7 Elements of Horror

The Real Man or the Good Man

"Go ahead, then! Do it! I dare you!" Hyde sneered as Gabriel cocked his gun. After a month of "hyde" and seek, the two old foes were finally face to face and Gabriel felt ready to bring his old friend, Jekyll, back to life. Once Hyde was dead, Jekyll would return and all would be right again with the world. With this hope in mind, Gabriel got ready to shoot the gun...

"DON'T DO IT!" Richard came bursting into the room, looking wild.

"Good God, man!" Gabriel snapped at him.

"If you shoot Hyde, you will kill Jekyll!" Richard replied, shouting over Gabriel's annoyance.

"Wait, what?" Gabriel demanded, turning to look at the ugly man kneeling on the floor in front of him. The beast had begun to laugh.

"He's right," the monster admitted. "Shoot me and Jekyll will die, but I shall live on. I will survive the bullet. Jekyll will not."

"Impossible!" Gabriel gasped, finally lowering his gun in confusion and horror.

"No, you just have it backwards!" Hyde smirked. At the same time, Richard nervously handed Gabriel a piece of paper...

They tricked me. They tricked me! Those no-good, monstrous scoundrels tricked me! After telling me they had brewed a strength-enhancer, I found myself ever-weakening, ever-softening. I tried to fight them off, but to no avail. The serum had weakened me too much and I could do nothing but let them have their way with me. They destroyed me! Ruined me... Left me even less than a shell or shadow of my former self.

I became soft, shy, sweet and utterly disgusting! I was afraid of everything and everyone, I was meek and mild, humble and humiliated. But try as I did to find my old self again, I was lost. All that remained was this air-headed pretty-boy who was gentle to everyone and had no spine to speak of! This was the first time I ever met Jekyll...

I hated him from that very first second, and my loathing for him only increased over the past year. I did everything to try to take back control, but as Jekyll grew accustomed to our, no, MY body, he began to fight back, battling me for control over my own life and attempting to undo everything I had ever done all in the name of "righteousness" and "morality".

This foolish fiend of a creature, who had invaded both my life and my body, was now attempting to take them for himself! I have waited many moons for this night, but I think I finally have it! A serum that will allow me to completely control Jekyll. With it, I will be able to end him forever and return to my old self again, my TRUE self, Mr. Hyde!

"Good God!" Gabriel gasped. The note, a page from a journal, nearly slipped from his hand.

"Yup. I'm the real one," Hyde bragged. "So if you kill me, guess who's really kicking the bucket!?"

"Oh, Jekyll, no!" Gabriel looked close to tears.

"Oh what? You just assume that the 'evil' version is the clone and the 'good' guy is the original? Pah!" Hyde spat and rolled his eyes. "Jekyll isn't really real anyway. He was just something the serum created! You're mourning a man who technically never existed."

"Shut it, you!" Richard tried to be brave for Gabriel, but Hyde only laughed in his face.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Hyde demanded. "You either shoot me and kill Jekyll, or let me live and I kill Jekyll. Either way, I will return to my true self, and this parasitic faker will finally go back to the plane of nonexistence from whence he came!"

"We will never let your hurt Jekyll!" Richard tried again.

"Ah, so then you would kill the original and spare the spare simply because you prefer the spare?" Hyde taunted. "How hypocritical! For you speak of truth and souls, yet you would kill the real man and save his copy!" he said, gesturing to himself. "Don't you get it? Jekyll never ever existed! Not once! He was fake all along and I was the real one! If you really wanted to honor the original man, you would save me!

"But of course, now that you know, you will probably try to end me anyway. You only care about bringing back the "truth" if the truth is pleasant. But what happens when you learn that it was Jekyll who was the fake and Hyde was the real man all along, eh? What then? What happens when the good man and the original man are not the same? How do rationalize an ugly truth beside a beautiful lie? What will you choose?"

"I-I-I-" Richard began to stutter. Gabriel still was in shock.

"Oh shut up!" Hyde snickered. "You don't practice what you preach. Not truly, anyway, for the moment this moral quandary arises, your true colors shine through. Do you save the true man by saving the monster? Or do you allow his created twin to take over his life merely because he is the more preferable man? Or do you kill them both because of how reprehensible the evil one is? What will you choose?"

Then Hyde turned his wild eyes back to Gabriel.

"Make your choice, man, time is running out. I will escape if you don't hurry. So whose life will you take? Will you kill the real man, or the good man? Make a decision and pull the trigger!"

AN: AU where Hyde is the real guy and Jekyll is the fake.