-------Records of the experiment-------
Month ¢, Day ¢
The salt I ordered from Messrs. Maw finally arrived. The compounding of the drug that can chemically alter the human mind will now commence.
Month ¢, Day ¢
First phase of compounding, successful. I am much obliged to the Archelot House’s cooperation. I have promised them a check of 20 thousand pounds as well as a detailed documentation of the results of the experiment.
Month ¢, Day ¢
Second phase of compounding, successful.
I could not reach the third phase but, starting tomorrow I will use myself as a human experimental test subject.
Month ¢, Day ¢
Experiment on a human test subject commence.
The subject’s ------ the observed transformation of my body and mind is revolutionary and yet, I cannot yet proclaim this experiment a success.
The duration of the drug’s effects is unknown.
By taking the drug a second time, the subject’s body and mind returned to normal.
Month ¢, Day ¢
The subject is confirmed to be in good health. I believe there seems to be no problems.
Month ¢, Day ¢
Second experiment on the subject. The dosage has been increased.
At any rate, this is not a success. It is a failure.
I cannot just become it. I have to let it out.
Month ¢, Day ¢
Third experiment on the subject. The transformation and alteration is once again conducted, but it is yet again a failure.
Yes. A failure. Can such a thing succeed?
Month ¢, Day ¢
Fourth experiment on the live subject. Once again, a failure.
Failure, why was it a failure?
Then, I’ll buy a full-length mirror tomorrow. I’ll also rent out an apartment.
Month ¢, Day ¢
Fifth experiment on the live subject. The result is…
By the way, I’m in the mood. I think I’ll let loose at the pub tonight! And the opium den isn’t such a bad idea either!
------- Letter to Mr. H --------
Month ¢ , Day ¢ , Year 18
Dear Mr. H,
By the time you read this letter, I will no longer have been in this world. How the circumstances has become like this to the point that I would have to disappear, even I could not have predicted it. However, I have a hunch; and at the same time in light of the situation I will describe below, I understand how I came to be so close to the edge in my final moments.
First of all, I solemnly swear that all the contents of this letter is the truth.
Written in here are nigh unbelievable things, but if nothing else I implore you to believe me.
[Aah? By this point who the hell are you begging to believe you?]
I was born into a wealthy family in the year 18¢¢.
You can say that I was blessed. With intelligence, with an environment surrounded by virtuous people, with a secure future. I myself hurt for the children suffocated with poverty in the East End, for the me as I am is how my parents and friends have raised me.
And yet, there was a defect within me.
That is, intolerable, surging pleasure.
I was living while hiding such wretched desires. Yet, I do not think I would harbor such a vicious temperament. I am ashamed to have thought myself above the nature of humans who live seeking pleasure, to have believed myself to be stronger mentally than the average person.
It is just like a disease. People say I am a philanthropist, a virtuous gentleman with good conduct; and it would not be amiss to say that at first I also held that belief. Without manifesting evil, without hypocrisy, one who spread good into the world.
And as I was, for me to have received a personal request from you – could it have been called fate?
I do not blame you in the least.
I probably, at the conclusion of this immensely difficult battle between good and evil, will go down the same path yet again. That is, the evil crawling in society is active to the point that anyone born upon this world would have some very traces of that very evil – it was inevitable that I would realize that.
Good and evil.
For humans, they do not stem from a single underlining nature; they are dualities.
As I worked for you, I have arrived at this conclusion. While now I know this is far from the perfect truth, and I admit that there was a horrible oversight, the past me was not at all self-aware.
And so, I started a battle with evil.
[Hyahahaha, that’s some fine arrogance there, mate!]
All humans have some evil as another side of them.
Even I, even you and Mr. W, and the man called the Napoleon of darkness are no exception. Man is not wholly pure, and at the same time they are not completely evil. It is the moment we embrace one or the other in the end that matters. If we investigate more thoroughly, we will find not only good or evil, but we may be able to separate many facets to our nature!
But I digress. Let us return to the matter at hand.
As I was saying, I tried to separate the good and evil residing in people.
My way of accomplishing this was chemistry.
I created a drug that could extract the part that could be called ‘inferior’ within me, the part that hid evil desires, leaving only pure, sublimated virtue within myself. I want to tell you everything, but according to the conditions of a certain distinguished family’s assistance, I cannot divulge the details of this drug and the special salt I used to compound it. For you the true meaning of the name ‘Clock Tower’ may be something of little import and you might already know that it is another abyss different from the one of the criminal world; therefore my secrecy may be futile and unnecessary, but please allow me this.
Either way, I took and extremely dangerous risk. For wanting to create my body anew, that could only mean the destruction of my current body – meaning unless I take the medicine in small doses, my soul will piece by piece be destroyed and my body will before long end up the same way.
And yet, my body and soul went through with this experiment.
Henry Jekyll’s body and soul has certainly been altered. Just not as an incarnation of good, but one of evil.
[And that was me; indeed, yours truly! How nice of you to go as far as to record my existence, I’m honored!]
I shall now be forthright.
The inner conflict of good and evil is a topic that has plagued us since prehistoric times.
The conclusion transcends any physics.
Originally, this experiment was supposed to save people, or humans in general, from evil.
However ---- aah, is that really the case?
Nothing but perverse enjoyment, evil that induces dread – while I worked for you, I saw such cruelties, and fearing the possibility of such impulses existing within me as well, I, by myself, in trying to control evil, turned my back from the purgatory that is this world.
I immersed myself in this research only for my own sake.
----- Then, is it not fitting that I have so ridiculously failed to this extent?
That’s right. I failed.
While the drug was supposed to separate evil from me, it instead created a second personality [Hyde], transformed from the part of my personality hidden away by my virtuous nature. Unable to achieve my original objective of cutting down evil, I have also created a second personality, or a second existence. My only consolation in this misfortune is that the me called ‘Henry Jekyll’ did not disappear. By taking the drug a second time and enduring an intense pain as if my body is being torn apart, I could return to myself.
[What’s with that. Drinking the drug the second time will return you to your old self. Oh well, thanks to you, rich and well-prepared as you are, I’ve been able to get away unscathed, hahahaha!]
…Two personalities residing in one body.
I have repeated this experiment countless times. Amidst the pain that naturally comes from the impossible process of dismantling and reconstructing myself, having already resigned myself to the possibility that I might die, I took the drug again, and yet once again I only transformed into Hyde, once again I laughably repeated those days smeared in madness.
Once I transformed into Hyde, he would just behave how he liked.
If he thought returning to Jekyll would be convenient for him, only then would he drink the potion.
At first, his behavior was of a wild nature exactly like how I was when I was young, the kind that I tried to keep hidden – meaning that those actions of his was full of the recklessness and vigor of a youth. He would hang out night after night at the bar and the opium den. But, alas, just as I imagined, there is no goodness in him! The more he who embodied pure evil ran amok, the deeper he sank into the darkness.
At the end of it all is one night, near the back door of my residence, he so cruelly hurt* an innocent girl. My personification of evil, Hyde, only continued to hurt her no matter how much she cried and screamed, and he left her there just like that.
You and Mr. W must also have heard rumors of this cruel scoundrel. His true identity is undoubtedly me, or to be specific, my second existence Hyde!
And yet he did not stop at this atrocity.
I…
Rather, he, no, this shadow of my own self freely engaged in violence.
And the culmination of it all is…
M.P. Carl Danvers!
That merciless murder of the pitiful old man, a case bordering on brutality!
The culprit is me!
For me who have transformed into Hyde, only a minor offense was enough reason for him to turn that aged man into a cold, dead corpse!
With a cruel excitement as if like a naughty child playing with his toys until they broke, he continued to strike the helpless victim, to commit the serious crime of treating another person’s life like a plaything.
If the devil truly exist in Hell, at that very moment, that devil was none other than me, none other than Hyde.
[What’s with that, oi. Don’t exaggerate a kill to that extent ---- and also, do you really think I only killed that one time?]
Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up.
This is my letter. Don’t write anything in my stead. Don’t whisper into my ears.
You do not exist anywhere, for as long as I am myself you do not exist anywhere.
Aah, I beg of you.
Please just do for me one final thing.
And then, rest assured. I will not cover up your crimes by blaming it solely on you.
You are me. You were created from me, you are a part of me.
By now, I have no intentions of denying it.
…Please excuse my rudeness.
As you can see, I am in a state of extreme agitation.
Even so I want you to believe me. All the things I have written in here are true; they are things I want to tell you no matter what. Please, if you will grant me this one generosity of hearing out my recollection until the last page. I don’t have much time. I have used all my remaining strength to send an old friend of mine a letter, and my body and mind have almost reached their limits. As I repeatedly took the drug, my soul gradually turned into Hyde. When I went to sleep as Jekyll and woke up as Hyde, I was so confused I was speechless for a few moments. I know that the violence in this soul will only increase.
Even now, I am gripping this pen while enduring the absolute dread of a transformation.
As it is right now, it is undoubtedly Hyde’s victory.
When my body and personality completely disappears from this earth, Hyde will continue to fester his tyranny unhindered, spread tragedies tainted with fresh blood and tears ceaselessly, and one day that tyranny will transcend our simple, normal life into a primordial form. I can see it. While for now Hyde remains a part of me, the root of his actions and his final destination is to plunge this city into the shadows.
Probably, he might become like something armed with sharp claws.
Probably, he might become something with an unsightly set of jaws.
Just a sight of it will compel fear and panic -------
A beast.
No longer the darkness of the color of ravens’ feathers, but of a pitch-black beast.
Surely, that is what will become of me in the end.
Something living in the night, howling at the moon, prowling around seeking the fresh blood of innocents.
It cannot be stopped.
I do not wish for it. Surely, even Hyde should not want to be reduced to a mere beast. Because then he will not be able to enjoy the wine and women he loved so much.
Before we turn into a beast, I will end myself and Hyde’s existence.
This is certainly my victory. However, it might be my victory against Hyde, but I am aware that I cannot triumph when it comes to other people.
In the end…
I must tell you of a fear that haunts my mind.
Or rather, it is only for that reason that I am gripping my pen and continuing this letter.
Evil exists within humans.
I have not just proved it with my own body, I have unleashed it upon the world.
Look at the daily newspapers filled with grievous crimes. And on the other hand, many, many more crimes happen without our knowledge, without being exposed.
This is how humans are.
Even as we value virtue and sing praises of ideals, we cannot separate ourselves from evil. This is certainly not the seven sins of the humanity that can be cleansed by a messiah.
Because humans are like this…
Or,
Should I say, in order for humans to retain the nature of what makes them human…?
From time to time, we humans are as fiercely savage as we are lost. Even though we know our end to only be tragedy, we cannot stop – an unstoppable impulse. We, the pitiful beings called humans; it is precisely because we have intelligence that we cannot ever cast it away – if I were to put it in words, that should be it.
The evil of humanity -------
These are my utmost true feelings. This great evil contained within humans is something no one can ever defeat. For as long as humans exist, we cannot run away from it. The reason is that just like how we cannot cast away our intelligence, we also cannot cast away evil.
Aah, how terrifying!
Laugh at my ignorance, my shallow wish, all you want ------ just by granting this formless existence a temporary form, just by lending him my body, Hyde, evil has become a second aspect of it and bared its fangs dripping with blood at society! To imagine that one day, evil would acquire an even greater form! Would humanity, then,...
Truly be unable to go against it...?
[Hyahahaha!]
[Of course!]
[If I were to get serious against you bastards, scared shitless as you are ----- of course there’s no way in hell!!!]
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
[He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.]
From Friedrich Nietzche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”
Originally Posted by Arashi_Leonhart
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