Write by the Cards: Day Fifteen
A Reunion
If you’re new to The Rebel MFA Way, welcome! This is my daily work for my Write by the Cards: 30 Day Challenge that I’m hosting. Learn more here. Scroll down to the end to see my behind-the-scenes commentary and source material.
On this new path, the character reconnected with someone from their past: {draw a card}.
The room was neither light nor dark. Its edges blurred as though it had been forgotten by time, a place carved from shadow and memory. A single chair sat in the center, facing a cracked mirror that reflected not one figure, but two. Dr. Henry Jekyll leaned forward, his face pale and drawn, his hands clutching the arms of the chair as though it might ground him. Behind him, Edward Hyde lounged against the frame, a grin splitting his feral features.
“You’ve made a mess of me,” Jekyll whispered, his voice trembling. “My name, my work, my very soul—all in ruins because of you.”
Hyde laughed, low and guttural, the sound filling the space like the scrape of a blade. “Your soul?” he sneered. “You talk as if it were yours alone. I am your soul, Henry. The part you tried to bury so deep it clawed its way to the surface.”
“You’re a sickness,” Jekyll spat. His eyes burned as he turned to face the mirror, to face him. “An infection I should have cut out before it festered. Look at what you’ve done! Murder, chaos, shame. You’ve left blood on my hands—blood I cannot wash away.”
“And whose hands made me?” Hyde shot back, stepping closer. His grin sharpened. “You poured the potion, doctor. You called to me. You wanted me, needed me, because you were too much of a coward to do what had to be done. I am no sickness. I am freedom.”
“Freedom?” Jekyll choked on the word. He stood now, his hands trembling at his sides. “Is that what you call it? Running wild, destroying everything I built? You don’t know the meaning of freedom, Hyde. You’re a slave to your desires.”
“And you’re a slave to your fear,” Hyde growled. “That’s the difference between us. You live in chains, pretending they’re virtues. I broke mine. I’ve tasted the world as it truly is, raw and unfiltered, and you hate me because I am what you’ll never dare to be.”
Jekyll shook his head, a tear slipping down his cheek. “You’re wrong. I don’t hate you. I pity you. You think your chaos is strength, but it’s nothing but emptiness. You destroy because you cannot create.”
“And you create nothing because you’re too afraid it might break,” Hyde countered, his grin faltering for the first time.
For a moment, the room fell silent, the air thick with their shared breath. The mirror between them wavered, its surface rippling as though caught in a storm.
“I could end you,” Jekyll said softly, his voice weighted with something like sorrow. “All it would take is one final dose. One moment of courage.”
Hyde’s laughter returned, softer this time, almost wistful. “End me? And what would you be then, without me? A hollow shell? Or something worse—a man who lies to himself every day until there’s nothing left?”
Jekyll hesitated, his hand reaching toward the mirror. The glass shimmered beneath his touch, warm and alive.
“What are we, if not the same man?” he whispered.
Hyde stepped closer, his voice a murmur in his ear. “We’re truth. The parts no one wants to see, stitched together by necessity. You can’t kill me without killing yourself.”
The mirror cracked, a single line splintering the glass from top to bottom. Jekyll and Hyde stared at each other, their faces reflected in fragments, both distorted and whole.
“Perhaps that’s the only way,” Jekyll said at last, his hand falling away.
Hyde’s grin returned, softer now, almost tender. “Or perhaps,” he said, stepping back into the shadows, “you finally learn to live with me.”
The room dissolved into darkness, the echo of their voices lingering like smoke in the air. Neither man remained, and yet both did.
Behind-the-Scenes Commentary
Okay, I absolutely LOVED that this card worked so well with the prompt. I immediately knew that I wanted the “reunion” to be between Jekyll and Hyde and them having a conversation about who they each think they are.
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve read the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson but I do remember that I loved the parts that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came out to “play.” Those moments are when I felt the truth of the story coming forward rather than all the other plot pieces. So that’s why I focused on this little exchange between them. I care more about this intersection of “light” and “dark” and the grey areas between “good” and “bad” and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a perfect kind of character to explore this.
Yet again, ran out of time working on this one, but I could definitely see myself doing a future retelling in a very unique way with this.