Doctor Jekyll; to relearn humanity.

Chapter 4: The first look through New Eyes.

He dropped the shard, cutting his hand a bit as he backed away from the pile and back onto the floor. He left bloody handprints as he kept backing onto glass shards, the pain being a lot easier to handle than earlier. The heavy breathing punctuated by screams as he backed towards the door in clothes too big for him.

What he saw wasn't his face, and it wasn't him yelling in fear that he heard.
He covered his mouth to keep the inhuman sounds out of his ears, trying to look away from the thing in the mirror. This was either an alcohol induced nightmare or hell for even thinking about messing with the human body. Either he would wake up or see Satan before him, maybe the devil would chastise him?
Neither of those things happened. He was both fully awake, and surprisingly alive.
But he stayed like that for a good long while, the fear of god coursing through him; or was it the chemicals in his system keeping him in a paranoid state? Either way, he just stayed sitting there, hands over his mouth, eyes shut with tears and some abstract horror about the new body he knew few things about.
He cursed himself out in his mind for trying to play god. This was something wholly unnatural and it was all his fault he turned to something foul.
Yet he was intensely curious about the new form. He wanted to know more about the horrific transformation he underwent, wanted to know what happened to the body he lived in.

His voice was the first thing he checked, moving his now bloody hands away from the mouth and speaking to himself still on the floor. "H..." He gasped out through his dried out throat. "hello..?" The voice that wasn't his sounded like someone in their twenties, even though it was hoarse from the screaming. It was higher in pitch. With one thing figured out, it left the body the next to find.
Gathering a little courage, he began crawling back to the mirror shards. Crawling over the shards and scraping some off of his hands. He studies the arms connected to the hands, the clothes sagging off the smaller arms. It was loose around his limbs.
Finally getting back to where he threw the biggest shard, he hesitated trying to pick the mirror up again, leaving the hand hovering over the shard. Taking a breath, he reached back over and grabbed the shard again.
Bringing it up to his face.

He didn't recognize the man he was looking at, but he was ready to learn of his identity.
The hand that brought the mirror up to his face looked like his hand, but smaller, shakier. He blinked out the fuzziness, squinting to get a better look at himself. The face was rounder, matching the voice he heard greeting him earlier. The face was a subtle flushed red, a symptom of the alcohol from earlier. The man had friendly, wide open eyes. He couldn't tell the colour, but they were probably blue?
He looked like his name would be Edward.
This man in the mirror had never existed before. He was a new man, one with no reputation, no family name, no memories around him. This man would have his entire life before him, looking to be in early adulthood, he could have an excuse for everything.

He set the shard back onto the ground, standing and making sure to step over clumps of the fragmented mirror. His legs shook, still sore from the transformation. They barely held his weight, despite being significantly lighter and smaller. Stumbling back over to the desk, he got another good look at the flask, the formula still swirling within.
The man was tempted to throw it out, to throw it to the streets and forget about it, but he didn't know if he would be able to turn back if he did.

Instead, he looked towards the papers next to it, scanning over the sloppily written down ingredients along with the instructions. He had to try and not to get the blood on his hands transferred onto the paper. He tried deciphering his drunken scribbles, grabbing a pen and fixing what he had written earlier. It had taken less time than thought, and he was left with something readable.
It was probably by chance that he was still alive, considering a decent portion of ingredients on the list were either toxic or poisonous, a majority would cause death by themselves, so why didn't it happen when they were together? Placing the paper on the desk, he looked around the room confusedly.
What was he to do now? What he needed to do was to get out of the house. Out of this room at least. The floor hurt to stand on. He needed to patch up his hands, his palms dripped slowly with drying blood, leaving a trail as he walked across the room and reached for spare cloth to patch up the superficial gashes...
He couldn't find any.

He mumbled out in the higher pitched voice as he began to make his way to the door, tripping over the loose pant legs. The body thudded onto the floor. Thankfully he was far enough away from the pile to not get too hurt, but it left him annoyed. The wood creaked as he adjusted the way he lay on the floorboards, spinning to a sit.
Looking down at the fabric before him, it was glaringly obvious they weren't built for the smaller body, wrinkling around the ankles and dragging behind his feet.
Well this could be a problem...
It could also be a solution to the bandage shortage.
At least, that's what the doctor thought when he reached for the pant legs, ripping them for the spare fabric. The fabric was wrapped up around his hands, watching the blood soak through, and letting the makeshift bandages set as he forced himself back to a stand.

The door creaked open as the little man made his way out of the office, and made his way to the door outside. The wine bottle was right where Jekyll left it. He paid little mind to it, and so he walked out the door, to the streets of midnight London.

The streets were empty of anyone with a sound mind. During the late night is when the people of normal society put themselves to rest, when they were left on their own.
The light of the lamps were bright enough to see the road as he walked on, even as the candles flickered. There were some drunken people stumbling home, bottles still in their hands as the men tripped over their own two feet. There were homeless people sleeping in alleyways away from the main street, away from the eyes of the streetlight.
It was a few minutes of walking before anything too notable happened, the scene happened right in front of a pub. It was a man who rammed through the door, clearly hammered off of the alcohol in his hand. It sloshed around as the man danced to a song only heard by him. The footwork was sloppy, but it looked like he was having fun.
The man slowed the dance, clearly getting ready to fall over. He looked towards the little man before him, stumbling over to him with a dopey grin on his face.
"Heyllo thhere..." the man's words were slurred with his approach. His appearance was difficult to see, and easy to forget. It didn't matter how he looked, just that he was welcoming. He offered a hand to the man before him, either seemingly unaware of the makeshift bandages on his hands or just not caring.
After waiting and seeing the drunken man before him growing a bit angered by the lack of interaction, the doctor spoke up quietly. "Hello." and the drunkard continued as if they were best buddies, grabbing him in a side hug.
"Don... dontell anyone thish, but Immnot shupposed to be out here." the unknown man placed a hand in front of him, as if shushing him.
The doctor shoved himself out of the hug, sending the man reeling back a bit. "Alright. Consider me silent." He laughed at that, getting back onto as balanced feet as he could. The boozer walked back up to the smaller man, the look of a cocky smile now on his face.
"Shay, you s... sound like shomeone who could ushe a drink! What'sh yer name?"

The doctor hesitated to answer, a familiar characteristic keeping a hold on him: Silence. But it wasn't the doctor that stayed silent. He landed on a name he thought of earlier.
He spoke up to the delight of the drunkard before him. "... Edward." He tried continuing after taking a breath. "Ho-"
"Eddy... hidah, I like the name. Ish good name." The drunkard laughed out a nickname, spilling the rest of his drink on the pavement as he spoke what could be only described as incomprehensible noises after a little silence. The rest of his statement was fine though.
Something struck a chord with the doctor. With Edward.

"No it's... Edward... Hyde."

He didn't know why he chose the last name. Sure was already fond of the name 'edward,' the name was convincing enough as it matched the face, but 'hyde'? Maybe it was because he heard something similar from the drunkard in front of him, but it sounded right.

Looking towards the spill on the pavement, he soon connected what little dots he had left and gestured towards Edward. He offered a hand to the man before him and spoke out in slurred speech once more.
"Co'man, lemme buy... buy you sha drimk."

Mr. Hyde accepted the invite gingerly. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad?