Jekyll had hidden his letter by the time that I had regained my body, for the last time, for better or worse. In his letter he had said that he feared I would destroy his letter if he didn’t hide it, never mind that I had watched him hide it, making this exercise useless. Though we had shared a body he really had never really understand my thoughts. Now that Jekyll no longer existed, not even as a voice in my head, I had lost the desire to actively destroy everything. He had said a lot of bad things about me in that letter of course, taking no responsibility for my creation; all of his sins were mine. I would allow him his final say though, which goes to show I am not the pure evil that he seemed to think, I think it is impossible to live and be pure evil.
I sit and pen this account as my rebuttal of Jekyll’s letter, or at least leave something of myself behind me. I have no doubt that no matter what happens it will not be long before I follow after Jekyll, wherever he has gone. If I have been wrong and there is a God I only hope that he judges Jekyll and me equally guilty, then there will be justice in this world that so far has shown me no justice at all.
Post Script:
My testimony also becomes my suicide note; I write this quickly since I don’t have much longer. It has been a week since I became my own person but now Mr. Utterson comes, brought by the servant, and I know he will not leave this time. He tells me that they intend to break down the door. I asked for mercy in vain hope but he told me I would receive none and I expected none. The world is not so easy as to allow acquittal simply because it is asked for.
I have had a lot of time to think over the last week, there hasn’t been much else to do, and I have come to the conclusion that at least my death will be because of my own desire. For the first, and out of definition of suicide the last, time I will be taking some sort of charge of my own body and its fate. I would not choose to allow a hangman to take my death from me as Jekyll took my life. Already the bottle of cyanide sits beside me as I write, a notorious death for a notorious life, it suites me well.
My only fear is that this letter will never be made public; it probably will even be destroyed. I know Mr. Utterson well enough from what I saw through Jekyll to know that he will do anything to protect the reputation of his friend. If any account of this affair is made public it will undoubtedly be Jekyll’s self-serving one and there is nothing that I can do about it. I have already taken Jekyll’s testimony from its hiding place and laid it on the table where it will be found instantly. I do not trust them to search the room through enough to have found it where Jekyll had stowed it from me. Knowing that Mr. Utterson will never publish my account I ask only that he publish Jekyll’s. Better that the world knows that I existed, even though it is from the words of a hypocrite, then for them forget that I ever walked this earth. That is my final request, that the world should know what occurred here, and I beg you Mr. Utterson to honor this prayer.
Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Edward Hyde to an end.
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