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The Asylum: Part 1
Within his first few days at the asylum, Jekyll had gotten the sense of the place. There was a women's wing, a children's wing, and a men's wing. All three were upstairs, as was the common room. There was an observation wing and a medical wing on the right, entering the building from a front, and a criminal wing to the left.
Then there was the wing in which he had been placed…
They called it the lost wing. It too was to the left, and it was the darkest most horrifying place one could imagine. It was where you were kept when you were never getting out or could not be allowed get out. The patients kept here were those who could never be returned to society, exceedingly dangerous and, as was rationed, better off dead. Patients who could not be trusted to be near to others for the risk they would pose to them.
He had requested it specifically. It had not been the choice of the doctors who, at first, had looked at him with reverence and deep respect. For a while it seemed they forgot he was here as a patient, not as a peer. They had done him the courtesy of giving him a tour of the asylum and he had been grateful for it. They had concluded the tour with the Lost Wing, and that was when he had reminded them of the sobering reality and asked that he be kept there. It was, after all, under the highest security. On par with the criminal wing. They attempted to talk him out of it, but he had held firm to his request and at last they had relented.
He could not complain, he supposed. Compared to the vast majority of other prisoners kept here, things were pleasant for him. The doctors held him in highest regard and practically saw him as a celebrity, so they had ensured he would have as comfortable a stay as possible. There was candlelight, a carpet, a comfy chair, a lovely bed. One could be forgiven for thinking it a hotel room, if not for the constant, unsettling screams that ripped through the air. Shrieks of the mad, tormented, and terrified.
He was granted more liberties than most other patients He was indulged with books upon request and any tea he might have the taste for on any particular day, and whatever else it was he required for his pleasure, but he did not expect that such treatment would last so he would not allow himself to become too comfortable. The asylum was a busy place. The doctors had their hands full dealing with patients. Inevitably the novelty would wear off and he would be forgotten here.
This particular wing of the asylum was in possession of a very select staff. A set number, set faces, set times. It was all very rigid. The doctors and nurses stationed in the lost wing were not like the others. They could not afford to be. The patients placed under their care, if one could call it that, were not the sorts that could be reasoned with. They were not rational, they were near uncontrollable, and they were utterly unpredictable. Harsher hands were needed, or so it was believed. This wing was not a wing of healing. It was a wing of containment. When nothing more could be done for you, here you were placed.
Jekyll was not particularly fond of the staff in this wing. He had learned quickly that they could not be counted on for much of anything. Harsh treatment and constant belittlement were the norm. They could not look at even one another without suspicion in their gazes, much less the patients under their care. He heavily suspected they were made up of disgraced doctors and medical professionals, or men and women harsh by nature who would not refrain from using physical force to keep control of their unruly charges.
He turned the page of his book and sipped at the tea he had at his side. He could not say how long he had been here. He did not keep track of the days, like others tended to. It would only depress him. He slept when he was tired, ate when he was hungry, and chose to try his best not to think of anything that might be happening in the outside world, because to do so would only dishearten him. Regarding Hyde's appearances, they had been few and far between. He had been fortunate in that. So far they only happened in the night when no one was there to witness it. He had no clue what Hyde got up to when he was out. Frankly, he didn't want to know. As far as he could say, no one had witnessed an emergence of Hyde yet, and he would be well pleased if it could stay that way. He would put no stock in that hope though.
As he sipped at his tea again, he heard the door to the room being unlocked and removed the cup from his lips to look curiously at it. It opened and he was greeted by one of the highest-ranking doctors of the asylum, a balding man with glasses who was likely in his sixties or so. The man wrung his hands, looking nervously around as if this wing was the last place he wanted to be. Most likely it was. This place was avoided like a plague by anyone who did not work here. He was sure that if the staff stationed to it had a say in the matter, they would board the whole place up and leave the poor wretches locked within to die. A scream ripped through the hallway, echoing off the walls, and the man shuddered.
"Dr. Jekyll," he greeted nervously, hands wringing even more than before. "I tell you surely, doctor, that this place is cursed. Likely haunted as well. Whenever anyone sets foot inside, or drifts too close, they all report the same sense of unease."
"Fear of the unknown, Dr. Kef," Jekyll answered. "Fear of the unpredictable. Fear of what you cannot control. There are many things one could be fearful of when stepping into a place of such despair as this. I only wish there was something I could do to help."
"Regarding that, doctor, I have actually come to request something of you," Dr. Kef replied.
"Oh?" Jekyll asked curiously.
"Yes. Word has spread, you see, of your dealings with the girl child," the doctor said. "Since you handled her so very well, doctor, and since you gave your recommendations and your recipe for a medicine to help, she has improved immensely. At least compared to what she was. There happens to be another rather difficult patient at my disposal that I cannot seem to get a sense for. I haven't even a clue where to start with seeking a remedy. I was hoping that perhaps you might be able to reach him where I cannot?" Dr. Kef timidly asked, sounding a little embarrassed about the matter.
"Doctor, I am a patient here," Jekyll replied.
"I know, doctor, but I fear that if I cannot cause him to improve soon, he will be written off as a lost cause and sent here. But I know he can be helped, I know it! I just cannot determine how. Please, Dr. Jekyll, I beg you. Must anyone else endure a place such as this?" Dr. Kef asked. As if accentuating his question, a woman's frantic and terrified shrieks rang out through the wing, piercing enough to cause the hairs on the backs of their arms to stand on end. The sound of electricity followed it, causing to lights to flicker, and the shrieks went silent. An eerie hush followed in the wake.
Poor Kef was shivering, Jekyll noted. He could not blame the man for that. He let out a shaking breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and suddenly felt exhausted. It would be good for him, he decided, to get out of this wing for a little while. He turned back to Dr. Kef. "Very well doctor," he relented, laying his book to the side and rising.
Frozen
He followed Kef in silence, lingering behind him. Shouts and sounds of weeping or whispered prayers or deluded whisperings accosted them from all sides. Jekyll kept his head down. So did Kef. Neither wanted to potentially witness whatever treatments might be administered to the 'difficult' patients, as he had heard the doctors here call them. "For all its flaws, this is our most prolific and progressive wing for treatment you know," Kef said weakly. "All sorts of new methods are being tried, some that have not even been written down or have only been proposed. Inducing fevers to kill infections that may be causing madness, and causing the body to convulse because it is rumoured that schizophrenia and epileptic seizures cannot exist at the same time!"
"I have seen both exist at the same time," Jekyll bluntly said.
Kef seemed to deflate a bit at this. "I suppose the success rates were questionable at best anyways. Perhaps even overstated," he said. They lapsed into silence once more. "Truth be told, no one knows the depths of the treatments practiced in this asylum. We are cutting edge, though. At least as much as we can be. That said, many methods are still quite… uncomfortable to utilize or witness. Straightjackets and dousing wrapped bodies with cold or hot water seem to calm patients down, but I do not think it works in the sense we would like to believe. I feel it may be due more to shock and fear than actual effectiveness."
"Then why do you continue?" Jekyll asked.
"Dammit all, Jekyll, what else are we supposed to do? All we can hope for is that one day we stumble on something that actually does the trick! That is how humanity increases their knowledge, isn't it? Trial and error?" Kef replied.
"If you are not certain something is working, and in fact believe it may be doing the opposite, why do you continue to try it?" Jekyll asked.
"Because at least it's better than doing nothing," Kef replied, pushing open the door to the primary wing. The one from which all other wings branched. Kef closed the door behind them, and it felt like they could breathe again. The tension in their bodies melted away the further from the lost wing they got. "That place is wrong, Jekyll. Why you insisted to be put there is beyond me! Why it is even rumoured that, well, you know the condition of hysteria, don't you?"
"I know of it, and of how various doctors perceive it," Jekyll replied.
"I myself believe there are two types. One effects only women, the other effects men and women both. What is your take on female hysteria?"
"I for one do not believe it exists in the sense most perceive it," Jekyll said. "Hysteria itself exists, most often a response to a highly emotional situation resulting in an uncontrolled panic or sense of terror of some sort, from what I have observed. Something like that at least. Female hysteria, as I have heard it presented, is not hysteria at all. The supposed treatment of it and its success rate further set in stone my take on it."
"And that take is what precisely?" Kef asked.
Jekyll looked suddenly uncomfortable and glanced around. Kef paused, curious. Jekyll looked back to him and murmured in an undertone. "My suspicion is that one of the forms of so-called 'female hysteria', is actually a form of, well, of sexual frustration, doctor."
"Sexual frustration? That's ridiculous Jekyll! Women have no sexual drive," Kef said.
"Doctor, women have a sexual drive just as men do. Trust me. I know," Jekyll dryly replied, looking unimpressed with the response.
"You know? Why Doctor Jekyll, don't tell me you've gotten yourself involved in scandal," Kef said in vast amusement. "Why the word is you're among London's most desirable bachelors! If a bit of a kook, they say."
"A kook?!" Jekyll demanded in outrage. "Who on earth…? No. Nevermind. I don't care to know."
"You know what I mean old bean. Your ideas and hypotheses are quite radical you know. That, however, is not what most interests me so much as this news you may not be as much a bachelor as they claim."
"Being a bachelor does not mean I have not indulged in depraved vices. In my youth I was… promiscuous, we shall say," Jekyll said. "Those are days I look back on in shame and disgrace and would sooner forget ever happened. I was guilty of a great many vices, back then, that could have and probably should have gotten me committed."
"Daddy's money not enough to occupy you?" Kef asked.
"Daddy's money was more than enough to occupy me, otherwise I would not have been able to afford such evils," Jekyll replied, bitterly shaking his head.
"I take it that was not quite the use your father thought you would get from his wealth," Kef said, sounding somewhat sympathetic.
"I suppose you have heard rumours of that relationship as well then?" Jekyll asked.
"You are a figure of great curiosity in London," Kef answered ruefully. "And your father, rest his soul, was popular too."
"Why I haven't a clue," Jekyll bitterly said. "My relationship, or lack thereof, with my father is no one's business but mine. Nor does it matter anymore I suppose. He is long dead in his grave at this point, and there is no going back."
"I suppose you were relieved?" Kef asked.
Jekyll was quiet, measuring his answer. "I wish that I had been old enough, when he died, to have matured enough to want a better understanding of him, and to repair our relationship. I laughed the day he was buried and spat on his grave. I look back on that now and I hate myself that I did. If I had been half the person then that I am now, perhaps things could have ended differently than they did. Now you did not drag me out here, doctor Kef, to gossip. You were bringing me to a patient, recall."
"Yes, of course, and was about to express to you a concern of mine as well before we went off topic," Kef replied, starting off again. "I am sorry, Dr. Jekyll, for prying so."
"Apology accepted. There are more important things to worry over than holding petty grudges over nosiness," Jekyll answered. "What concern were you about to express?"
"Regarding the whole matter of female hysteria. I have heard tell one or two or more of the doctors in your wing tend to, well, rather enjoy treating female patients for the condition when they have not initially presented with it. Those doctors claim, when questioned, that it developed after admittance. Needless to say, not everyone is convinced. In fact, very few are convinced."
"Human waste," Jekyll venomously said.
"Agreed. Only we cannot root them out because hardly a patient down there is halfway capable of expressing themselves coherently, or if they are, their narrations are unreliable at best, and that is across all patients. A few have managed to get it out, but when police have been sent to investigate, well, who would you be more inclined to believe? A madwoman or a doctor?" Kef asked. "Needless to say, the investigations usually go nowhere. Acts of heinous torture and in some cases molestation of patients are hidden under veneers of treatment."
"Then why are the suspected parties not outright removed?" Jekyll asked.
"Because those patients, Dr. Jekyll, are the throwaways," Kef solemnly answered. "At least that is how they are viewed. The men and women who die here, there in particular, are not even given named graves. If they have no family on the outside to come collect them, they're buried in holes with blank markers stuck over them. Maybe with a death date, or if they are fortunate a gender, and everyone just calls it a night. If their families have abandoned them here, the bodies must be disposed of somehow. That, though, is an aside. What a few of the doctors in the lost wing are supposedly guilty of is sickening, frankly, but getting rid of the cretins orchestrating the acts is not an option. They could destroy us in the eyes of the public and ruin all we are working for here. Moving them to any of the other wings would put in jeopardy men and women who still may have a chance. Those in the Lost Wing do not. That is why it is hardly a place for you, I think."
"On the contrary, it seems the wing in which I could prove to be most useful, if any of the staff below would listen to me," Jekyll answered.
"A select few are decent sorts, I think. Hope, rather. They, though, are in the minority I am afraid. The attitudes of the cruel ones as well are starting to seep out into other parts of the asylum. It is most difficult and distressing," Kef said.
"Your logic behind telling me this, I suppose, is in the hopes that I will be able to catch the perpetrators in the act and thusly give the victims a voice that they do not otherwise have. A respected one that will be listened to and result in the offending parties being removed," Jekyll said.
"I had hoped," Kef confirmed.
"I will do what I can for as long as I am able," Jekyll answered as Kef unlocked the door to the men's wing.
Frozen
The moment they stepped inside, a sense of despair and grief filled the air. Jekyll paused as he stared down the men's corridor. The sight that greeted them was wretched, to say the least. A good number of the saner ones played cards or behaved in other such manners most would consider normal, true enough. The ones that sat listless, though, betrayed the sort of pit of despair that this place was.
The first one that stood out, as they began to walk, was a young man curled up on a bench, knees drawn up to his eyes as he rocked back and forth muttering and looking terrified. Jekyll felt his heart twist as he watched. Kef, noting his interest, solemnly said, "He recently returned from fighting in a war. He has not been right since, or prior. It was why he was discharged from the army and sent home."
"Trauma," Jekyll said, approaching the young man.
"Do not do that, doctor. Do not move quickly towards him or make any sudden move. For that matter do not startle him with a loud sound or any other potentially startling thing. He will lash out. It seems he nearly killed a few of his own brothers-in-arms in a panicked fit, prior to his being sent away. He too is on the verge of being sent to the lost wing. Everyone is frightened of him. He is a trained combatant. If he wanted to kill or injure anyone, he could."
"I may know how to ease his symptoms," Jekyll said.
"The man I am bringing you to needs your help more," Kef insisted.
Jekyll cast another look towards the young man, not pleased with the idea of walking away, but at last he relented and continued to follow his peer. He jumped with a gasp when a patient suddenly lunged at him and seized his coat. "Doctor, doctor help me! They're eating at my brain. They're eating me alive!" he exclaimed. Jekyll, flustered, could only gawk. Quickly the offending man was seized by some nearby doctors, who raced to restrain him. "Doctor, doctor, help me! Help me!" the man pled as he was dragged away. Jekyll stood stock still, holding his breath, until the man was dragged off.
"Where are they bringing him?" he soon found his voice to demand.
"After that fit? We'll wrap him in a straight jacket, place him in a cage, and bind him until he has settled down," Kef answered. "That or put him in an ice bath."
"Neither of those things are going to help him!" Jekyll insisted.
"What will then, doctor?" Kef demanded.
"I don't know, but not that!" Jekyll said. "He is having a hallucination of some kind. Perhaps he is ill and it is merely a symptom of something!"
"Speculation is not going to help us determine how to treat him. Only slow us down from doing what we know seems to work, even if only temporarily," Kef said. "He is not the man you are to see."
Kef continued to lead him along. Jekyll, flustered, followed. He was led down a set of stairs going towards a basement. They entered into a room and Jekyll froze, eyes widening. Bound in a chair dangling above the ground, strapped down by wrists and ankles with a strap around his head as well, to keep it stationary, was a man with a bit in his mouth and a savage look in his eyes. Jekyll was horrified.
"This is the man," Kef said, gesturing to him. "He holds a bitter loathing for anything and everything, it seems, though that is only one of his many conditions."
"Little wonder he seems to hate everyone and everything! Look at where he is!" Jekyll snapped, gesturing to the man. "What other sorts of treatment has this man received?"
"Ice baths, hot baths, shock therapy, most everything at our disposal," Kef answered, starting to shift uncomfortably.
"For goodness sakes, Kef, release the poor wretch!" Jekyll insisted.
"We cannot, doctor. He will inevitably attack," Kef replied. "He lashes out at everyone! The only man he seems to tolerate at all is me for reasons beyond my understanding, and that he has yet to divulge. Recently, though, even my hold on him has been swayed."
"Were you the one who put him there? Or brought him to any treatment?" Jekyll asked.
"As of yet no. Not personally," Kef replied.
"Then that is probably why you have thus far been safe," Jekyll said. "What changed before he began to come at you?"
"I prescribed a shock therapy," Kef somewhat ashamedly replied. "He begged me not to on hands and knees, but I wouldn't listen. Everything else had been tried! A shock therapy was the last idea I had before more nasty treatments would need to be resorted to, or before the Lost Wing came into play! If he should have begged for anything, it was to not be sent there."
"What more nasty treatments could possibly be used on him?" Jekyll demanded.
"Restraints for a certainty, and shock and drug therapies that are far more intense than the ones generally used. Even asphyxiation and waterboarding have been used as treatments for some conditions for goodness sakes! I have seen doctors wrap the heads of patients in sacks or cloth and suffocate them to unconsciousness. I have heard tell of them holding wrapped heads under water until the patient actively attempts to drown themselves out of despair. Fear is an excellent control method, it seems."
"It always has been. That is why it is so popularly used," Jekyll said. "Play on fear mixed with ignorance and you can control the minds of the masses. I am not here to discuss philosophy, though. Release that man already! I should like to speak with him."
"Doctor Jekyll!" Kef began.
"Doctor Kef, take a look at me," Jekyll bluntly said. "His body is indeed young and strong, I give him that, but I am at least two heads taller and well-built enough a man that I will be able to overpower him, if I must. Let him go."
Kef hesitated a little longer before at last approaching the patient. He brought down the chair and began to loosen the bonds. Almost immediately the man began thrashing. Jekyll frowned and approached. Kef gave him room to work. Jekyll deftly undid the restraints, not allowing himself to be intimidated. The moment the patient was free, he went at Jekyll with a furious shout and began clawing at him in a rage. Jekyll fended him off, staggering back a few steps before managing to get a handle on the younger man, turning him around and dropping them both to the floor on their knees. Jekyll, teeth clenched, secured the patient from behind and held him fast until the younger man gave in with a frustrated and hopeless shout, practically going limp in Jekyll's arms. Jekyll held him fast a few moments longer before determining it was safe to let him go. He did so. The young man collapsed to the ground with a gasping breath and lay there, still and unresponsive. He was not unconscious, just refused to speak or even move all that much.
Jekyll moved around him and knelt in front of the man, silently observing him. "You have been diagnosed with fits of rage, as I understand it? The cause unknown, from what I can tell." The young man was quiet. Jekyll was quiet, observing him. "Doctor Kef, this man is suffering from depression," he said simply. "I know it well. I have experienced it, numerous friends of mine have experienced it… it's hardly a condition worthy of him being in an asylum I would think."
"He was placed here after an altercation with police that almost resulted in multiple deaths including his own, doubtless intentionally," Kef said. "Depression I guessed at well enough. Attempting to get him to repress his emotions, via medications or treatments, has not worked out. Trying to talk him into being happy has not worked either."
"Probably because that is not how depression tends to work," Jekyll replied. He turned to the patient again. "Young man, what is your name?" he asked. No response. "You wanted the police to kill you," Jekyll noted. Silence. "Why didn't they?" The young man flinched at the question. "Must I learn your background from outsiders?" Jekyll asked. "Why should they have to speak for you? You seem quite capable." A tightening of the jaw. "Do you not think yourself capable? Or have you not been given the chance to be?" Silence. "Overbearing parents perhaps?" The young man scoffed. "Ah. I know that all too well," Jekyll dryly said. The young man gave him a dark look. "My father was difficult to get along with, we'll say. Exceedingly controlling and a perfectionist. The only time I was ever allowed to speak for myself was when he was not around. You can imagine the things I spoke when away from him." Something that was like a laugh escaped the young man's lips. A sharp breath of air, really, and a bitter uptick at the side of the mouth. "I was never good enough for him you know," Jekyll wistfully said, looking up at the roof. He let out a frustrated sigh and turned to the young man again. "Down to his dying day I was never good enough. I feel like an overbearing father, though, or mother, would not be enough to drive you to try and die." Silence. Jekyll waited.
"Begone doctor. I am dangerous," the young man at last bitterly said with a grunt.
"Why did the police come after you?" Jekyll asked.
"Begone doctor. I am dangerous," the young man darkly repeated.
"So am I," Jekyll answered quietly and gruffly in a tone that did not sound like his. He started, straightening up with eyes wide. The young man looked puzzled. Jekyll suddenly stood and began to walk quickly away.
"Jekyll? Jekyll, what is it man?!" Kef called after him.
"I have to go. Now," Jekyll urgently said. The young man rose, attention now fully on what he was witnessing.
"But-but the young man!" Kef called.
"Get him exercise, let him out into the gardens to get some sunlight, feed him healthy meals, and introduce him to that poor soldier up there mad from trauma and see if helping others does not pull his head out of his backside and get him thinking of something other than his own misery and self-pity!"
The young man started and looked wounded. "Doctor Jekyll!" Kef exclaimed in shock and horror. He turned quickly to the patient. "You must forgive him, Fredrich, he is not completely right in the head!" Fredrich seemed to only begin shutting down. "He is a patient here as well as a doctor, a very respected one, but he suffers from an ailment of two minds!" Kef said in a desperate attempt to keep the young man's attention.
The young man looked quickly at him, momentarily distracted by curiosity. "Two minds?" Fredrich asked, mystified. "I've never heard of such a thing!"
"Follow me and you may soon witness it. The condition is exceedingly rare, as far as we know. One mind is himself and the other is something else," Kef replied. He looked after Jekyll. "I get the feeling that the something else is about to emerge, and when it does may the powers that be help us." He couldn't leave a suicidal patient alone, but he could not allow the doctor to march through this hospital unsupervised either, if something dark was emerging from within him.
Frozen
Jekyll marched quickly down the corridor filled with patients. Then one made the mistake of lunging at him, and he knew nothing more.
He did not know how much time passed between then and when he came back to himself. When he did, he found himself wrapped in a straitjacket and strapped down to a table. He thrashed quickly before realizing what his being in this position must mean. He froze, a chill racing up his spine. What had Hyde done? His mouth, he realized, was covered by a wrap.
"Doctor?" a timid voice said. He glanced out the corners of his eyes. Kef was there, looking exceedingly nervous and frightened. Jekyll was silent before looking back up at the roof. Silence hung in the air. "Fredrich refuses to see any doctor but you. You've become a curiosity to him," Kef said, at a loss for what else to say. Silence. At last, Kef dared to move forward and removed the linen from around the doctor's mouth. "Doctor?" he asked again.
"What happened?" Jekyll asked.
The silence hung heavy again. "You attacked a patient who lunged at you. He screamed something about killing the doctors before they killed him, and something just snapped, it seemed. One second you were recoiling, the next you were upon him quicker than anyone could fathom, beating him to a bloody pulp with your bare fists." The man's voice wavered in fear. Jekyll couldn't bring himself to look at him. "It took Fredrich, me, some other patients nearby who could understand what was happening, and a couple more doctors to rip you off him and wrestle you into submission. You damn near bit fingers off when they tried to slip a pill into your mouth. A syringe was what was resorted to, in the end, to knock you out. You were dragged down here, wrapped up in a tight wrapping, and strapped down. They are waiting for you to awaken. If you show further signs of aggression, they may attempt electroshock treatments or an ice bath."
"There will be no further sign of aggression," Jekyll said. Kef was quiet. "What happened to the traumatized soldier, when Hyde emerged?"
"He lost all sense and tried to throw himself from a window screaming like hell itself was on his heels," Kef at last said. "Fredrich was the one to stop him, so your suggestion the two be introduced did end up happening it seems. Though not in the way we intended."
For a moment no one spoke. "You should not have taken me from my cell," he finally said.
Kef was quiet. "The little girl you spoke to, when first you came here, has improved immensely since your intervention. She has begun to start to play again, she speaks of wanting to see her aunt, she talks more freely, and she has become quite fond of her nurse Nancy. They say it is practically a miracle, how much your prescribed medication and your advice worked. I intend to take also the advice you offered regarding Fredrich. You are the greatest hope that some of these patients have, Jekyll. It is rumoured you are constantly on the cutting edge of medical sciences, that every promising new treatment or proposition offered is one you will try, and your background as a chemist besides? Whatever concoction you came up with for that child worked wonders for her. I rather hope you will offer one for Fredrich as well."
"I am not here as a staff member. I am here as a patient," Jekyll replied.
"You can be both, can't you? Incognito, of course. Goodness knows the legal bounds that would be broken, but what other choice do we have when you are their greatest chance?" Kef said. Jekyll gave him a curious and wary look. "I can give you access to a chemistry station and all the ingredients we have on hand for you to work wonders to your heart's content. It may help you to keep Hyde at bay, if your days are spent focused on something you love doing. If in the process what you love doing leads to the curing of our patients, all the better. Mix up the potions or remedies you know will work, and help us treat all we can. If not everyone," Kef said. "Like you did with the little girl! Like I hope you will do for Fredrich who now demands that the next doctor who comes to him must be you. You caught his attention it seems, Jekyll."
"Warn him that if I have become his intrigue, it will only be to his own detriment," Jekyll cautioned.
"He wants that, does he not?" Kef solemnly answered. Jekyll's jaw twitched. He knew how true those words may be.
"Are we in the lost wing?" Jekyll asked.
"No," Kef replied. "Relatively few witnessed your transformation. All who did were bound to strict secrecy. Eventually Hyde will spring out in the Lost Wing and the doctors there will see him for themselves, but as long as it can be kept from them, let it be kept from them. You are of more use here semi-free, despite the risk it may pose. How much worse off can the poor wretches in this place get anyway?"
"Do not ask questions you don't want an answer to," Jekyll replied. "Very well, Kef. I will play at your game and see how it goes."
"Thank you, Jekyll," Kef gratefully said.
Frozen
Jekyll sat in his cell reading through a book distractedly as distant screams and manic giggles echoed in the halls. The sound of rolling gurneys occasionally broke up the monotony, and the sounds of echoing footsteps. Those, of course, also gave rise to horror. He could not focus on his book and eventually gave up, placing it to the side and massaging his eyes. He flinched at a distant cackle and let out a breath. He felt eyes on him and glanced towards the window. A doctor was there with two nurses. All three were grim-faced and uncomfortable to look at. They wondered at him, he knew. Why he was treated with such honor in the grimmest wing of the asylum.
Over the last week he had been taken in and out of his cell regularly and brought to see various patients to offer suggestions or prescriptions for them. He looked towards his chemistry set. The day he had seen Fredrich for the first time and become Hyde, it had been brought to him. He thought they were all fools. Hyde was not without understanding of how to mix chemicals for nefarious purposes. He had requested multiple times that it be removed and usually it was, but always whenever he woke up or was returned to his cell after being brought from it, it was there again. He could only assume Hyde and other than him general ignorance. Careless fools. If ever he saw a potion he could not remember brewing, he disposed of it immediately. Jekyll rose and went towards the window. He smiled cordially at the doctor and nurses outside, who watched him warily. He gestured towards the chemistry set and shook his head, trying to convey to them he did not want it. There was no response at first, but soon the doctor nodded to a nurse to open the door. Jekyll frowned a little at this. Not much a man, sending a petite woman like that to unlock the door of a mental patient twice her size. The doctor would have done well to do it himself. The man would certainly prove to be a better match for Hyde than the young lady he was sending would. Callous cretin.
The door opened and the nurse nervously slipped inside, casting an uneasy look at him. He smiled cordially but did not speak to her lest it frighten her further. She quickly wheeled out the cart on which the chemistry set was kept and hurried off. She locked the door behind her. Jekyll looked at them again and nodded a silent thanks. To them he seemed sane, he knew, and that it seemed was the sort of thing they trusted least of all about him. They were wise, he would give them that. Perhaps even wiser than their counterparts in the other wings, in some ways. If only because of the things they were forced to deal with down here. When something seemed safe, odds were it was more dangerous than you knew.
He heard the scream of a woman and turned quickly, as did the doctor and the nurses. Eventually the doctor turned to the woman with the chemistry set and gave her an unheard order. Jekyll presumed it was a command to take the chemistry set away. He gave a second order to the other nurse, and the two of them set off in the direction of the scream. Jekyll frowned, peering through the viewing window as best he could. He looked across from himself to the next cell over. A chair collided with the glass and the doctor flinched a little. He could not see the person inside. They were not meant to see one another after all. Sometimes outlines could be picked out, but you never had a clear picture of your neighbor until they were brought out to go to treatment. He had seen his neighbor more times than he would have liked to.
Whenever the patient across from him was taken to treatment, he was brought out wrapped tightly in a straightjacket. Always he was in the midst of a giggling fit. The man's teeth were sharpened to points and he thoroughly enjoyed trying to bite whoever was foolish enough to let their guard down. Based on that information, Jekyll could take a few educated guesses as to why the man was in this asylum. He pitied the man as much as he was disgusted by him. What had happened to him to turn him into something so twisted? He supposed that he did not truly want to know the answer to that. The man constantly attempted to escape his room. The doctors were always vigilant with him. It seemed there had been an incident once, where he had gotten away. The results were nightmarish. The man would die here, Jekyll knew. Perhaps that was for the best. Not only for the man himself, but for all those surrounding him.
He heard weeping from outside his room and peered down the hall as best he could. The weeping was familiar to him. It was a woman who often wandered down the halls in a straightjacket, bloodied and unsteady in her gait. One would almost think her an apparition, if they saw her from a distance, but she was not. Only severely disturbed. No one knew how she kept getting out, but she continued to do so and was quite difficult to keep contained. She muttered always about her baby. She said it was inside of her. He had asked the doctors, once, about what the woman meant. He had been told three stories. In one she had never been pregnant, in another she had miscarried or given birth to a stillborn, in the last she had given birth to a living child but had then killed it with her bare hands in a fit of madness, ripping out its insides to eat. Kef had corrected that last account. It was in fact another patient who had committed such an act, one who had believed her child was a changeling and not her own. She had killed and eaten it believing that doing so would give her back her real child. Jekyll would like to forget he had ever heard that story.
In a morbid sense, this place really was quite fascinating. As heartbreaking as it was intriguing. Seeing the depths of human despair, he found himself longing to understand better what could push humans to become these dead shades wandering empty, haunting, grey halls.
Jekyll silently observed as the despondent, pale, gangly woman staggered past his room in tears. It was not unlikely she was among those patients falsely treated for 'hysteria'. The thought caused his stomach to churn in disgust. He watched a doctor march back into sight, dragging the woman along by the arm as she screamed and struggled to get away. He let out a breath and returned to his seat. He had begun to feel the effects of his isolation now. For the first while he had been fine. Then the despair set in along with the realization that he might never leave this place. He should never leave this place. He looked around. This was his home now. This windowless room lit only by courtesy candlelight.
He heard the door unlock and looked towards it. Dr. Kef entered solemnly. "Fredrich would like to see you," he said. "I fear that he has made up his mind. He will try to take his own life again soon. He has not had a fit of rage lately. I think that is because he has resigned himself. Can you do nothing for him, doctor?"
Jekyll was quiet. At last, he walked towards Kef. "I will put something together," he said. "I cannot promise it will work, but if I cannot talk him out of it, I will resort to the serum."
"Where is your chemistry set?" Kef asked.
"I asked that it be removed. Do not worry. The nurse who took it, I'm sure, will allow me to use it briefly if you are there."
"No need. There is one in a brighter wing more pleasant for your use, I think," Kef said.
A scream echoed down the hallway again. Kef gasped in fear. Jekyll lifted his tired head to look. Kef let out a breath and led the way out. Jekyll followed him. The eyes of patients mingling in the corridors, most bound in straitjackets and leashed to various objects, followed them. These patients were ones that had been moved out of their rooms so that those rooms could be cleaned. Naturally, given the threat most of them posed, they had to be restrained as tightly as possible so that they could not attack anyone who passed by. Jekyll saw, among them, the woman being strapped to a post. She was emaciated and bloodied, hair greasy and hanging low. The doctor left her without a word and went to attend to other matters. Jekyll paused.
"Dr. Jekyll, please," Kef pled in a low murmur.
Jekyll of course did not oblige Kef. Instead, he walked towards the woman and knelt in front of her about an arm's length away. She watched him warily. "Where is your baby?" he at last asked. Kef felt a chill race up his spine. It was such a blunt and simple question, but the shivers it caused him were far from imagined.
"Inside me," she slowly said, speech slurred and stuttering.
"Who is its father?" Jekyll asked gently.
"The doctor," she replied.
"Oh? Which doctor?" he asked.
"The doctor, the doctor," the woman said, starting to rock.
"Shh, shh, it's alright," Jekyll soothed.
"The baby won't come out," she groaned.
He nodded and glanced over her. His eyes rested on her womb and remained there. He glanced back at the woman and moved closer. She shrank back. "I'm not going to hurt you," he assured. He reached out for her womb. She whimpered. He paused short of it. "May I feel your baby?" he asked. For a moment she was quiet before at last nodding. Jekyll placed his hand on her abdomen and felt gently around it. After a few minutes, he withdrew his hand. "Thank you," he said to her, standing up. He turned, then, to Kef. "She should be operated on," he said in a murmur.
"What?" Kef asked.
"The baby, or what should have been a baby, may indeed still be inside her as she claims," Jekyll gravely stated. "Have you heard of stone babies?"
"Jekyll, you cannot seriously be suggesting…" Kef began before trailing off, unwilling to even finish that thought for the horror of it. "It's all stories and myths! Isn't it?"
"It is not," Jekyll solemnly answered. "It is incredibly rare, but not unheard of. There have been documented cases going back centuries. The sooner it is out, the better it will be for the mother. Though depending on how long it has been inside her, there may have already been too many ill effects to be recovered from," Jekyll replied.
"My gods," Kef whispered.
"Examine her, determine if I am right, then if I am, remove it. It must be removed. Soon. Am I understood, Dr. Kef?" Jekyll said. Kef nodded. "Good. Then see to it she is taken care of. Now, let us go visit young Fredrich, shall we?" Kef nodded and followed Jekyll in a daze.
Frozen
Jekyll sat across from Fredrich in the garden outside. The young man had been permitted to be there. So had the traumatized soldier who had very nearly flung himself from a window. Fredrich had insisted upon it, and the doctors had obliged. Now that young soldier was regularly brought out into this peaceful place away from the stifling atmosphere of the asylum. There had been quite the controversy over letting patients outside, Jekyll had heard, but eventually an agreement had been reached.
Fredrich was eerily silent. Jekyll's eyes traveled to the young man's arms. "You self-harm," he noted after a moment, looking at his face again. Fredrich flinched, tensing up slightly. "I have a friend who used to do so as well," Jekyll said. Fredrich glanced at him. Jekyll ruefully smiled. "His life was not a pleasant one. The physical pain helped distract him from the far worse mental pain. What it really was, was another illness to add onto a long list of many."
"I prefer what is more bearable," the young man replied.
"Is it really, though? Or is it an added guilt that only makes the first worse?" Jekyll asked.
"You do not know me doctor, nor what I have gone through," Fredrich said.
"No. I do not," Jekyll admitted. Silence. "My friend was able to conquer it."
"Was this 'friend' you?" Fredrich condescendingly bit.
"No. My coping mechanisms were, well, on another level we will say," he said.
Fredrich was quiet. "Does it have to do with your second mind?" he at last asked.
"We are not here to discuss me," Jekyll replied.
"Oh, but we are, doctor. We are," Fredrich said. "I am determined in my course, but I would sooner not go through with it before having my questions answered."
"Then why would I give you those answers at all, if pursuing them is what is keeping you alive?" Jekyll asked.
Fredrich's check twitched. "I said I would prefer to not die without knowing, not that I would not die at all," he at last answered.
"What of that soldier friend of yours that you have made? He trusts you. He let's his guard down around you," Jekyll said.
"Do not bring him into this," Fredrich hissed.
"If you are going to die, you will die knowing full well what you have done and what you have left behind. You take another man with you, if you go," Jekyll said. "It may seem harsh, but it is as it is."
"To hell with you," Fredrich spat.
"That was set in stone long ago," Jekyll replied. Fredrich started and frowned, increasingly more curious. "It was not easy for my friend to start feeling like life was worth living, you know," he said at last. "But he found reasons to keep going. Perhaps that traumatized young soldier should be yours. I have heard you are good at drawing him out."
"From whom?" Fredrich asked with a scoff.
"Nurse Nancy," Jekyll replied. "She sometimes brings children from the children's ward out to visit you all, does she not? A fair young thing to be sure, and kind."
"You cannot seriously be setting me up," the young man replied in disbelief.
Jekyll laughed, startling the young man, but eventually a smile crept across Fredrich's lips. "No, Fredrich, I am not trying to set you up," Jekyll said with a grin. "Though clearly you have noticed her well and good, if that is your reaction to a casual remark about the woman."
"It's nothing like that!" Fredrich immediately defended. "And you're changing the subject besides! I wanted to speak with you because I wanted answers about your condition, not mine."
"I suffer from your condition quite regularly," Jekyll replied.
"Doctor, I do not mean depression and don't play stupid! You know what I mean," the young man said, growing indignant. "Now when you were speaking to me of your father, it sparked something inside you that gave rise to whatever the hell that thing that possessed you was."
"That thing that possessed me was a man," Jekyll replied. "Just not the one you met at first. That man, in turn, was me or some aspect of me. It is hard to describe, Fredrich, and tiring to try so please. Do not pursue this further. The last thing you need is to be trapped in a garden alone with him."
"What is the worst he can do to me? Kill me? I want for death. Torture me? So what? It cannot last forever. It would be cut short for a certainty and I would end up dead by the end most likely, so either way it is a victory for me," Fredrich said.
"Now think about what it is for me," Jekyll solemnly answered. Fredrich stiffened up a little bit before looking somewhat ashamedly away.
For a while, neither spoke. At last, though, Fredrich turned to him once more. "When I told you that I was dangerous, you said that you were too," he said at last. "Or he said it, at least, whoever he is."
"I called him Hyde. He took the name Edward whenever we switched. Thusly he became known as Mr. Edward Hyde," Jekyll said. "And his voice escaping from my mouth was the first sign of a trigger, so I left as quickly as I could. It was not fast enough, clearly," Jekyll said.
"He came forth when we were speaking of your father and of being dangerous," Fredrich said. Jekyll was quiet. "Is Hyde always violent?" Fredrich questioned. Jekyll would not answer. "May I speak with him?" Fredrich asked. Silence. "Can you call him out I wonder? I promise I can subdue him you know. Patrick, the soldier, taught me some things the last time I was allowed to visit him." There was no reply, but Fredrich became aware, in that moment, that something was off about the man before him now, who sat far more hunched than Dr. Jekyll ever had, bent right over in the chair with fingers entwined under his chin and a dark look in his eyes that definitely did not seem like the man he had just been speaking to. A chill raced down the young man's spine. He looked around to see if anyone was near, in case something happened. Not so much because he wanted to be saved, if this man before him grew violent, but because he was not fond of the idea of anyone else getting hurt in the process. It had taken far too many men to subdue this 'Edward Hyde' the first time he had seen him, but he reminded himself that when Hyde had sprung last time, it had been in retaliation to a threat and the man had been stressed and panicked besides. Now, it seemed, he was much calmer than he had been the first time. He looked perfectly human, in fact. Not mad at all. There was, though, this predatory look in his eyes that told Fredrich that everything was not quite right.
Frozen
For a long time, neither of them spoke to one another. Fredrich at last broke the silence. "I am dangerous," he warned, tone tentative.
A dark smirk played across the lips of the man in front of him. "So am I," he said in low, harsh voice that ground on your ears like sandpaper. "That was proven in my dealings with father. In truth I did not mean to strike the old man so hard, but he just would not stop shouting. His taunting, mocking, and belittling began to grate on Henry's nerves, and the old man just would not put down his cane or stop menacing us with it. Jekyll was too weak to stand against him. He thought the man was owed the honor and respect due to him, from his child. I did not share the opinion, so I tore that cane from his hand, the cane Jekyll argues father never actually used to strike us—though the belt and his fists and feet certainly smarted enough—and I hit him with it. I hit him, and it felt so good. The first strike he fell and stopped his shouting, stunned and taken aback. He looked at his son in shock, and he knew it was not his son he was seeing anymore. He hardly had time to catch his breath before the second blow connected with his skull. It shattered it to pieces. The man was dead before he knew what hit him. It was so musical, the cracking of the bones, so I struck him again and again and again until there was nothing left but a bloodied, unrecognizable pulp, and I laughed. Jekyll, I assume, was the one to wake up and discover the mess. I assume it was also he who took the bloodied clothes and shoes and burned them up before dousing the ashes in acid for good measure. The cane, though, he kept. He would claim, I suppose, that it was the only thing of our father's that he had left, and that he kept it so that he would never forget what he had done and always fight not to ever repeat the mistake. I personally think he got something of a sick satisfaction from holding that thing and knowing it had been the instrument of his tormentor's demise."
"What of his mother?" Fredrich asked, eyes wide. He felt breathless and morbidly appalled, hardly able to believe what he was seeing and hearing.
"Mother. A sour apple, if ever there was one. She was not perhaps as bad as father in a physical or verbal sense, but emotionally? Oh, she knew how to play that game. I suppose it wasn't all her fault, really. She was an ill woman who probably would have done well to be institutionalized. I think, actually, that for a time she was, before father regretted his actions and fetched her back. I could not say whether that was because he learned she was pregnant with Jekyll, or because the old man came to the jarring realization that he was little better a parent for his son than his wife had been, and decided Jekyll would have a better chance with two failures raising him instead of one. It seems he was not completely wrong in that, because old Henry survived to adulthood. Clearly, then, they influenced one another in some manner or other that ensured they didn't just get rid of the little fop," Hyde said.
"Was that the first time you came to be?" Fredrich asked, sounding excited now but also frightened.
"The first time? Poor, naïve child. I was always there. I am there in everyone," Hyde answered. "I am the evil within the darkest depths of your heart."
"This is incredible," Fredrich whispered, standing up. He seemed almost giddy with what he was witnessing and hearing.
"Incredible? Dear boy, you have no idea what it is you are beholding, do you?" Hyde questioned, standing up. Fredrich's excitement quickly fled when he was reminded just how large of a man Dr. Jekyll was. He was over six feet tall with the physical build of a man half his age. Suddenly uneasy, Fredrich stepped back. The man had a good bit on him in height, and as far as muscle definition went, though Fredrich himself was not in bad shape, no bets would be placed on him should such be called between he or the doctor in a fight. Quite suddenly it was Jekyll he wished he were speaking to again.
As the man before him, Hyde, menacingly advanced, Fredrich could not help but feel a jolt of fear go through him. It had been a very long time since he had feared death over embracing it. Suddenly Hyde stopped in place and looked puzzled, blinking a few times before screwing his eyes tightly shut and massaging his forehead. Fredrich cautiously let his guard down. That did not seem a very Hyde thing to do.
"Doctor?" Fredrich carefully questioned after waiting for a little bit. Jekyll opened his eyes and looked at the young man in front of him, puzzled. He soon realized what it meant and grew pale. "It's alright doctor," Fredrich quickly said. "Nothing bad happened." Jekyll was quiet, watching him warily. "I know now why he, or you, said that you were dangerous." Jekyll stiffened.
"I killed my father too," Fredrich quietly said, hanging his head low. "And nearly killed my mother. It was during a fit. I do not know what came over me. He was beating me, and she was just watching. She never did anything but watch. Sometimes cry, but usually not for me. For fear of what the neighbors would think if they heard the commotion. She was so very vain, and he was so very violent. A match made in Hades, and I the product of it that wished he had never come to be."
Jekyll was quiet. "Your job, then, is not to rid the world of your presence, but to live your life to the fullest and be better than them both," he at last answered, a somewhat dark tone in his voice. Clearly he was perturbed at what Hyde had confessed, and perhaps even perturbed that it was not fear or horror with which Fredrich was looking at him. "You are not doomed to follow the paths of your parents. Disown your mother and move on. Do anything but give up and give them the satisfaction." Turning, Jekyll left him behind rapidly, frustrated and agitated in his gait.