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