Unwilling Experiment, and Life After

Chapter One

Jackson Jekyll let Frankie Stein lead him down the darkened hallway. It was the first time he'd come to her house after the awkward "I-like-your-dual-personality-better-than-you" talk that had occurred shortly after the existence of Holt Hyde came to light. But this afternoon after school, she'd excitedly asked him over to see her newest invention. Never one to miss some mad science, he'd happily agreed to come over.

He was beginning to wonder if he should've been so willing to be alone with her in her lab with her parents at work. Frankie was a closet nerd, believing that liking anything other than clothes, fashion and gossip would make her friends see her in a different, uncomplimentary light. So seeing her happily trying to explain her newest theory on why her bolts sparked was always relaxing. Except for now. The closer they got to her lab, and the more the light dimmed until it was nothing but emergency back-up red lights, and the steady downhill slope of the last corridor was making Jackson feel very uneasy with the decision to follow her.

"I had to reroute all the power from this part of the house down to my lab, sorry about the red. BUT IT'LL BE WORTH IT! Just you wait until you can see what this baby can do!" Her bolts fizzled, eerily illuminating her face in the dim. It made her teeth flash very, very white, and her grin appear longer, lips black in the afterimage. Jackson gulped, noticing the cold sweat he'd broken into.

"And what exactly does "this baby" do?" Jackson asked quietly. Frankie gripped his (-wrist? When had she moved up there from his hand?) more fiercely, and giggled. But her giggle wasn't really a giggle. It was more sinister, and echoed creepily in the winding tunnel they'd entered.

"Now that would be no surprise at all. You'll see." She chuckled, "I've been working on it with Daddy lately, it'll shock your socks off. I know your birthday's coming up, and I want my present to be really electrifying. I was going to wait until the actual dau, but Holt said it would be more cool this way."

Jackson paused, and nearly tripped as she yanked on his arm. When had she spoken to Holt? He didn't remember any black outs lately. And when had her grip become so vice-like around his forearm?

After what felt like hours, but surely can't have been that long, the found the thick oaken door that had FRANKIE written on it in mint-green glitter glue. The only white light Jackson had seen since entering the tunnels illuminated it.

"In here, Jackson." Frankie gestured with her free hand, her other loosening it's grip on Jackson's bicep a little. She opened the door and ushered him through. Jackson realized he was way too far in now to turn tail and leg it like he wanted, so glanced nervously around the lab.

"What is it Frankie?" he was proud that he didn't stutter.

"I'll tell you when you see it. I promise you'll love it"

He grimaced oddly at her, trying to smile, which she took as consent to continue deeper in amongst the towers of chrome pipes, mountains of discarded notes, and snaking vines of plastic tubing.

Frankie led Jackson to a galvanized metal platform and whirled to face him. She clapped, and the lights changed from normal to an eerie green that lit her fine-featured face beautifully. Jackson was now fully and totally uncomfortable with the scenario, and had begun rummaging for his phone, planning to fake a worried mum-text telling him to come home. Frankie smiled so wide it strained her stitches.

"I took your phone when I hugged you at the bus stop. Took you a lot longer than I thought to start looking for an out."

"Frankie, this is super weird. Maybe if it's meant for my birthday, it should wait until then?" He said weakly. He tried to pull his arm from her hand, and it came off still attached. The blue plaid manicure dug in through his lemon-yellow shirt, beginning to draw blood through the light material.

"No Jackson. This needs to happen now."

She pushed him backwards into a glass tank filled with clear, viscous liquid that smelt of vanilla essence. He tried in vain to claw at the glass, when he figured out he could breathe this stuff. He looked up to see she had put a lid on it, effectively trapping him.

"Frankie! What the heck ghoul? Does this smell even come out of clothes?" He mouthed desperately. The tank was slowly raised, and he could see Frankie standing on the platform with a remote that looked like a modified playstation controller. Frankie's right hand, which he last remembered on his shirt, tapped the glass.

"You all alive in there? Voltage. Alright. This may sting a tad, but you'll get used to it in no time. Or not. Either way, we'll have you split up in a jiffy. PULL THE LEVER IGOR!" Frankie shrieked, striking a dramatic pose. Igor rolled an eye.

"Runs in the family… YESH MISHTRESH!"

The tank was suddenly charged full of bright blue electricity. Jackson felt as though his tendons were fire and every muscle was made of lead. Then an excruciating pulling began in his mind. The pulling was worse than anything. He screamed, but Frankie couldn't hear. Her eyes lit up and her bolts sparked as she watched a double image of Jackson appear, then stream through the separation tubes through to the other tank, where a blank body waited. The blank body (made from cloned material and without stitches) gradually turned blue, and the hair took on a definite red hue. Frankie ran a hand over where the face was forming, tears streaming down her face as she rested her cheek on the glass above her boyfriend's shoulder was.

"Finally I'll just be yours. I've never wanted to be shared. I just wanted you."