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A huge grin spread across Elizabeth’s face as the little dinosaur’s eyes slowly flickered open. The smell of burning and static electricity still hung in the air as the newly awoken dinosaur began to shakily get to it’s feet. Elizabeth pulled up her goggles to reveal wide eyes sparkling with excitement as she watched her new creation gather it’s senses together. Percy, who was perched on his usual spot on Elizabeth’s shoulder, cocked his head to the side as he curiously watched the new dinosaur look around at the room it was in.
“Well hello there, Baryon!” Elizabeth said as the tiny Baryonyx turned its glossy yellow eyes towards her, watching her and Percy intently. She giggled slightly at the silly name she had given the Baryonyx, a pun that contained the name of the dinosaur species and the name of the famous poet, Byron. Elizabeth reached out a gloved hand to scratch the dinosaur under the chin. It growled contentedly and leaned into her hand.
Elizabeth’s new creation was a tiny Baryonyx that was about the size of a small dog, like a Beagle. Its scales were dusty yellow, with faint brown, squiggly stripes running all along its back and tail. Its mouth was long and scraggly like a mouth of a crocodile, with a vast quantity of thin but sharp teeth, and it had large hands that were tipped with long and wicked-looking claws; the perfect hunter of fish. Its eyes were a bright sunshine yellow that gave an intense stare to everything they looked at.
“Percy, why don’t you meet your new friend here?” Elizabeth said as she gently picked up Percy and placed him on the table next to Baryon. Percy didn’t seem too sure about Baryon, at first shying away slightly when Baryon took a step towards him. Gradually, with a lot of encouragement from Elizabeth, Percy and Baryon tentatively sniffed each other and began to warm towards each other. Soon, the two were running around the table-top and playfully nipping at each other.
“I’m so glad you two are getting along!” Elizabeth beamed. Confident that her two creations would be safe on top of the table, Elizabeth turned around to write down some notes from the success of the latest experiment. With her attention not directed at them, the two dinosaurs lept down from the table and ran out of the ajar door. Elizabeth was only alerted to this by the sound of claws scuttling along the hard, wooden floor and she whipped around just to see a bright green tail disappearing out of the door. She dropped the notebook she held in her hands and gripped her head, fingers digging deep into her golden hair. After a brief moment of panic, Elizabeth ran out of the door to chase after her dinosaurs.
Griffin was calmly walking down a corridor of the society, making a journey back to his room after finally managing to capture some more of his troublesome invisible mice. He was carefully carrying the cage that contained the owners of the constant squeaking noise that was beginning to drive Griffin up the wall. He didn’t notice the scurrying of tiny claws until it was too late. The two tiny reptiles raced down the corridor, barging through Griffin’s legs and knocking him clean to the floor. Griffin toppled over, landing painfully on his coccyx as the cage full of invisible mice clattered to the ground and the door burst open to once more release all of the mice. Griffin growled in annoyance as he turned to face the owner of the frantic footsteps that were approaching from behind him.
“O-oh my goodness I-I’m so sorry!” Elizabeth spluttered as she ran by, trying her best to apologise to Griffin while still chasing after the escaped dinosaurs. Griffin frowned in fury as he watched on in annoyance and slowly got up from the floor, picking up the now empty cage. Once back on his feet again, Griffin watched Elizabeth sprint down the corridor in her heeled boots, sneering.
Lavender was casually chatting with Flowers when the dinosaurs decided to race by them, causing them both to gasp in shock and quickly slide to the side of the corridor in order to move out of the way of the speedy reptiles. Lavender clutched at her chest as the dinosaurs ran around a corner and into the main hall of the society. Flowers had her head turned towards Elizabeth, watching her with worry.
“Miss Wolfe! Are you quite alright?” Flowers called down to the panicking young scientist. Elizabeth stopped briefly when she reached the two surprised women. Lavender had now also turned her attention to Elizabeth, her face carrying an expression of deep concern.
“My…dinosaurs…got…out…I just…made…a new one…” Elizabeth panted, placing her hands on her knees and bending over as she attempted to regain some of her breath. Lavender perked up at the information of a new dinosaur.
“Oh! You made another! I wondered why there were two…but what is this new one? Will you show him to me when you’ve got some time?” Lavender queried, smiling at Elizabeth in a comforting way. Elizabeth grinned weakly.
“Sure! Just…ah…let me catch him first,” Elizabeth said, standing up straight again. “Welp, I’ve…uh…gotta go catch some dinosaurs.” Elizabeth proceed to run into the main hall as Lavender watched on with an endearing smile. Flowers still looked a little bit worried, holding her hands together in front of her chest.
Elizabeth sprinted into the hall only to be greeted with quite an entertaining scene. Edward Hyde was chasing Percy round and round in wide circuits of the hall while Baryon was chasing Hyde and nipping at his heals whenever he was able to catch up to the small blond human. Percy gleefully held Hyde’s top hat in his tiny green jaws as he weaved in and out of the various cabinets of specimens that were contained in the hall. Hyde was screaming obscenities at the small green reptile, trying desperately to snatch his hat out of Percy’s mouth.
“You?!” Elizabeth exclaimed, not expecting to see the random man she bumped into in the street at the hub of mad science in London. Hyde stopped dead and turned furiously towards Elizabeth when he heard her shout. He snarled furiously and stomped over to the shocked Elizabeth.
“Yes! Me! Can you control your little rats? They’re being seriously annoying and getting in my way!” Hyde ranted furiously, snarling and stomping his foot in anger as he spoke. His hands were clenched into tight fists, so tight that they were shaking. Elizabeth was still too surprised to speak, but at this point Percy came running over to proudly show Elizabeth what he had managed to steal. Hyde glanced down at Percy and angrily swung a foot out in Percy’s direction; this snapped Elizabeth out of her stunned silence.
“Hey! Don’t kick him like that!” she retorted, watching Percy just narrowly miss Hyde’s foot by jumping out of the way. Elizabeth bent down and stretched out her arms, causing Percy to run to her. She scooped him up and proceeded to stand in front of the fuming Hyde, trying to pull his hat out of Percy’s mouth. Eventually, Percy reluctantly let go of the scruffy top hat and Elizabeth handed it back to Hyde. He snatched it from her and roughly tugged it onto his head, glaring at Percy as he did so.
At this point, Baryon had got bored of running around the society and had followed Percy back over to Elizabeth, standing by her feet and looking up at her expectantly. He let out a high-pitched roar, unhappy that he wasn’t getting any attention. Elizabeth jumped a little and looked down at him, before bending down and allowing him to climb up the arm that wasn’t cradling Percy and perch on her shoulder. She wasn't quite used to having two dinosaurs to look after. Hyde watched on angrily, with his eyes focused on the tiny dinosaurs.
“So…why the hell are you here? Jekyll didn’t introduce you to me when he showed me round the society and I met all of the other scientists here,” Elizabeth said, frowning slightly in confusion as she absentmindedly scratched at the top of Percy’s head. Hyde’s anger subsided a little.
“Oh…I understand why you’re confused now. I’m…aah…a good friend of Jekyll’s and I stay here and look after the place while he’s busy or away. The name’s Edward Hyde, by the way,” Hyde explained, his signature grin returning to his face as he was able to talk about himself. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Oh okay…Although I’m sure Lanyon will be able to “look after the place” by himself while Jekyll’s away,” Elizabeth said. Hyde’s grin turned into a mischievous knowing smile.
“Well, sometimes Lanyon goes with Jekyll, so that leaves little old me!” Hyde said. There was a brief pause as Elizabeth nodded again, when suddenly a giggle spluttered forth from Hyde’s mouth, as if someone had just said something to him that he had found incredibly funny. Elizabeth thought this was strange, but quickly ignored it when Baryon roared as if he was complaining.
“Fair enough! Anyway, I need to go and look after these two naughty beings, goodbye, Mr Hyde!” Elizabeth said cheerily, waving and turning around and making the short journey back to her room.
She began to think about how weird Hyde was, how it always sounded like he was having some form of weird, internal conversation with himself. Elizabeth began to grow curious. Maybe one day she would solve the mystery…