Hide and Seeker

These chapters delve into the character of Hyde, another victim of Nowhere. Hyde is a flawed but pivotal secondary character who prioritizes self-preservation over empathy. Self-centered, callous, secretive, and traumatized, Hyde’s complexity illustrates the extreme impact of Nowhere while also showing the children the effects of making selfish decisions, reinforcing the importance of cooperative behavior and The Strength of Friendship and Unity. His name itself, Hyde, is a different spelling of “hide,” a purposeful nod to the game of hide-and-seek that also highlights one of the main features of Hyde’s character: an unwillingness to confront his problems. Hyde suppresses his traumatic past and resists the group’s interrogation, making the name an apt representation of his character. The name also references Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), a classic novel in which the character of Mr. Hyde is the manifestation of all the worst aspects of Dr. Jekyll’s character. Hyde’s confession that he lures children to the Seeker in a bargain for his survival reveals him to be a morally ambiguous figure; though he’s a victim, he has become complicit with a monster. His inability or unwillingness to protect others, including his younger sister, Mary, underscores the impact of fear and self-preservation. Hyde’s selfish choices and the lasting scar on his face reflect the darker side of humanity, where survival instincts can override empathy, and show the children how making a selfish choice can resonate throughout one’s life.

The novel’s exploration of Hyde’s character and experience also highlights the theme of Learning Courage and Resilience Through Childhood Games. Hyde embodies the loss of childhood purity. Lyric discovers that Hyde vanished as a child and reappeared years later: “‘Hyde Miller, age ten, disappears without a trace,’ reads Lyric. […] ‘He was found seven years later wandering near a lake. He was badly scarred and had amnesia. He couldn’t tell anyone what happened’” (84). This revelation explains Hyde’s distrustful and self-serving behavior. The scar, which “ripples across his cheek” (89), becomes a symbol of the lasting and less visible damage inflicted by the Seeker in Nowhere. 

The supernatural elements and the world building of Nowhere are key to Hyde’s interactions with the group. As someone who has firsthand experience with the Seeker, Hyde offers critical—though often cryptic—insight. His ominous warnings emphasize the psychological and paranormal stakes of the story, while his fragmented descriptions of Nowhere heighten the tension, leaving Justin and the others to piece together the horrors awaiting them:

‘[Nowhere is] the place where the Seeker takes kids. The place where you’re going.’ […] ‘The world…it’s a game, too. A dark, twisted game you can’t win. It’s you against fear—yours and others. You run and hide, and sometimes you think you’ve escaped, but they always find you. It’s the Seeker’s rules. And it changes them so you never feel safe. There’s only fear, fear, fear’ (94).

Nowhere is a land where fears come alive, but the full extent of its terror remains a mystery. These hints prepare the group for the nightmare realm while leaving the Seeker’s true power and the nature of Nowhere shrouded in uncertainty. With Hyde’s mysterious descriptions of the world they are about to encounter, he highlights the theme of Reality Versus the Supernatural, blurring the line between the two.

By withholding complete explanations, Hermon effectively builds suspense, reinforcing the horror genre’s reliance on the fear of the unknown. Hyde’s reluctance to fully reveal what he knows adds to this uncertainty, forcing the children to confront the prospect of entering Nowhere with limited understanding. Hyde describes aspects of Nowhere and the Seeker, such as its connection to the childhood game of hide-and-seek, but the group won’t grasp the full scope of the nightmare world until they experience it firsthand. In these chapters, Hermon makes use of the horror genre’s use of the supernatural to create the world of Nowhere, which is shaped by fear, a place where nightmares take form. At the same time, it becomes clear that only through direct interaction will the children uncover its true nature and its ruler, the Seeker. Hyde’s cryptic warnings, paired with the unknown horrors of Nowhere, foreshadow an encounter with a powerful and appalling force.