A Case-Sensitive Matter

Dorian and Jekyll sat in an uneasy silence after that word was spoken...Hyde...
The very sound of it coming from his own mouth made Jekyll's skin crawl. He cleared his throat and took more deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves.
"This..Hyde...is you?"
Silence continued. Dorian pressed further.
"...How dangerous is he?"
Jekyll's eyes cut slowly to him.
"...Very."
The fire crackled, the wind outside whistling wildly against the window. "There have been deaths..horrors you can't even imagine..and they all came from me..the darkness inside of me."
The doctor leaned back, resting his arms against the sides and let an unnerving exhale escape his mouth.
"I only wanted to cure people..to take the darkness within men's hearts and separate it in a way for us to be free of evil..I wanted to cure evil...not succumb to it. Not for it to destroy everything I had ever worked for..."
"...It always does in the end. People like us never go unpunished for our sins.."

Jekyll closed his eyes, his face flooding with dread and regret, as he was visibly remembering the horrors he was speaking of.
"..I turned into a monster which had it's very own consciousness. A demon completely void of any remorse or moral. Hyde became his own entity. An entity that began to take over, regardless of whether I took the potion or not. Hyde is unique in the sense that the more evil he committed, the more he grew. The more he became dangerous and menacing. Within my stolen body, I was suffocated. I had no control when he took over."
"I see......how did you manage to escape his control? Because as I recall....you took your own life."
He nodded. "..And that's what I wanted the others to believe. When merely, I drank a concoction that imitated the state of death which lasted long enough for me to be taken away to the funeral home, where I woke up and escaped. Caskets are thankfully easier to get out of then six feet underground."
Dorian lifted his chin in amusement, "And you came here?"
"I secluded myself. Confining my very existence in this house. I paid an anonymous sum to the owner of this complex to be left alone, to ensure no one discovers who I am or that I am still alive. They wouldn't come looking for a dead man, after all. It's easier this way.. here I have regained control of myself. Suppressing the beast inside of me. There's no reason to be evil when you're sitting alone in a house, with no purpose other than to exist."

"How do you know he isn't coming back?"
"..I never said he didn't. He does...not often..but once in awhile...sometimes he slips through. Takes control for but a night." "And he doesn't escape out the door?"
"You assume I roam around the house freely when night time hits. No.. I chain myself in the basement. Where he screams and thrashes himself into a fit, trying to escape. But he has no chance to. I am confined as Jekyll and confined as Hyde. This house is the only domain I choose to remain in. For the good of all."
"But wait, old boy...how do you manage to be free? Surely you don't keep the key in your pocket?"
"It is brought to me. By a young girl."
Dorian's brows lifted. "A young girl, you say?"
Jekyll nodded his head, "Yes. She appeared not long after I came back here. And started to deliver food and newspapers to my doorstep, every day since. She respects my privacy and doesn't try to pull me out from my home.. hasn't alerted the police or told my old colleagues of my being alive. And every morning, she comes in, takes the key I leave on the table for her and unlocks me while I sleep. Bless her..she has been kind to me. I wouldn't have been able to function if it wasn't for her."
"And how does she know to do all this?"
"Because she left me a letter, her first visit.. stating that she knew who I was and she wasn't afraid. She was willing to help me, with food and news from the outside world, and in any other way she could. Even revealing that she knew of my blackouts and struggles with keeping him entirely at bay, having to lock myself downstairs. And that she would release me, if I only left her the key to do so. She's obviously very quiet, as I never am made aware of her presence out of my sleep. And it's been like that for months now...she's the only person, other than you, that I have contacted directly since I faked my own death."

Gray stood and pointed at the table full of envelopes with his cane. "And what of the letters? How did you manage to confiscate them?" Jekyll only chuckled. "A stretch of the truth, really..she took them. For me. Because I told her to."
"Good God, man..you could have gotten her arrested!"
"No, no..she gladly accepted the challenge. I asked her to visit with my colleagues and try to find some evidence that ensured they were still convinced I was dead, and not secretly.. speculating. She found the letters in their homes and took them before they could be mailed. And she left them with the food the next morning." "How long ago was that?"
"A month ago. Before all this accursed rain and nightfall hit."
He looked down at his pocketwatch and shook his head in disappointment. "It's 3:47 in the afternoon. This state London is under is absolute madness. It's almost as if it is witchcraft, if I believed that sort of thing."
"Oh, not witchcraft. Something more darker, more sinister than that... tell me, Doctor, are you familiar of the history of Egyptian afterlife?" Jekyll looked confused. "I know..they mummified their dead, believing in the possibility they would come back?"
"Indeed..mostly they did this with royal families, in the hopes the family would be made eternal, nevermind the death they endured so many centuries before. Sometimes, however..they would do this to the worst of Egyptian individuals..in which they placed a menacing curse upon..a curse in which I believe is responsible for this infernal darkness."

Gray began pacing the room, nodding his head gradually at the window, which gave a peek at the heavy rain just outside.
"Some time ago, a shipment from Egypt arrived in London, containing something quite astounding that they not yet chose to reveal to the public. Until nearly a week later, the British Museum announced a new exhibit. One that featured the sarcophagus of an ancient mummified Egyptian individual."
He glanced at Jekyll. "Rains began that week. More heavy and frequent than usual. And darkness began to settle.
And as time passed, it grew even worse. And worse. Until it's gotten to the point of constant darkness. Constant rainfall. Not a moment of clear skies or light of any kind. And it all began when that mummy arrived."

Jekyll scoffed at this, "You're not saying the mummy placed a curse on London?!" "What else could it be, Henry?! They shut down the Museum, why would they do that, unless something happened? Maybe paranoia? Maybe a death?"
Henry only held his shaking head, groaning at this silliness.
"Dorian, you can't believe such nonsense! There are no such things as curses! The dead simply can not raise themselves back to life! That's all superstitious babble that only small-minded people convince themselves of to believe they're not alone in this world!" "Heaven's sake, Jekyll, a man shouldn't be able to separate the evil from his own heart that becomes its own person! Don't you see? You, yourself, achieved in the impossible! Why is it so unlikely that the Egyptians, as mysterious and powerful as they were, were not in tune with the reality that stretches beyond life and death? That they were able to cast such a curse using that power? Maybe they're not the ones who are small-minded, Henry..maybe you're the one that needs to broaden his horizons and come to realize we aren't alone in this world."

Jekyll's eyes flashed with anger and he sprung up out of his chair, clenching his fists fiercely. "Why did you come here?! Why me?!"
"BECAUSE, Henry! You're not the only one trying to atone for the atrocities you're responsible for! I lost....I lost the woman I love because of it..I lost the life I was blessed with.. like you, I had a life of privilege and wealth and respectability. And it was taken from me, from my own actions." Jekyll turned his head to the side, "What do you mean?" "....There was a painting. A portrait of myself. And it...it possessed...power... unbelievable power...that it......it captured my very soul." The doctor's eyes widened in shock. Dorian sat back down, staring down at his own hand. "..Look at my complexion..my appearance..how perfect it looks. That is because of the painting. I no longer age. I no longer endure pain or injury. I can not be scarred. I can not be killed."

His eyes darkly lifted at the doctor. "..Henry, I am immortal. Time hasn't touched me since the day that painting was finished. I'm trapped in an untouchable body. But with a heavy price.. like you, I gave in to my own impure desires, my worst fears and nightmares coming true. I committed so many sins and hurt so many lives... and at the time, I had very little care of it. I was absolutely blameless in my own eyes. Thought myself free of consequence. Until I realized that..something was no longer right about me. I had changed........and I found out why. The next time I looked at the painting, I saw the horrific result of what my actions had caused. And what entirely had been inflicted upon me. The painting of myself had changed into a grotesque and demonic looking figure. That symbolized the man I had become. It was all the evil, all the wrong I had committed that showed through that painting. It was my very soul that it contained now. And it didn't just harbor that evil. It harbored my age. My injury. My heartbreak. What I was doing was killing me, without killing me. And there was no way for me to stop it."

The doctor fell back in his chair, staring at the floor.
"...And the painting..what became of it?"
"..Supposedly it was destroyed..only..it wasn't..he only made me think it was.." Jekyll cut his eyes. "..Someone?"
Dorian tightened his jaw. "The man who made the painting...he did this to me. He turned me into..a monster. And now..the painting is missing...and I am still alive." His head fell.
"I left my life and everything that I knew and came here."
"Why? Where do I fit into this?" "I needed you to help me heal."
"Heal?! Why would I, of all people, help you heal?!"
"Because, Henry! We ARE the same, don't you see?! We both have done terrible things and feel trapped in our remorse that we don't see the truth..we have a chance to redeem ourselves. Look at you! You stay here and lock yourself up, and for what? You're not LIVING, Jekyll! You're only existing! Life has given us, supposed dead men, a second chance!" "A chance to do what?!"
"To do things worth the trouble it causes us! To help others, to SAVE others..and not just the innocent. We as men burdened with sin know exactly what it's like for others of the same affliction. The monsters, the ones hated by society..we can save them, too, dear boy! Right our wrongs and make something of ourselves!"

Jekyll stared quizzically at Dorian for a few long moments before lowering his eyes at the floor. "You really believe...there's hope for us?" Dorian nodded, taking hold of the doctor's shoulders. "I do....and you're not the only one I found out about, Henry. There are others, sharing similar curses of their own...for instance, there is a man somewhere in London who has the ability to transform into a wolf...a scientist who turned his very body invisible.. a doctor who created life out of death, into a figure of fearsome power. These are men burdened with evil and we must find them...and free them."
Dorian grabbed hold of his cane and pointed it onward. "But first..we must eliminate the threat that looms over this city..we must visit the Museum and find that mummy. End this curse, once and for all! What do you say, old boy? Will you...join me on this voyage?"

Jekyll seemed reluctant to even look back at Dorian. He sat back down in his chair and took heavy, deep breaths, tightening his grip upon his kneecaps. "I know you're afraid that Hyde might be set free..but I promise you....this will end his reign inside of you...until you no longer have to worry about him ever again.."
This made Henry glance up at Gray, his face flushing with anxiousness. His tightened throat swallowed painfully and he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, exhaling it back out which helped calm his nerves. "Alright..." He finally spoke. He stood back up and nodded at the gentleman before him, a smile surprisingly stretching across his lips. ".. I'll do it."

CONTINUE TO..
Stepping Outside The Door