Author's Note: My first Jekyll fic.. It's been awhile since I wrote in first-person, I've mostly been using second since it is more fun. Considering that it was a spur of the moment thing and is rather short, I'd say it turned out rather well.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and obviously not the book.

There was one thing calling, sounding out from everywhere and nowhere at all. It spoke only to me, of something soft and so desperately longed for. Deep within the recesses of my tearing heart, I reached out to embrace it. Yet and still, no matter how far I leaned, it never came closer. I tried and tried, with all that I was and all that I could be, hounding after the one thing I needed. It was everything and all that could save me in those dark hours, when I was forced to remain in a guise both mine and not. I couldn't bare the burden of my dark and twisted form, but nor could I hold to my true one.

Perhaps though, somewhere down that tainted road I walked, the darker became the truth. I had indulged too much in the sinful pleasures, I loved it far more than ever I should have and the change so seemingly permanent in those obscure moments, was likely my punishment. To God himself though, I do swear, that I never meant it to go as far as it did. If ever I had known that Hyde's grasp on what is morally wrong and what is crime, had slipped away as he lay dormant, I would have burned the formula to the last minuscule drop. But I didn't and when I learned that painful truth, there was never a chance to make amends.

I had become, through Hyde's treachery, a murderer. Try as I might to deny it, to place the blame fully on my counterpart's shoulders, I could not. It was I that drank the formula, that indulged in the sin, and thus it was myself at fault. He is me; I am him. Fault one, you must fault us both; for no matter how it is viewed, we are one. Two sides of a very queer and twisted coin.

Through the peril and the panic of what had come about from my foolishness, a part of me knew I would never make it out alive. Even if I was to procure the right kind of salt and create once more that blasted concoction, how long would it last this time? For how long, could I keep my dignified form, before I reverted back to the monster, the murderer, Edward Hyde.

Each passing moment brought a stronger urge for my old life and I wished I had never dabbled in such dangerous affairs. One day, my research might strike down another and more perhaps after that unfortunate soul. Darkness had long ago gripped at my heart and then, sitting there in my minute sanctuary, it could not gain a tighter hold; there was not one.

I wanted peace, I wanted to be free.

So when it came to my exposure, by the hands of my servant and of my friend, I choose release. Through one means, though forbidden by the holy judge above, I escaped life itself. I could not face them, not in that form. It was too painful to so much as look unto myself through a mirror, but to see my face reflecting in their eyes, would have been worse than the very bowels of Hell.

In a little glass bottle, was my escape and through the vile contents, did I find my peace.

:Kanzen na: