I'd like to thank you nice people (miceaholic and S.L. Gibbs) for the lovely reviews!
miceaholic: I'm glad you liked the prologue, and I hope you enjoy Chap 1 just as much! Yeah, there are so many conflicting ideas for exactly how Jackson/Holt are related to the first Jekyll and Hyde, and I usually write them as being the grandson(s) of the original, with their mother being the original's daughter(s). But, for this story I stuck with their father being the Original deal, and their mother being a fire-elemental.
S.L. Gibbs: yeah, I stole the little flame-brain nickname from Spider-man and the Human Torch! Glad you liked my little throwaway gag!
To review, I don't own either 'Monster High' or 'the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' I have no sense of fashion and could never create a line of fashion dolls, and I'm just not as amazing as Robert Louis Stevenson.
Please enjoy Chap 1!
Chapter 1: "Walking Down a Darkened Hallway"
I was born in the year 18- to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every degree of an honorable and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame.
– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll
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Heath pressed his yellow finger against the Jekyll's doorbell, took it off, and pressed again, going back through this routine several more times. He couldn't help himself; it was a new school year, and he would finally have a real friend to hang out with who would put up with him and his stupidity!
Jackson finally opened the door, looking less than pleased as he winced and cleaned out one of his ears with his finger. He looked like he had been rushed in getting dressed, and he had left his shoes untied, his button-down shirt only halfway tucked in, and his black hair was soaking wet. Crossfade, the chameleon, sat perched on his shoulder.
"I was taking a shower, Mr. Trigger-happy!" He narrowed his blue eyes at Heath through his glasses.
Heath cringed. "Ah... sorry? But it really is time to start for school."
Jackson looked at his watch in surprise. "Oh! I didn't even realize what time it was!" He turned on his sneaker heels and rushed back into the house.
Heath stepped into the house, looking around curiously. Boy, the house was quiet. "Is Aunt Sydney here?"
"No, she went to work earlier this morning, and she probably won't be home 'til midnight." Jackson came running back to the front door. He had a green tote bag over his shoulder and a towel over his head, which he was drying his hair with.
"Ready to go?" Heath asked his normie cousin as he threw the towel to the floor, where Crossfade promptly curled up on it to go to sleep.
Jackson nodded, and the two cousins raced out the door.
Both boys were really wishing that New Salem High had a bus or something that they could just ride, but the folks running the school thought that the kids should all either walk or drive themselves. They were rather cruel, in this regard.
The two cousins had only gone two blocks of straight running before they were starting to slow down. Heath had been on the school track team for years, and he was used to running fast for long periods of time, but he knew that Jackson was not, and the nerdy normie was already tired out.
Heath sincerely hoped that he hadn't caused his cousin too much damage by the exertion or anything. Who else was he going to play 'Guitar Monster' with?
A large, black hearse with pink trim rolled to a stop beside the curb where the two boys were resting. They looked up as the window rolled down, and the driver leaned out to talk to them, noticeably being very careful to stay out of the sunlight.
"Hi, Heath! Is this your cousin that you were talking about? My new next door neighbor?"
Heath smiled in recognition. "Hey, D! Yeah, this is my cousin, Jackson Jekyll. Jackson, this is Draculaura. She lives in the house next to yours."
Jackson straightened up from leaning on his knees to meet this girl who drove a hearse. She had black hair that was dyed pink, pointy ears, and small fangs that poked out from between her lips. He became nervous when he realized that she was a vampire, but she was too friendly for him to be nervous for very long.
"Next door, huh?" he asked her when he caught his breath. "So you live in that house that was built to look like a creepy old castle?"
Draculaura giggled, clearly not at all offended by his description of her home. "Yeah, that's the one! My father is very fond of the old-fashioned ways, and he never really left Transylvania behind." She shook her head suddenly, causing her ponytails to bob back and forth. "Anyway, you boys looked tired, so I thought I'd ask if you needed a lift to school or anything?"
"That'd be great, D!"
Both the boys climbed into the back seat of the vampire's car, happy to sit and watch the scenery fly by rather than race through it trying to make the bell.
Jackson couldn't help but stare when he realized that their driver had no reflection in her mirrors. All he could see of her was her earrings and clothing, floating in her seat.
He looked away when Draculaura noticed his wide eyes in the mirror and turned to look at him. She looked slightly amused.
"Sorry," he stuttered, embarrassed. "It's just... I've never actually really met a vampire before, so, um..."
She giggled. "It's alright. I'd rather be stared at than staked, so as long as you're not throwing holy water on my face or stabbing me with a pitchfork, I don't mind." She flashed him a dazzling smile. "Just be careful not to stare at everyone, though. I may be okay with it, but there are lots of other monsters who wouldn't like it. They would take it the wrong way, and who knows for certain how they might react."
Jackson nodded nervously. "So... what other kinds of monsters go to this school? Fire-elementals, vampires..."
Heath began counting types off on his fingers. "Gorgons, werewolves, zombies, minotaurs, ghosts, skeletons, mummies, sea monsters..."
"Pretty much everything you could possibly conjure up in your mind," Draculaura finished the list.
Jackson swallowed. "I don't even do well with humans, historically speaking. How am I even going to survive this... Monster High School?"
Draculaura bit her lip, feeling sorry for the normie who sat in her backseat. She didn't have the heart to answer him, not even to remind him that it was New Salem High, not 'Monster High.'
Then she brightened, and she glanced back towards the boys. "It's not like monsters are the only students at New Salem High! There are plenty of normies there, too!"
"Like Lilith," she added under her breath, an unhappy sneer on her face.
Jackson heard her and saw the change that came over her face, but chose to say nothing.
