The Truth about Griffin

Chapter 1

"Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and having covered him, they carried him into that house.  And there it was, on a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career."

     But that's not how it ended; I should know. Jack Griffin's story has been told wrong for too long. I plan on setting the record straight. My name is C-a-t and this is what really happened.

     It all started when Dr. Griffin turned himself invisble. There was a time at the beggining of his "condition" where he lost all sembalance of sanity, but he never hurt anyone. The chemicals used to turn him invisible had a strange effect on his mind for a few days after the initial testing. But it wasn't permanent.  As he slowly regained his lost sanity, the world lost theirs. It gets ugly when humans find something they don't understand. They become scared and violent, and that's what happened in the village of Iping. It started with his land lady. She came and demanded that he pay his bill and quit the premise, when he asked for a little more time she grew angry and somewhat violent. She grabbed his coat and exposed part of his arm (at least where his arm should've been). The  landlady fled in terror.  After that the landlady told the rest of the town an exaggerated tale about Griffin had attacking her. The fact that he was invisible didn't help his case, either. He escaped but he knew it was only a matter of time before they succeeded in killing him. He then went to a trusted friend and ally, Dr. Kemp, who betrayed him as well saying that, "he [Griffin] imagines that he can make me his secret confederate, describing his plan to begin a "Reign of Terror" by using his invisibility to terrorize the nation." Also untrue. Griffin once again found himself on the run, this time from the police. The police report says Griffin used Kemp's gun to shoot and injure a local policeman who had come to Kemp's aid, then broke  into Kemp's house. The truth is, that Kemp shot the officer thinking that Jack had somehow proven his innocence and that now they were coming to arrest him.  After that Griffin knew it would be best if he went into hiding. He faked his death at the hands of the mob and disappeared; leaving everyone believing that the Invisible Man had been a psychopathic killer who had gotten his just desserts.

     He stowed away with me on a ship heading for the New World and built a small lab on the plains of Nebraska in the valleys of the Hogback mountains. He was still obsessed with "curing" his invisibility, but the only thing he seemed to be able to do was recreate different versions of the serum. He worked ceaselessly until fatigue finally took its toll. I tried to help where I could but an invisible cat is of little use to a scientist. He had gone day and night with out rest or food, therefore, after a week and a half of faithful study, Jack fell to the workings of the human body. He ate a meager dinner of chicken and bread and went to sleep. The small lab connected to an even smaller living area. It was one room that held the kitchen, bedroom, and bookshelves. He fell onto the rough bed with a contented sigh and instantly fell asleep.

     At that very moment a young girl had just been violently chased away from a nearby town. She ran to the cover of the nearby mountains. She had lost her parents during the Great Depression. Most of the time sharing and "making do" became a way of life, but there are limits to everyone's hospitality. This towns patience ran out after a particularly nasty dust storm. A girl with no family or home needed somewhere to stay, unfortunately she choose the barn of a rather curmudgeonly old man who wasn't fond of sharing. Or children. After finding her sleeping in his barn, he told lies that got her put on a trial for stealing. Without any parents to defend her, her only choice was to go to jail or flee. She choose the latter.

     That's where our story begins. Dr. Jack Griffin asleep in his small cabin, hidden away from the rest of the world. The girl, running from a town where she had lost her parents in and that had now turned against her. And me, contently hunting any mice dumb enough to scurry through the lab. Little did I know that her run to freedom would actually lead us all to a new world that would change her life, my life, and Dr. Griffin's life forever.