David wakes fitfully from a dream in which his wife was screaming at him and his son was sobbing hysterically. As he comes to in his dark bedroom the sound of his son sobbing begins again; David calls out to his son repeatedly until the sobbing stops. He sits up at the side of his bed, still coming out of sleep, before being jolted by the sound of his son’s bedroom door slamming. Then there are the light footsteps of a child running along the hall in to the bathroom. David leans forward, peering out of the doorway in to the darkness of the hall, unable to see anything.
Then there is a sound of breaking glass in the bathroom, and his son begins crying again. David stands, calls for his son – “it’s okay, Daddy is here, it’s ok” – then warily makes his way down the corridor. As he nears the doorway of the bathroom he notices fragments of broken mirror glistening on the floor.
He reaches the door of the bathroom, and his son stops crying. He reaches for the light, hesitating for a moment before switching it on. When the light comes on, the ‘Harrowed Man’ is stood in front of him in the bathroom, barely a foot away.
The Harrowed Man is tall, deathly thin with ribs showing through skin that is lifeless and marked with scars and bruising. Rope-like twists of scarring snake along his flesh, red and brown, over his body, disfiguring the skin wherever they cross. His face is like an emaciated corpse, the lips split back in a hateful sneer; his white, cataract-filled eyes glaring hatefully out of dark, lidless pits. His is a face that exudes death, hatred and anger.
David gasps and recoils in shock, seemingly frozen where he stands.
Then the Harrowed Man lunges forward, shoving David, sending him tumbling violently down the stairs.
It's not his first appearance in the script, but it was the first time he made an appearance in my head, so to speak! I've been writing other parts to the treatment too, and will post some excerpts at a later date. Until then, thanks for reading!
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