Doctored Chance #NaNoWriMo2019

31 | His Hyde

There is a small person inside all of us; always younger than we are, always more reckless, always more temperamental. They act with the impulsive energy that you, a cautious and wise person, suppress. Unfortunately, their release will often feel cathartic--as if they have strained against their leash to the point that your arms ache from holding on, and release frees you both. Unfortunately. It is unfortunate because their release results in the rash actions that your sobered and healthy and more mature mind refuses to indulge in. And the more you release them, the harder it is to reign them in.

Gambling, for example, thrills the young person though it wearies the host. Drinking that extra glass of liquor, smoking a cigarette, or scratching your name on a picnic table. Burning your writing when it wasn't good enough for you, or choosing to swim in your clothes on a cold day without having a spare change. That young person embodies the most wicked of impulses.

Tobias subconsciously grew wary of his young person, pulling so forcefully on his leash to get out that it made the man physically stagger. Tobias threw Mrs. Jones's gun far into the water where it could not tempt his hand. Something had come over him for an instant; a morbid curiosity.

For a moment after the gun's splash flattened over the grey-green Central Benediction bay, he felt a deep and conflicting regret. What would it have felt like to fire it? What if seeing Mrs. Jones bleed could have thrown Benjamin Jones into a greater turmoil? What if it made him feel powerful?

Tobias held the boat's wheel with one hand and ran his fingers through his blonde crop with the other. His scalp itched. But, it was broad daylight and fisherman were about. Uncovering his mutilated face would draw eyes. In agonizing discomfort, Tobias slumped both elbows over the wheel so that he could grab fistfuls of the silicon mask with both hands. He moaned.

I need you to stay sane, Doc. Dizzy had said it, but he needed it, too. Now more than ever. His unfeeling half felt particularly cold in the salty wind. The plumes of black smoke and shimmers of heat in the air drew sweat from his left side, as welcoming and comforting as a spa, but did nothing for his right.

Every call from a seabird stiffened his spine, every knock of a wave against the hull drew his frenetic eyes. He inhaled a long breath and straightened over the helm, locking his eyes ahead. The reek of dead fish and sulfur lingered in his throat; an offense so strong that he could not restrain a cough. Alas, no matter how many times he coughed, and no matter how forceful those coughs were, the stench could not be escaped and the taste only strengthened in flavor. Black waters, blanketed in ashes, parted around the bow with swirling, oily patterns that twirled along the hulls and fought in the wake. A tail of white and blue and black wavered behind.

Tobias frowned over his shoulder. I lost the gun in blue water. It wasn't deep. Perhaps I could... A loud thud jarred him from these thoughts and, wide-eyed, he ogled the fusiform white shape of a fish as the wake of the boat carried it away.

"Steel yourself, Tobias," he mumbled through a clenched jaw. Uneasiness--or was it excitement?--slithered up his nape as soon as his attention wandered away from the lost weapon to the found one. Tall, imposing, volatile, and intoxicating. He rolled his shoulders at the crawling feel, lost in its deciphering. The young person, the impulsive person, within him grew stronger with it, while it withered his sanity and weakened his stance like an arctic wind. A shiver wrung his person like a shockwave despite the warmth of the early sun, the engine fumes, and most notably, the sweltering streams of red, orange, and yellow shifting not far away.

Tobias raised his nose to the sky, then pushed up his sleeve to peer at his watch. It took a few blinks to focus, to take his mind off the volcano for just a moment.

He was making good time. If conditions continued to favor him, the boat could berth in the lair's sea cave within a half hour, which meant he would have half an hour remaining to prepare for the beginning of Team Defiance's shift.