkness his soul.

He felt her meet him. Tenebrous, billowing and exploding. He felt her body against his. Fingers digging into his flesh. Tearing him, as did he into her. His body convulsing, mind racing.

Nothingness. The void.

She saw the door opening slowly. Her eyes opened wide, breath caught in her throat.

He shivered, reached out to the door, turned, and slowly, with trepidation, pushed.

His desk waited, the box, open.

---

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.

twelve | fiftytwo

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 | eleven

He stepped into the tiled hospital room, walked slowly toward the woman laid out on the metal hospital cot. The acrid, cloying, sweet, smell of the anaesthetic, lingering in the room, caught in his throat.

The metal door stood open behind him. Damp, chilled air rolled across the tiled floor.

Watching him approach, she struggled to breathe, her eyes fixed on his. Hope began to bloom inside her. Hope, or perhaps fear.

He walked across the room to the metal cot, stood over her, leaned forward, his hand reaching out, slowly.

For a moment, as his hand moved toward her, she was afraid, pulling away from the approaching fingers, the needle digging in to her. She felt him gently brush a strand of hair away from her eyes. Strong fingers, yet warm, soft, comforting. He leaned further forward, she could feel his warmth, smell his skin, and she felt his lips brush against her cheek.

He pulled away. Walked around the metal cot, toward the humming machine. He reached down behind it, found the cord, pulled it out and the humming stopped. Moving back to the cot, he gently pressed his thumb down over her skin where the needle pierced her, and, in a swift, smooth and practised movement, pulled the needle from her flesh. Reaching down, to a shelf tucked in below the machine, he found a small white bandage and pressed it gently against the spot of blood which had welled up as the needle was released. He taped the bandage in place, stood back for a moment. He had not spoken since entering the room. His movements as if in a dream, someone else shifting levers, pressing buttons, sending instructions to his limbs.

She felt his arms move over and around her, supporting her, helping her sit. He sit beside her on the narrow metal cot. His arm around her, her head, heavy, weary, collapsed into his shoulder. She felt his arms envelop her, comforting, protective and strangely familiar.

Tears spilled from her eyes, her breast heaving as powerful sobs racked her body, the pain in her belly twisting and growing, she pressed herself closer to him. Heedless of the what, the why, she felt safe, protected, and hope began to course through her body.

He had stopped thinking when he entered the room. His mind, for now, a blank, his actions measured and precise, his mind distant, dislocated, absent.

He felt her warm body against his, felt her shaking, pressing against him, seeking comfort, answers. For now he had no answers. All he could offer was comfort and for the moment, silence.

Then, they heard it.The harsh sound of stone on stone. Grating. The room grew colder still.

Turning their eyes to the open door, they froze as they saw what stood, unmoving, at the threshold. The comfort they had shared drained away as they looked into the featureless frozen face that was turned towards them, stone hands held out, palms open.

It began to speak.

---

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.

eleven | fiftytwo

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 | ten

The lift shuddered to a grinding halt.

Pushing himself away from the graffiti covered wall, against which he had been leaning, he felt heavy, old, faintly nauseous.

The stench of days old over-cooked cabbage again assailed his senses. The odour of cheap floor polish, mixed with rotting vegetation, aggravated his feeling of hopelessness.

There was another smell. Familiar, one which he could not quite pin down, which felt out of place. A faint odour that made him shiver, something sinister twisting inside. Memories, bad ones, stirring.

Pushing open the creaking wooden door, he stepped into the dimly lit corridor, reached into his pocket, took the flask and again drank deep, the familiar feeling flaring, burning, inside him. Not enough though, he took another draught, this time gulping the burning liquid down his throat so hard he almost choked. Screwing the cap back tight, he replaced the flask in his pocket and walked towards his room, his eyes fixed on the cold cracked tiles beneath his feet. The damp concrete walls closed in on him. Closing his eyes, the effect of the burning liquid, still turning inside his belly, accentuated the nausea he had felt since the lift had shuddered to a halt.

She lay motionless on the metal hospital bed. Breathing thready, pulse unsteady. The pain in her arm, where she had pulled on the needle, had eased a little, the pain in her belly had not. She slid her hand under the plain white cotton shift which barely covered her. Fingers tracing the bandage taped over her belly, she flinched as pain threatened to engulf her. She lay back, her mind racing. The emptiness inside her roiling, black, pitiless.

He reached the door to his room. A chill feeling of dread settled over him, the pain in his arm intensifying, as if his elbow had been wrenched out of its socket. Or shattered with a hammer. He shivered, reached out to the door, turned, and slowly, with trepidation, pushed.

Her eyes blinked open, her body shivering. She had dozed off. The light in the room unchanged, the machine to her side humming. Moving her arm, the needle shifted in her tortured flesh. Mind racing, she tried to sit, pain ripped through her belly forcing her to stop, to lay back on the metal bed. Then, she heard it. A faint noise, a metallic scraping sound. Struggling to locate the source of the sound she turned her head towards the side of the room away from the humming machine, the needle again digging into her.

She saw the door opening slowly.

Something felt wrong. As he slowly pushed open the door to his room, everything felt very wrong. That smell, the familiar odour that had caused him to shiver, intensified, acrid, sweet, lingering uneasily in his nostrils.

Her eyes opened wide, breath caught in her throat.

Where his desk should be, a woman, clad in a white shift, on a metal hospital bed, turned her widening eyes toward him.

---

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.

ten | fiftytwo

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

This post is an “extra”, a condensed version of the first nine chapters, for those who wish to catch up with the narrative so far or who are new to 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 | condensed:one:nine

My story began with fragmented recollections of a walk through a cemetery. The narrator had gone there to learn, his past is not revealed, the background to why he was there is not yet clear. He was shocked by what he saw, what he felt.  He is a photographer, he is losing his hair. Maybe he is also a writer, of sorts. He feels things, injustice, fear, emotion. He finds an open tomb filled with water, its opening covered with rough hewn boards. He is said to hear, feel what had been there, it is not clear how or what he hears and feels.

In the second chapter, the scene shifts, to a time long before the narrator opened his eyes. A man and a woman, as yet unnamed, no details given, walk together on a warm spring evening, they are described as being free, free from something yet to happen. Something terrible. The narrator’s perspective is weaved into the future, he knows the story and is recalling it, there is a reference to knowledge he has acquired. The concept of time and space is blurred and ambiguous. The man and the woman might have seen what was to come, there is a suggestion that things might have been different. The narrator is at his desk, there is a reference to a box on his desk. Both he, the man and the woman feel cold. The narrator is writing with pen and paper. He recalls finding the hole in the ground.

The narrator opens the box in the third chapter, removes a key and remembers discovering the box containing the key in the open tomb introduced in the opening chapter. Shifting in time, it is revealed that the couple also came across a key during their walk on that long ago spring evening. The key provokes powerful feelings, both in the narrator, and in the man and the woman. Again there is a reference to how things might have been different; if the characters had chosen, or acted, other than as they did. Holding the key, the woman sees something in the man’s eyes.

In the fourth chapter the key again plays a crucial role. This time the man’s eyes undergo a terrible transformation, turning from sparkling blue to black, as the woman holds the key and looks at him. She feels cold and a terrible emptiness, an emptiness that she will always feel. The story shifts back to the narrator who continues to write at his desk, he seems, somehow, to sense the woman’s emptiness, it is not clear how or why. He drinks a harsh shot of slivovitz and remembers ‘all of it’, before walking out into the corridor. The man’s eyes return to normal, the man and woman kiss, she still feels cold and empty. The narrator seems seduced by the power of the key in the box, a key that seems somehow to be alive, conscious.

In chapter five the narrator walks down the corridor, thoughts of the key, of release haunting him. There is a reference to things being lost, a sense that the narrator has been here before. The narrator is in terrible pain, the corridor collapses around him. The man and the woman kiss, the eyes of the man again change, turning black, she feels empty. The narrator awakens in a blackened wood, how or why is not clear, he is pain. The woman runs away, the man does not follow, she discovers a flight of stone steps leading down. The narrator, struggling with his pain, drinking slivovitz from a flask, sees a flight of stone steps rising ahead of him. Then he hears her.

At the opening of chapter six, the narrator awakens back in the corridor, cold, wet and in pain and feeling somehow the emptiness the woman feels, he recalls hearing her voice speak these words “Don’t let him, don’t let him take it, not now, it’s so close. Please…hear me…”. He returns to his room, there is a reflection here about how things might have been different, he walks to the desk, he picks up an old, leather bound, journal and reads words which are apparently both terrible and familiar to him. The woman wakes at the top of the flight of stone stairs and in pain tries to speak, uttering the words “Don’t let him…”. Time and space again seem distorted and confused.

Chapter seven sees the narrator reading a passage from the leather journal with this stark message “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…”. The woman is alone, she cries out the words the narrator had heard. She endures a traumatic nightmare in which she is being burned alive, the man returning to her as she wakes. He picks her up, their bodies close, there is tension, a dark passion between them, she feels an emptiness inside her. The narrator again opens the box, takes the key, once more walks out into the corridor.  The man and woman descend the stone steps, they hear footsteps approach. The time is said to have come.

At the opening of chapter eight, the woman finds herself in darkness, her fingers slipping out of the man’s grip after they had reached the bottom of the flight of stone steps. The narrator walks back out into the corridor, expecting to be transported once more to the blackened wood. He is not.  The woman falls into a dark void, screaming silently. The narrator walks to the end of the corridor, descends the staircase and walking out into the rain, filled with despair, he screams and screams.

Chapter nine opens with the woman alone in an empty, tiled, room, she struggles to regain consciousness. Her painful sensations on waking are described in some detail. It becomes clear that she rests on some kind of hospital bed. The narrator sitting in the rain in the street, seems confused and afraid about what has happened. He returns to the building, takes the lift, he is exhausted. The woman feels a pain in her belly. Touching her body she then realises they had taken it from her.

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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.

condensed:one:nine | fiftytwo