Author's Note: Hey everyone! OK, this is something that I wrote a little more than a year ago, but I completely forgot about it until I found it lurking in the depths of my Documents folder about two weeks ago. I made a couple revisions to it, and ta-da! Here it is!
For now, it's just going to stay a one-shot, but if I get some activity on it, I might just put up the following chapters that I also wrote a year ago. :)
Basically, I got the inspiration for writing it while I was casually reading the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. You'll see the some of the same names of similar characters, but the relations pretty much end there. The rest comes from my wonderful imagination. Well, enough rambling from me- enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, events, etc. relating to the story of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, of whom the original work is of Robert Louis Stevenson's brilliant mind, and the rights belong to their respective owners, who obviously do not include me.
Hidden in Plain Sight
3 Years Ago…
Hannah's POV
That terrible morning I woke up at 8 o'clock, feeling oddly refreshed. I didn't know why, but, back then, that day felt like it was going to be a great day. I had only had one class scheduled for that day, so that had already been a one up on the scale.
I quickly showered and dressed before bouncing down the stairs. I had heard my father's loud coughing from the kitchen, so I inferred that he must have been making me breakfast. I knew that I was eighteen and should no longer have my dad make me food, but his chocolate chip pancakes were too scrumptious to pass up on.
I practically skipped into the kitchen, impatient to what I was hopefully about to see unfold in front of me. "Morning Daddy," I sang.
My father, Dr. Henry Jekyll, muttered a reply that was inaudible. I sensed that something was wrong, because, right then, I realized that: A. My dad's face (what I could see of it, because his graying brown shaggy hair was mostly covering it) was unnaturally gray and B. The only food in the kitchen was the one cup of coffee that my father was drinking.
I walked over to where he was sitting and squatted down to meet him at eye level. "Dad, are you feeling OK?"
He nodded his head a little violently while he kept his emerald eyes glued to his Colorado State coffee mug. "Uh, yeah. Just a little down under the weather, that's all."
I leaned forward slightly and felt his forehead with my manicured right hand. "My god, you're burning up!" I sprung up as I declared, "Let me get you your medicine."
I began to rush upstairs to his room to grab the pill bottle that sat on his bedside table, but he stopped me with his words as he proclaimed, "No! Don't grab it! I can't take it!"
I froze in my tracks, my red flats squeaking on the pale white tile on our kitchen floor. Exhaling sharply, I turned around to face my father. With a concerned, yet stern expression on my pale face, I questioned, "Why the hell not?"
"It has too many...side effects. Trust me, dear, I'm fine." He pushed his thin wire glasses up his nose and gave me a weak smile. I supposed that it was just his way of trying to assure me that what he spoke of was the truth. I, however, suspected otherwise, simply because I knew my father well enough.
I sighed and, in spite of that little revelation, succumbed to my father's strange pleas instead of insisting that I took him to the hospital, my reasoning being that he probably knew what was going on with him better than I did. "Fine," I began. "But if your condition gets any worse, don't say that I didn't warn you."
"I promise, Hannah, I'm FINE." He stressed the last word on purpose, adding almost a goofy tone to it- just like the way that he used to when I was little.
As I then proceeded to rummage around the kitchen for something to eat (I settled for a granola bar and a banana) before I headed off, I replied, "Now, I've got to get to class, but if you need anything or get any worse, please call me."
"I promise that I will." He flashed me a weak smile and supported that with a slight thumbs-up.
I chuckled lightly, gave him a kiss, and headed off to my class of the day (advanced English literature...yay) at Applewood Community College. And the whole time, the only thing that I could think about is how I thought that my dad was lying about how bad his health was. It scared the hell out of me.
Henry's POV
As soon as my daughter got into her blue Toyota Camry and left, I howled in pain. I could tell that my self-diagnosed "disease" was killing me, but the only way to cure it was to let the darker side of me out. And that would never happen, never again. As I fell out of my wooden support of a chair and let the blinding fire in my brain run its course, I thought about everything that had happened throughout the years.
When I was first sick, I believed that the power that was bestowed on me was wonderful, but after more than nineteen years of living with it, I had decided that it was not a blessing, but a curse- and it needed to be terminated.
It seemed to be, at the time, that the only way to end it was to end myself. It was a part of me, and there was no way of getting rid of it without leaving myself an empty shell.
After the agony in my mind subsided and I had fully returned to my senses, I slowly, excruciatingly dragged myself up to a seated position, where I proceeded to stand up, albeit with difficulty. When I felt that I was able to walk without possibly falling down once more, I spent a great time pacing (even though it was more like limping), still wondering if what I was about to do was the best (and only) option. I looked at the clock, noting that it read 11:15- Hannah had just gotten out of her class.
It was at that moment when the agonizing pain in my head took over once more. I screamed, collapsed to the floor, and then grunted as I crawled across the kitchen floor to the phone in the living room. I had one last call to make before I was gone forever.
Hannah's POV
After an hour of sitting in a pitch black classroom, the sun's light felt extremely harsh. I almost felt like a vampire who has just stepped into the sunshine and was now burning to death. I dramatically put my hand over my chocolate eyes, moaning in the process, but it didn't do any good.
A few seconds later, my phone began to ring and I had to run to the shade of a big maple tree in order to see the caller ID. Seeing who was calling, I answered it, fully terrified. Shaking, I squeaked, "Hello?"
A voice croaked on the other end of the line. "Hannah? Are you there?"
Violently trembling, I answered with, "Yeah, Dad, it's me. What's up?"
There was a moment of silence and then what sounded like something crashing before my father said, "Hannah, I just want to say that, for all of this, I'm genuinely sorry. You don't deserve what's coming."
Tears began to slide down my cheeks as I demanded, "Dad, what's going on? What aren't you telling me?!"
There was silence once more. I heard a soft moan and was just about to call out for my father when he returned again and stated, "I've failed you by making too many terrible mistakes, and you must never know how or why. These secrets that I am burdened with, Hannah, some are too horrible for you to ever discover. And now, I must take them to the grave with me. Goodbye, Hannah, and just remember- I love you."
The line on the other end clicked off and I knew in my gut that my father was gone. As fast as I could have gone in my car (speeding and breaking the law by God knows how many miles per hour), I raced home to a horrible sight: my father was lying on the rug, the phone still in his hands, and an overturned table and the broken remnants of a lamp lying right next to him.
I dashed over to him and threw myself down into a kneeled position beside him. I took his pulse, which was very weak, and took in any other injuries that he may have had, which, thankfully, seemed to only be a small gash on his forehead where, presumably, the lamp or table hit him when they toppled down. I called 911, rolled him over, and gave him two pills from the bottle that I retrieved from his bedside table, praying that they would bring him back to a conscious state. The opposite seemed to happen, however- my father's heart stopped.
In a completely frenzied state, I began CPR on my father. As I broke his ribs and pushed against his heart, I cried and screamed for him to wake up, to not leave me like my mother had all those years ago. It was once again a matter of life and death for a family member of mine- and Death was winning once more, as if history was repeating itself. I tried and tried for what seemed like hours to revive him, but nothing was working.
The paramedics arrived after what I discovered later to be seven minutes from the time that I called and took my father in an ambulance to a nearby hospital. Throughout the entire ride there, as the paramedics worked on my dad, I held his hand as I sobbed and, over and over, whispered to him that I loved him, that I didn't want him to die. I didn't even realize we had gotten into the emergency room until a kind nurse separated me from the rest of the busy party and escorted me into the waiting room, where I proceeded to fall into one of the uncomfortable chairs. After doctors tried to hopelessly revive my father for an hour, he was declared dead. Receiving the news from the head doctor, I collapsed onto the floor and wept until the doctors tried to get me to stay in the hospital due to my distressed state.
Just a few days afterwards, my father was buried. It was a closed casket funeral, as he had requested things to be private, whatever that meant. It rained, as it seems to do at every funeral, and, once my extended family members and my father's few colleagues and friends left, I felt a sense of emptiness inside my heart. I stood in the rain for hours, left staring at the grave of not only my beloved father, but my best friend.
After everything was over and my life started to get into an unfamiliar swing of daily motions, I couldn't help but feel that the mysterious circumstances surrounding my father's disease and his ultimate death were just never going to come to light.