The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

An original story inspired by* *The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*

*By a humble observer of human contradiction*

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**November 6th, 1894 – London**

The letter came in a black envelope, sealed with no crest, bearing only my name in an elegant but unfamiliar hand. Inside were two lines, carefully printed:

**“You once asked whether the soul can be divided. Come to 41 Grafton Street, midnight. Tell no one.”**

There was no signature.

I had once studied under Dr. Henry Jekyll, a man now spoken of in hushed tones and tragic whispers. His demise—violent, bizarre, and wholly unsolved—left a gap in the world of natural philosophy. But some of us who studied with him remembered his questions. Dark questions.

I should have ignored the letter.

I didn’t.

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Grafton Street was cloaked in fog. At midnight, the gas lamps flickered like dying stars. I found the house—tall, silent, the windows darkened with cloth. I knocked once.

The door opened without a hand.

Inside, the air was thick with chemicals and candle smoke. A figure emerged from the shadows—an elderly man with a twisted spine, one eye milky-white, the other sharp as a scalpel.

“You came,” he said. “Good. We are fewer now. And time is thinning.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am what remains of Dr. Langford—the last assistant to Jekyll before the end.”

He led me through winding halls to a locked room. Inside stood a tall, covered mirror. Around it were scattered journals, bottles, and coils of copper wire.

“This,” he said, placing a hand on the frame, “is Blackglass. It was Jekyll’s final experiment before Hyde consumed him. A mirror—not of light, but of essence.”

I frowned. “A mirror that shows the soul?”

“No. Worse. It shows the version of you that is most free. The self unshackled.”

He handed me a key.

“You must look. Only by seeing can you understand.”

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I should have refused.

But something—a hunger, perhaps—forced my hand. I turned the key and pulled the cloth away.

The mirror did not reflect the room. It showed only me.

And yet—not me.

The man in the mirror looked like me, but his eyes were colder, amused, cruel. His posture radiated confidence, danger, pleasure. He smiled when I scowled.

I stepped closer.

He mimicked me—but then, of his own accord, he raised a hand and pressed it against the glass.

I felt it—cold and electric, like water and static. My head reeled. The candles blinked out.

When I came to, the mirror was empty. I was alone in the room.

But the door was open.

And my reflection was gone.

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**November 7th**

At first, I thought it a dream. But the signs were real.

The mirror was cracked. My hand ached with bruises I didn’t remember. Worst of all, my housekeeper, Margaret, avoided my gaze and stammered when I spoke.

“Sir, about last night…” she began. “You… you said things.”

“What things?”

She looked down. “You weren’t yourself.”

I rushed to my study and opened my journals. Whole pages had been torn out.

Then came the knock at the door.

It was Inspector Harlan.

“There was an incident on Berwick Lane,” he said. “A man assaulted a constable. Witnesses say he resembled you.”

“That’s absurd,” I said.

He nodded slowly. “Still… I’d recommend staying indoors for now. For your own safety.”

He left me a card. I felt the weight of the mirror behind my eyes, like a shadow.

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**November 8th**

I no longer dream.

Instead, I wake with blood on my hands.

I found a glove in my coat—black leather, not mine. Inside was a scrap of paper, torn from one of my journals. It read:

**“The self split is not possession—it is liberation.”**

Margaret has gone. My study door won’t open. The mirror is humming.

I see things now—memories that are not mine. A woman’s terrified face. The snap of bone. Laughter—my laughter—from a mouth I no longer trust.

I tried to destroy the mirror.

The hammer shattered before it touched the glass.

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**November 9th**

He has a name.

He calls himself *Ash*.

When I sleep, he writes. When I walk the streets, I feel him behind my eyes, urging me to speak cruel words, to sneer at strangers, to follow the weak.

He is everything I have hidden. And now he is free.

Tonight, I returned to Grafton Street. The house was gone. Burned to the ground.

Only the mirror survived—lying intact in the ash.

I brought it home.

God help me, I want to look again.

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**November 10th**

I awoke in the river.

Two men are dead.

I remember the feel of a knife, the rush of power, the roar of blood. I remember Ash smiling at me from a shop window.

I no longer know when I am me.

Or when I am him.

Perhaps it no longer matters.

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**November 11th – Final Entry**

If this journal survives, let it be known: I was not evil.

But I was vain.

I believed I could face the darkness within and walk away unchanged. I believed I was strong enough to observe it and not become it.

Ash is in control now. He writes these words through my hand as I fight to hold the pen steady.

He wants you to read this. To find the mirror. To look into it.

To let your own Ash out.

So I do the only thing left:

I burn the house. I smash the glass. I end this with fire.

May the world forget me.

May it never forget the lesson.

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*In every man is a Hyde.*

*And in every Hyde is the truth we fear to see.