Hyde (3 page)

She looked at the tray of dinner dishes in front
of her but couldn’t recall having eaten the meal.

She stood bringing the book with her. She
wrapped the blanket, she couldn’t recall having around her back,
tighter and walked along side Roland.

“Engrossing isn’t it?”

She nodded clutching the book, “Its insane, he
was a madman. I feel like I know less about him thus far
though.”

“Its gets more divulging.” He opened her bedroom
door and smiled kindly, “Try to sleep.”

She nodded closing the door looking at the huge
bed, knowing she needed sleep. She put the book on the nightstand
and drifted quickly.

She slept soundly again even though her dreams
were vivid. She was standing in an alleyway. She watched as her
father, dressed in Jane Austen period clothing, stepped out into
the alley. He glanced around suspiciously and pulled a vial from
his pocket, he drank the vial. Suddenly his clothes became colorful
instead of black and white. The dream remained black and white, the
only color being her fathers clothing. He smiled and greeted
people. He seemed outgoing, not at all like he seemed in his
journals in the beginning. He met a woman, she had black hair and a
dark dress. The dress was not as dark as her hair, but in a black
and white dream color wasn’t easily observed. They walked hand in
hand. They laughed and strolled until a young man came upon them.
He was devastatingly handsome. Even in black and white it was
obvious, he was the most handsome man Hanna had ever seen. She
could see nothing in the dream suddenly, as he was the only thing
her eyes would acknowledge. He tipped his hat at the lady on her
fathers arm. He smiled and spoke, his sensual lips moved slowly,
making Hanna’s mind get lost for a moment. He smiled again and said
farewell to her father. He walked away slowly. Before turning to
mist, he made eye contact with Hanna. It was as if he knew she
watched him. He smiled at her a knowing smile filled with a
confidence in something she didn’t understand. She knew suddenly he
was Marcus, the young baron. She didn’t question how, she just
did.

The next day the fourth journal proved to be as
engrossing as the third. Her father wrote of successes with his
formula and enjoyed his time with Mary. He even wrote more of his
blossoming friendship with the young baron. He seemed to be at the
top of the world, with the only bother being the amassing deaths in
London and the sightings of the horrid monster causing them.

She finished the fourth journal feeling the
flourishing romance between her father and the mysterious Mary. The
year was 1806 and all was well in the world.

She looked out the window lost in the story, the
yard was suddenly full of blossomed cherry trees. Her father was
walking hand in hand with the remarkably beautiful Miss Mary. He
wore his top hat as she imagined and bowed like a gentleman. He was
kind and sweet, caring for the young lady more than anything in the
entire world. A pang of jealousy rushed through of her as she
wondered what it had been like to have his attentions. She couldn’t
remember everything from before her mother's accident but she
remembered what it had been like to see him smile genuinely toward
her.

The fifth journal again contained a switch, her
father seemed to come to some kind of a realization. He awoke with
blood on his hands and his clothing torn. She thought back to her
own memories, wondering if finally she was at the part she needed
to read, to understand her own dilemma.

He again burned the lab, not in anger but in
fear and desperation. He ran in terror, unable to understand the
changes he had undergone. Somehow he had come to an understanding.
He was, without a shadow of doubt, a monster.

He didn’t fully recall how long he had been a
monster, but he started to link the numerous deaths in London to
his changes. She watched as he traced his vials of elixir with
deaths and monster sightings. She trembled reading feverishly.

The symptoms were exact, chills, torn clothing,
blood, aching body, memory loss, weakness, exhaustion, and severe
hunger. They were all there, every one of her symptoms.

The worst was the missing memories, he seemed
desperate to attempt to rekindle his mind with his memories.

He missed Mary. He missed being normal. Slowly
he became the same recluse he had been before the magical potion
had saved him from himself.

He recalled the smallest details, her lips, her
smile. He remembered her eyes as they sparkled, speaking to him
while her mouth remained unmoved. He wrote of the way her cheeks
flushed when he touched her chin, lifting her face to meet his. His
heart broke as his mind cracked.

The ramblings of a madman returned, as he became
lost in his work, hiding from the world and himself. He was crazy,
insane even.

She recalled her memories painfully. His
insanity was no doubt hereditary. She too would lose her mind in it
all.

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she read
feeling his pain. She knew why Roland had been so adamant for her
to read the journals. She couldn’t help but see her father in a
different light.

Her father wrote of paranoia and mysteries he
couldn’t solve. He was like a man with schizophrenia, who believed
the world he lived in existed outside of everyone else. Even when
the world tried to reach him and pull him back, he believed in his
paranoia over the reality he saw.

One page in hundreds contained sentences she
understood, words that made her believe he had come out of his
stupor. He would write of love and anger, but in a sensible way she
could comprehend.

The sixth and seventh journals were no different
than the fifth, he remained lost and alone.

The eighth journal brought back a character from
previous journals. He was the same man who had so actively
befriended her father. He was the young Baron, Marcus Dragomir. He
had searched high and low, traveling everywhere, searching for her
father. He found him in Paris, hiding below a church. He had
survived on the kindness of a priest, who saw the man behind the
madness. Her father's rarely occurring clarity had convinced the
priest that he must help him. The priest believed it was possible
god was testing him.

Marcus brought him to an Inn with fineries he
had not seen in years. He spoke of Mary who had long since married,
as the year was 1810. She had mourned and waited considerably
longer than was expected of her. Hanna’s father wrote of a pain in
his chest he had never experienced. It was a pain that ripped
through him, destroying the man he had been. He was left the cold
and solitary man, she had known nearly all her life.

Marcus then offered him a deal. As he was numb
and closed off, he accepted without thought. What did he care what
happened to him when everything had been lost? It would be the
fresh start he needed to redeem himself. He suspected he was guilty
of many crimes at the end of the eighth journal. Perhaps too many
crimes to be redeemed, but he would try in Mary's honor.

The ninth and final journal was a rebirth for
her father. He seemed determined again. He started his experiments
again in a new lab in Paris, which Marcus had built it for him. He
tried to create a new elixir, one that would stop the changes he
was aware of. He asked Marcus to watch him in the night, watch him
sleep. He believed it was when he became the monster he assumed
himself to be.

Marcus confirmed his worst fears, in his sleep
he transformed into something Marcus troubled at explaining. He
roared, attempting to escape the chains and shackles he had donned
before sleep every night.

His clothes had ripped, his skin had stretched
and he had become something he would call his alter ego, Mr.
Hyde.

She put the journal down.

"Mr. Hyde?" She spoke her skepticism allowed to
no one.

She looked around the room.

In disbelief, she continued reading.

His first elixir had worked in creating a man
who was more, but in the attempt he separated his good from evil.
He had made himself something unnatural. He recalled the many times
he had woken in the hall of his home or on the step of his back
door, covered in blood. He recalled his tattered clothing.

Some nights the blood on his clothing had been
his own. He believed Hyde was trying to kill them both. His only
chance at survival had been the blood of the young Baron. It had
healing properties her father had yet to experiment with.

He knew what he had done, the murders in London
had his name upon them.

Marcus disagreed convincing him that he had no
responsibility for what his alter ego did. He could only take the
blame for what he did as a waking man.

Her father listened to reason but knew deep
inside he was to blame and the guilt would rule his life for nearly
two hundred years.

She put down the ninth journal. She felt sadness
and confusion but she knew at least what had happened to her
friend. The dreams were real, they were memories. She knew she had
murdered Rebecca. Regardless of the fact her father wrote the words
alter ego, she could not let go of the pain and guilt that wreaked
havoc on her heart. Heaving sobs shook her.

Roland entered the room with a tea and a box of
tissue, “You must see it is not your fault.”

"I have schizophrenia. I've murdered her like my
father did in London. I'm a monster like he was. You need to lock
me up."

"No my dear. It's not what you think at
all."

She shook heaving, she felt as her father had.
She remembered the smallest thing about her friend. Hanna
remembered her smile, her tears over a broken heart only six months
prior, learning to skate, laughing at the horror movies they had
shared a love for.

Her friend would never grow up, would never
marry, would never have children, she would never become the nurse
she always wanted to be. Hanna smiled softly recalling how odd
Rebecca was. When everyone wanted to be a princess or figure skater
or veterinarian, Rebecca had wanted to be a nurse.

Hanna knew it stemmed back to her older brothers
death. Rebecca had been four when her brother Tyler died of
Leukemia. The nurses became part of her family, they lived at the
hospital with him for nearly a year as he slowly declined. Only the
nurses brought a smile to his face. Only the nurses knew the
smallest sweetest things to make him happy, when the pain became
too much for an eight year old to bear.

Hanna cried wishing it had been her, if only it
had been her. She wished for death and wondered why her father had
never just killed himself?

Roland rubbed her back softly, he stayed quiet,
just as she needed him to. Slowly she became what her father had, a
shell of a human.

"I want you to commit me. I need to stand trial
for the murder."

Roland took her hand. He led her down a hallway
to a room. She shivered as he helped her sit.

He flicked the lights off and walked away.

She heard nothing but her breath as she sat
alone in the dark.

Suddenly light filled the room from a
projector.

A black and white movie began to play on the
wall in front of her. Hanna looked around for Roland, but saw that
she sat alone in the room.

The movie was of her father. He stood in a
boxing ring with a man. The other man had his back to her. Her
father nodded as the man swung out violently and struck her father
in the face. He was knocked back. She gasped. The man ran from the
view of the camera quickly.

He father staggered slightly and then began to
tremble. The camera got closer to him as his skin began to crawl.
She felt as if she were trapped inside of a horror movie as his
legs began to grow. He fell back onto the mats. She closed her eyes
as his clothes began to tear away from his expanding body.

It was special effects, she was certain it
was.

She peaked through her fingers, as suddenly
where her father had stood, a giant monster took his place. It's
face and body was hideous. It bulged muscles from every limb. It
looked around, it realized there was a camera on it. It ran after
the camera, which dropped instantly.

The movie stopped as it closed in on the
monsters face. She looked at the eyes, they were his, there was no
doubt.

She sobbed.

Chapter Three: How do you say stupid in
Americano

The days turned to weeks before she knew it.

The video had proved it. She had made Roland
play it over and over. He was a monster, her father was a monster.
He had created her and she had turned out like him.

She felt as if she watched herself withdraw,
growing mad just as her father had. She wondered to herself what
had brought him back from the brink? Had it been her mother? She
recalled him laughing, she recalled him smiling. They were few and
far between the memories of such things, but she remembered them
just the same. She remembered his face when she lost her first
tooth, he had seemed overjoyed in the smallest things.

“You must stop this nonsense, your aunt and
uncle have filed missing person reports and are declaring you dead
to the police as your friend is. They have filed to have you
declared dead.”

She looked up from the oversized brown chair not
even realizing she were in the study. She looked out the window
wondering when the trees had turned brown?

“I wish that I were.” Her words were as empty as
her heart.

“That is nonsense and we both know it. Yes your
friend died as you changed. Yes your other you might have been the
one to kill her but it was an accident.” He walked to her, kneeling
on the ground before her. Worry filled his eyes so deeply she
couldn’t see his face beyond them, “Yes it is the worst thing that
could possibly have happened. Yes.”

He shook her slightly, “If he had known you were
like him even slightly he would have taught you about it. Your
blood showed nothing of the sickness. Something has triggered this,
don’t you want to know what made you this way?” His eyes filled
with something else, anger, “Don’t you want to know who made you
the way you are?”