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 | twentysix

He was soaking wet.

Every fibre of his clothing was dark, wet, cold and clinging to his shivering body. The place in which he had awoken seemed pitch black. He could see nothing. He could feel nothing.

For a moment, a moment of pure terror, he imagined that he was blind. Those few seconds, fractions of seconds, seemed to stretch into eternity. The prospect of a life of eternal darkness took his breath away, his mind froze.

Then, slowly, he began to remember.

First, there had been a key. When he had opened his eyes, he remembered finding a key. His mind wandered as he mulled over how he could possibly remember having opened his eyes if he could not see. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind.

Something told him that he had no time for such thoughts.

Oh, how he longed for the short, sharp, internal warming of a shot of slivovitz. The feeling of the viscous liquid covering his tongue and flowing freely down his throat, warming and calming as it filled his aching belly.

His mind wandered. Memories of plastic flowers, faded photographs, a walk on a spring day. Memories of taking photographs. Memories of searching for something. Something special. Those memories haunted him.

And, of course. She, haunted him.

He recalled how, on that warm spring day, a day filled with hope, he had first found that (or was it now, this) hole in the ground. Recalled how they had walked around it, wondering about its history. Wondering about those rough hewn boards pulled across the opening.

And then, of course, he had returned.

Alone.

And, in doing so, he had found the key.

His memories were blurred, confused and contradictory. He found it hard to make sense of the fragments of recollection that engulfed his mind. Driving snow, ice and an endless road, a journey filled with hope and expectation. A large, empty square, a tower with a clock that had changed over the ages, some felt it boring, out of place, its figures changed over the ages by tyranny. A column, a column that somehow made him think of plague, of death and horror.

And, of course, he remembered her. The feel of her hand in his. He remembered it all. The hospital cell, that small hard, narrow bed. What they had done there, what he had done to her. He remembered the cries as she submitted to it all. He remembered the box.

He remembered the end.

Her hands, those fingers that he had held in his. Entwined in those of the man in black.

Her eyes, lifeless, cold. Her gaze fixed on him but with no emotion, no feeling.

Whatever had been there. Gone.

He needed that shot, needed it more than ever. His fingers reached down to his pocket, blind instinct reaching out.

And he knew then. What he had always known.

Bad things happen.

Then, something inside him shivered, stirred.

He was not quite dead yet.

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.

twentysix | 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 | twentyfive

His eyes closed.

His inert body sank below the surface of the back water, coming to rest on the submerged floor of the tomb.  Face down.

Ripples splayed out on the surface of the water, enlarging concentric circles the only trace of his passage from the ground above.  Soon, even those petered out. The black water still, impenetrable.

Had he been able to look up, from the place his body rested, and been able to see through the dark water, he would have seen a small whiskered face gazing down into the water below. Cold blue eyes, pupils dark slits, revealing nothing. Two clawed paws gripping the edge of the hole.

And, had he continued to look, he would have seen another pair of eyes join those of the whiskered sentinel at the portal of death. These eyes, dark, unmoving.

Her eyes.

She stood there, the creature at her feet. The ripped white shift she wore still clinging to the curves of her body. Stained and shredded by the horrors she had suffered.   Her hair ragged and dirty, pasted to her face, a face covered in the filth of the night.

She bent down, the shift rising up as she did, revealing her emaciated and bruised body. She lifted the creature up, cradling it in her hands, raised it to her lips and pressed her thin cold lips to those of her familiar. The kiss was long and deep, her body shuddered, the fur on the back of the creature erect, it’s claws digging into the soft skin of her hands.

The dark kiss ended.

She placed the creature back on the floor.

Behind her, another moved. The man in black. He moved toward the hole in the ground. Stooped, reaching toward the rough hewn boards that lay partly covering the water filled tomb. He pulled them across the hole, covering it. Blocking the light. He continued his work, placing heavy stones on the boards. Sealing the opening.

He turned to her. His lips a thin dark slash in the darkness of his face. His voice harsh, grating, “He will trouble you no more”.

She turned. Walked away.

Reaching the plot next to the stopped up hole she knelt. She lay down on the cold stone, her arms reaching out, seeking comfort in the cold stone.  Her body stiff, bruised, her breast pressed hard against the harsh stone. Her empty dark eyes closed.

The man in black walked away, along the path toward the iron gates. He did not turn back. He did not touch her, did not speak to her. Walked away. Walked toward the waiting red tram. The bell rang three times, the door opened. He climbed aboard. The door slammed shut. The tram moved away slowly.

It was dark. So cold. So very cold.  His eyes opened. He saw nothing. He was soaking wet. Feeling returning to his aching fingers and arms. He reached out. Fingers clawing along the cold floor.

His fingers touched metal. A key.

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.

twentyfive | fiftytwo