(Note: the ending is a little violent.) I had spent a few days of contemplating whether to do it or not. I just couldn't resist it anymore! The desire ate away at my sanity. Yet there was a small voice, doubt, telling me not to do it, to protect myself and my friends. Here I stood, in my secret room, and I asked myself the question one more time. “Should I do it?” I replayed the pros and cons in my head once more. The pros were that I could freely act how I wanted, without having to worry about tarnishing my reputation. I would also vanquish the revolting rats of temptation gnawing away at my mind, and quench the mysterious, deep desire lingering deep in my soul. The single con I could find was that I may harm myself or my friends in the process. "We all only have one life. There is no purpose in trying to preserve it," I muttered as I stared at myself in the mirror one final time. There was a patch of black hair in my otherwise light gray hair. I'd done my best over the past few months to hide it, but to no avail. My friends— no, acquaintances— had all poked fun at it in the past. I grabbed the peculiar patch in my fist and pulled hard. The next thing I heard was the sound of my spirit as it screamed to stay inside of me. It latched onto my bones, onto my sinews, in an attempt to stay, but I mercilessly yanked even harder. Soon enough, its screaming pain drove me to insanity, as I screamed along with my spirit, attempting to drown out the pain and sound. The feeling of my spirit ripping away at my bones and sinews caused excruciating pain. I made one final tug and out came my soul from my body. I had one that war. Suddenly I had been overcome by a powerful feeling. It was something I'd never felt before, yet it felt oddly familiar. It was a feeling of... evil. Yes, that had been the deep desire repressed by my goodness inside my body! I looked at my pale, lifeless carcass, an empty shell of my former self. That version of me— a respectful, wealthy gentleman with friends, a man devoted to his religion and his studies— it all filled me with disgust. I angrily shoved the carcass under the mattresses. I walked back to the mirror and observed my new form. My hair transformed into a shaggy mess, all the same color as the patch. The rest of my body looked underdeveloped and deformed, my skin a putrid mix of my usual skin color and black. My eyes had turned red, and I could see in them my freed conscience happily burning with malice. I was broken from my focus when I heard a whisper. I couldn't make out what it was saying. "Who's in here?" I boomed, being shocked by the sound of my new voice. It grew deeper than any human voice I'd ever heard before, and it too sounded deformed. The whispers continued, growing louder. They were coming from my dead body! "Silence!" I shouted. Its head was tilted towards mine. The eyes burned into mine. "Look away! And stop whispering!" It continued to face me. Why was it not listening to my commands? “I can’t take it anymore!” I picked it up by the wrists and dragged it into my reading room, a calming fire ablaze. I threw it into the fire with all my might and watched as the flames consumed the body as if it were a light snack. After a few long minutes, the flames had licked up the last remains of my body. I felt a strange sense of joy as I saw the ashes, a wide grin spreading across my face. (Oh wow something I write that doesn’t have a sad ending. I just recently read The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and that is what this story is based off of.)
