Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

“Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.”

The boy shuts the book. His fingers caresses the leather-binding; trailing his index up the spine as he ponders. He thinks about her; the woman from his dreams, the trespasser in his mind. She has been there for as long as he can remember. Though she frightens him, makes him feel powerless and riddled with guilt for the things she makes him do, he cares for her; the boy knows the woman has been protecting him like a lioness, from them. He gets up from his chair, walks across the old creaking floorboards
and places the book on top of the dusty dim-lit fireplace. From the corner of his eye he sees the woman's murky silhouette gathering daffodils from their garden. Daffodils blossoming in winter is considered unusual, but what's even more peculiar is that all of the flowers in their garden seem to be hexed, they never wither; instead they lure outsiders with their beauty and remarkable scent. The boy rubs his eyes and turns to look directly at the woman. But what he sees is himself, standing from a distance, close by the fireplace inside of the villa. He watches himself leave the spot upon where he stood. And he begins to notice his surroundings; the warm heat from the burning chunks of wood is replaced by a chilly breeze, along with familiar floral scent. He feels his hand gripping something cool and damp. Looking down he sees a dusin of daffodils resting in a palm that doesn't resemble his own. The hand is certainly larger than his. Fingers bony, slender and broken in each joint. Realization hits him, and he drops the flowers before blacking out.