When Mr. Utterson, a London solicitor, learns that his old friend Dr. Jekyll has secretly bequeathed everything to the detestable Mr. Hyde, he embarks on an investigation that leads from fog-shrouded doorways to murder and finally to a terrible revelation: Jekyll has been chemically transforming himself into his own darker counterpart, only to find that Hyde grows stronger with each emergence while the drug that sustains him slowly fails. The consequences of playing God with one's own soul unfold with relentless inevitability toward a conclusion where neither self survives intact.
Jekyll writes these last words under the influence of his final powder. Within minutes, Hyde will claim him forever. He races to finish, knowing Hyde might destroy these pages if the change catches him writing, but his other self’s narrow focus on the present may preserve them. Whether Hyde dies on the scaffold or by his own hand, Jekyll no longer cares. This is his true death. He sets down the pen and seals his confession, ending the unhappy existence of Henry Jekyll.
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