The night had been glorious. Within hours of waking up in Brian Jenkins' body, Dr. Henry Jekyll grew tired of reclining in the strange man's apartment and felt the need to inject himself with a bit of excitement. He needed a change. He needed a thrill.
He needed Hyde.
A leather case filled with small vials had inexplicably followed him into the strange apartment, and so he downed one without further thought. The change was swift, contorting his face and bubbling beneath his skin. Within minutes, Edward Hyde emerged from the bathroom.
The night had been spent joyfully and without abandon. Hyde first encountered a small girl no older than twelve. She was shoved into a nearby dumpster and pummeled, because she had the gall to get in his way. He then had to do away with an older man that committed the same offense as the girl, and had the nerve to strike him. As the night finished up, Hyde made simple work of a young hooligan that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Three separate people, all left in the street a mess of bloody pulp. Hyde enjoyed that part. He hobbled back to Bellum Letale as the sky began to lighten, hiding his bloody knuckles in his pockets. By the time he reached 302, the change consumed him.
Max came roaring out of the dark and into his body, temporarily convinced that something had been twisted out of shape on the way in. Cracking his jaw, he straightened up, wiping Hyde's bloody hands over his face. At first, he was numb. The man that lived in another man's body, the master actor, had never felt this out of control. Even when Brian was there, Max could feel himself in the back corner. With Jekyll and Hyde, he wasn't even an afterthought. But he remembered everything. Which meant that Brian would remember something.
At first, he was in shock. Brian knew. Then, he was in denial. Brian couldn't know. His emotions shifted and rumbled within him, an avalanche of despair and panic and confusion that finally burst out of him in a long, forced, manic laugh. He laughed until he cried, and cried until he laughed, until he was a twisted-up lump of blood and grime on the kitchen floor.