The door cracked open and two timid blue eyes peeked out. Realizing that everything was safe, he opened the door all the way and stepped onto his front porch. Not being used to the sun, he squinted his eyes from the brightness.
It's now or never. He thought to himself as he gazed at the road.
He took a deep breath, pushing his fears aside, and headed slowly toward the mailbox. In his hands he held a large brown envelope, ready to go to its destination. He stared up at the large fluffy white clouds for a second before he placed the envelope into the mailbox. Flipping the flag up, he turned and headed back inside the house.
...
The firemen had just finished putting out the flames. One of them came out of what was left of the house carrying a body. He placed the body on the ground and shook his head.
"Poor guy. Never had a chance." He said
"Fire got him eh?" Said another one of the fire fighters
"No. I don't know what it was, but he was already dead before the fire even started."
"What a shame. Well get a body bag and take him to the morgue."
...
Eric glanced down at the envelope in his hands.
"Who is it from?" Donna asked, peering over his shoulder
"There's no return address, but I recognize the hand writing."
"Hyde." They said together
"Well come on open it."
"It's not just for me Donna."
"It's not? Who else is it for?"
"All of us. See?" He pointed to the address
"To my best friends." Donna read aloud
...
Eric, Donna, Kelso, Jackie, and Fez gathered in a semi-circle in Hyde's former basement room. The brown envelope sat on the floor in front of them, with their eyes resting upon it. Neither of them wanted to open it, getting the feeling that it was going to be something bad.
"Hey Kelso you open it." Eric said
"Why should I open it?" He asked
"You're closer."
"Uh-uh. It's practically touching your foot. You open it."
"No way!"
"Here you big babies! I'll open it" Donna said, stopping the argument
She bent forward and picked the envelope up. Her eyebrows narrowed together as she opened the envelope and peeked inside.
"What is it?" Jackie asked
Donna pulled out a note and read it to herself "Oh wow. You guys aren't going to believe this." She said as she reached in and pulled out some more things from the envelope
Besides the note, the contents of the envelope were of the following: a five page long letter (front and back), two sets of keys, a couple matches, Hyde's sunglasses, and a notebook.
"Why would Hyde give us that stuff?" Fez asked
Donna looked at the first note again "Um you guys this doesn't sound good. Listen to this. 'Here are the keys to my house and the El Camino, as well as a couple matches. Just follow my instructions in this note without question. Even if you do have questions I wont be able to answer them. Actually everything will be explained in the letter. The sunglasses are for anyone of you to keep. The notebook contains every one of my conspiracy theories. Keep that safe until the right time comes to unleash the truth to the world. I'm trusting you guys to do this for me.'"
"What does he mean by instructions?" Eric asked
"Oh God." Donna dropped the note and covered her eyes
Eric wrapped his arm around her, and then looked at the letter.
"Here's the letter." He said, letting her go. He picked up the five-page letter and began to read it silently
"What does it say?" Kelso asked
"Give me a chance to read it." Eric answered. His eyes widened as they ran through the paragraph again "Oh my God you guys. You know what I think this is?"
The other four looked at him with a silent gasp of realization. They remained silent as Eric read the letter out loud.
"This may come as a shock to you, it may not, but I've come to a final conclusion about my life. After what I've been though these past couple of years, this is the best thing for me. Please excuse me if my writing is difficult to understand. It's just really hard for me not to cry as I'm writing this.
I know I didn't give any explanation as to why I left when I did. I just couldn't face any one to say goodbye. You must have known how depressed I was before I left. I had to escape from every one and every thing I've ever known to try and figure things out.
So I went out of town and found a house that was for rent and moved in. I kept my El Camino in the garage so no one would be able to find out where I was. The Camino would have been a dead giveaway. Sorry but it had to be this way.
Most of the time I didn't do any thing. I just kept myself locked up inside my house, even had the blinds drawn all the time. I'm not going to lie to you, I was miserable. What am I saying? I still am miserable. Most days I would do nothing except sit there curled up in a chair, too depressed to move. If someone came to the door, or if the phone rang, I would ignore it.
Then I started abusing myself, bad. I would hit myself really hard, or cut myself. When I got bored of that I stated doing drugs. Pot, coke, heroin, pills… whatever I thought would make me feel better. This of course only made things worse.
One day some thing bad happened to me. I was out of food so I went to the grocery store to get more. This was the first time in a long time that I had left my house. Anyway I went down one aisle with my cart, and there were other people there. This one woman gave me kind of a sympathetic smile like she knew I was going through some rough shit. I turned away from her and started to do my shopping.
Every time I reached for something I could feel the stares at the back of my neck. I just knew they were watching me. I turned around and, I don't know if I was imaging this, but I swear everyone WAS watching me. Not just looking at me, but watching me in a bad way. I don't know what happened to me. I never felt like this before. I guess it was some kind of anxiety attack because I started to panic and I couldn't breathe. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor against the shelves of food. People started coming up to me, which made me feel worse. They asked me what was wrong, but I couldn't speak. I was shaking and starting to hyperventilate.
I don't know how I even got home. But from that day on I developed like this fear of leaving my house. My anxiety was so bad it was almost paralyzing. If I needed food I would just have it delivered. But this isn't even the worst part. We've all joked about it man, but it's finally happened. I've completely lost it. I don't know whether it was the drugs, or being cooped up inside for so long, or a combination of both… but I started hearing voices. They would tell me to do things, bad things. I try to fight them all the time. They haunt me so much I can't stand it. To tell the truth, I have been trying to fight the voices while writing this letter. I just don't know what to do.
Sometimes I have to yell and scream at the voices to shut them up. It works most of the time. But there was this one time not too long ago that it almost didn't work. I was to the point of tears trying to get them to go away. I know my neighbors heard me, because someone called these men to take me to the hospital. I was crying so hard when they came. I don't really remember what happened, but long story short I'm still in my house. It's really hard to say if I didn't imagine them.
I can't take it any longer. There is no way I'm gonna be able to continue living like this. I know this isn't the best solution but I don't know what else to do. I'm gonna have to end my life. I'm sorry but it's the way it has to be. But remember this, you guys have meant a lot to me, every one of you. Of all the years I've known you I wouldn't know what I'd do without you. You're my best, and only, friends. You're my family. I will always love you.
Love always,
Steven Jacob Hyde."
Utter dead silence filled the room after the final words of the letter were read. Hey each had tears running down their cheeks.
"I don't believe this." Jackie said
"I know. Who knew Hyde's middle name was Jacob? I didn't even know he had a middle name." Kelso said, half jokingly
"Yeah. Maybe… maybe he stole it." Fez added
"You guys this is serious." Donna informed
"Sorry Donna. It's just… Hyde would have said something like that to lighten the mood."
"You know what? You're right." Eric said "But now we have a job to do. For Hyde." He finished with a brave sniff
...
Eric pulled the car over when they reached the house. They knew it was Hyde's house because, like he said in the note, he had the El Camino pulled out of the garage.
"This is it." He said
They got out of the car and slowly headed inside. Since it was in the middle of the night, they were trying not to make any noise to disturb the neighbors. Once inside they looked around the house, and found Hyde's body lying in the bed, with his face buried down in the pillow. Even though there were tell tale signs of a suicide, they still checked for a pulse to make sure.
"Ok where's the note?" Eric asked
"Right here." Donna pulled the note from her pocket and unfolded it "He wants some one to move the El Camino back into the garage. Then…" She paused
"Found the gas can." Kelso said as he came in from the garage
"Did you put the car back inside?" Jackie asked
"No why?"
"That's what Hyde wanted us to do. Now go do it."
From Hyde's instructions, they made a gas trail from the car in the garage, into the house and up to Hyde's bed. Then they made a gas trail out the front door and onto the porch.
"Well that's it guys." Eric said as he sat the can down
"Here's the match." Donna said softly as she handed it to him
Eric struck the match and dropped it into the gasoline. The five of them stood back from the fire. They huddled together by the road and watched as the house began to burn. It was mesmerizing to watch their friend's house, along with his body inside, to burst into flames. They stood there watching gape mouthed as the raging fire mirrored in their eyes.
"Wow. That's pretty." Fez said amazed
"Yeah. It sure is." Said Kelso "But this is so weird knowing that we're burning his body along with it."
"I know what you mean Michael. I never thought I would actually be doing something like this. Especially for one of my friends." She sniffled
"You know? Hyde always wanted to go in a big way. I guess this is as big as it's going to get." Eric said, pushing the lump in his throat down
"Sure is amazing." Donna started "But we really shouldn't be standing here. Don't want to wind up in jail for arson."
"Yeah let's go." Eric added
They started to get into the Vista Cruiser, but Eric stood there for another second.
"This is for you buddy." He said as he produced a joint from his pocket, along with the second match that Hyde gave them
He got in the car and lit the joint, inhaling deeply before passing it off to his friends. They drove off into the darkness, leaving the house and Hyde to burn through the night.