Sadly, I don't own The Incredible Hulk TV series.
Please let me know what you think of this.
The End of my own Horror Story.
Agony. That was the first thing David felt as he transformed back into his human form and his rationality returned as it replaced the Creature's savagery as he looked up into Yasmin's teary face which was being illuminated and highlighted by the searchlight of something. It gave his new girlfriend an almost angelic quality, even with her dark attire. It took a moment for him to register the fact he was lying on his back on the ground, but it took another moment to realise he couldn't move and when he did he was horrified when he realised he couldn't move his toes while he rested on the impacted concrete.
But how had this happened?
The last thing he remembered was chasing after the plane which was bearing down on Yasmin. The plane carried Yasmin's twisted sister and somebody else who was apparently psychotic and had a grudge against her. David had run after her in the hopes of helping her get to safety, following his doctor's oath but his promise to make sure everyone in need he met since his ill-thought-out experiment at the Culver Institute which had transformed him into the Creature, but he had transformed along the way.
How could he have ended up like this? What had happened? But it was the impacted concrete of the runway which gave him a clue as to what had happened to him; this kind of impact and injury could only have happened if he had fallen from an extreme height. Had the plane taken off and the Creature accidentally fallen out? Somehow David doubted the latter part of that question, but there was no way he could be sure; he felt too numb with the shock, and he knew enough physics and medicine to know every bone in his body was shattered beyond repair. Indeed, David felt himself get increasingly weaker, and he could feel his eyes getting hazy.
He was dying.
For a horrifying moment, he wished he could transform into the Creature again - wasn't that a rare moment; usually, he would rather exorcise the knowledge he transformed into the mutant abomination, but there were times where David had to acknowledge the Creature had the power to do a lot - and heal them so then he could continue living and building a life with Yasmin, and experience happiness like he had done with Laura, Carolyn, and Maggie; he knew the Hulk's healing powers would heal him and he could live so she would not be alone.
But as he surrendered himself to the comforting haze overtaking him, David realised this wasn't as bad as he'd originally believed. He felt…liberated, free. And he slowly came to the realisation that death may be the ultimate cure to being the man who transformed into the Creature. It wasn't the cure David had originally envisioned for himself; when he had first set out looking for a cure after realising events had spiralled out of control while he had worked with Elena, David had pictured himself adopting a fresh identity or resuming his old one with a story for the media about why he had been pretending to be dead for this long. But as the years had passed and his attempts at curing or at least finding a way of controlling the Creature failed dismally, David had lost all hope; the mess with the Gamma transponder had been one of the worst blows since David had already known he could cure himself thanks to taking cells from his own body and exposing them to different hormones before he learnt adrenaline triggered the transformations which turned him into the Creature before he sabotaged the machine and he lost his hope and chance, leaving him so depressed he no longer cared if he lived or died before that mess with the subway and Wilson Fisk. It was only with Matt's help David regained his desires and strength and was the primary reason why he had worked for so long and patiently to break into Ronald's lab to see if he could find a cure here before the scientist found him and David was forced to reveal his identity.
And he had thought it would work, but Yasmin's break in which caused a scuffle and an accidental fire that put Ronald's life in danger had ruined that for David and made his hopes plummet again. Until now, strangely. He knew from Elizabeth's summary over what happened to Del and how he had finally died after the Sheriff shot his own creature during that confrontation in Dr Clive's old lab the Creature was not immortal, not truly. If this was really what death was it did not take David long to embrace it.
But, Yasmin, Ronald, and Amy. He could not just leave them, could he?
He didn't want to, but he knew there was nothing they could do to save him, and as he looked into Yasmin's shadowy face, he could see her horror at his condition, David regretted how much this liberated him but as he felt himself slipping away, he felt freedom for the first time in his life, especially when he had first transformed into the thing which ruined his life.
As he slipped away, David remembered everything he had been through….
Visions of his childhood, working on that farm growing up when his mother died and how he blamed his father for it without realising the other mans' pain.
He was in the Culver Institute, listening to the accounts of various people who reported experiencing moments of extreme danger…and yet were capable of moving steel beams and lifting up cars, feeling nothing but jealous rage as he remembered how he had failed to help his wife, Laura who had died in a car accident only two years before and was left frustrated because his efforts to discover why some people could exhibit strength beyond normal human levels and he couldn't.
He was wandering through a swamp during his first year on the run, carrying Julie Griffin who is being hunted by a corrupt doctor and her stepmother who was already responsible for the murder of her husband, and Julie's father, and he's trying desperately to keep his cool since this whole mess triggered more changes than he needed but at the same time, he was desperate to make Julie see there was nothing wrong with her legs…
He is in San Francisco, under the tutelage of Li Sung, the wise and kindly Chinese philosopher, who has shown him proof of incredible control over his body and he hopes Li Sung can help him control the creature within while trying to investigate just what his new friend's partner is doing….
He is hauling Jack McGee over the landscape following their plane crash, his face wrapped in bandages while he is trying to recover his memory but little bits are becoming clearer every day….
He is watching in horror as Elizabeth Collin's mother runs away, leaving the brilliant but troubled young girl reeling while she tries to explain but the girls' lack of social knowledge makes it harder for the older woman to cope….
He has been sent to a work camp for doing nothing more than taking an orange. That was it. In the camp, he is forced to work but he sees the corruption of the place and the guards….
He is recovering from being drugged by Mark Sutton, a hunter who became twisted after becoming bored with hunting animals and has switched his attention to humans, and he is being forced to contend with the tedious and dangerous traps as the hunter closes in, knowing he might have to rely on the Creature if his intellect falters for an instant in this deadly game of living chess…
He is sitting opposite Rhodes in a police station, listening with increasing fear and worry as the police officer slowly turns the direction of the questioning away from the murder of so many young girls to speaking about himself in the third person, and he talking like he is a different person before he realises Rhodes is the murderer while outside the people outside are becoming restless since they want him to pay since they think he's the killer…
He is standing at the gate of a small escape tunnel, looking out as Del Frye's transformed creature bellowed in triumph, and he is terrified. Del possesses a bitter, darker personality than he does, and he's terrified of what he's unleashed….
He is helping 3 mentally troubled women escaping from prison after bonding with them, chased by a warden who is psychotically focused on capturing one of them…
He is trapped in a cell in the City shaking from a nightmare of himself transforming in a courtroom and strangling the prosecutor, but knowing there is nothing he can do; the corruption of the city want him to rot in prison for a murder he did not commit, regardless of what Matt Murdock and his team do. When he transforms, he hopes the Creature will take him somewhere where he can get near his things and get away from the city. He does not care anymore…
He is…here, dying.
And it feels liberating.
"David, don't. Don't die. We can be free, now!" Yasmin says, her voice shaking from her crying.
"Yasmin, I am free."
And then it went black, and David Banner died, finally freed from his never-ending nightmare.