Hamlet, A Supernatural Modern Retelling

“So what are we gonna do, kid?”

Hamlet brought the phone screen closer to his eyes, all but ignoring Yorick. His thumb scrolled through his daily feed of quirky TikToks. There’s that one cheese-making video he’s seen everywhere lately. 

“Ignoring it, sure, sure…” Yorick plopped himself next to Hamlet on the couch, bones poking uncomfortably into Hamlet’s knees.

Hamlet landed on a video of a tiny kitten. A calm voiceover drifted out of the speakers. “Sometimes, when we aren’t sure of ourselves, we second-guess facts we definitely know are true. In that case, we should take a breath to center ourselves and think about why we’re questioning our thoughts. Is-”

Hamlet closed the video and flung the phone away, burying his face in his hands.

“Hey,” Yorick patted him on the knee. “Lighten up a little. Maybe that ghost was lying about the whole thing. Con artists are pretty frequent among the ghost population.”

“That’s a stereotype,” Hamlet muttered.

“All stereotypes are true sometimes.”

“That’s-!” Hamlet decided not to argue with an undead boomer. “And how exactly do I ‘lighten up’ when my own father was murdered!”

“Yeah, sucks.”

“He’s dead!”

“Yeah.”

“Do you even know what that’s like?”

“Uh,” Yorick looked down at his own skeletal body.

“Right,” Hamlet said, “sorry.”

“Eh, no sweat, kid, truth be told I’ve never felt so alive! Metaphorically.” Yorick beat his chest cavity with a bony fist. “‘Sides, now I get to go to those skeleton comedy clubs. I’m real big at The Funny Bone.”

Hamlet rarely felt like smiling these days, but Yorick always managed to coax it out of him. “You’re the royal jester. I’m not surprised in the slightest.”

“Was the royal jester,” Yorick corrected, “your uncle won’t get me to perform even if he drags me back to the castle kicking and screaming. Murderer or not, he’s a real ass.”

And just like that, Hamlet’s smile faded when he remembered. His uncle, Claudius, king of the undead. His father, possibly murdered by his own brother. Hamlet, procrastinating.

Maybe he should find another kitten video.

“You could kill him,” Yorick said idly.

“What?!”

“Avenge your father, y’know, the thing the ghost asked you to do. Sounds pretty heroic and princely to me.”

“You said it yourself! How can we possibly know that the ghost isn’t a liar? Maybe it wasn’t my father at all, but some demon sent to destroy us.”

“How many demons have ya met?”

“None, but…how many have you met?”

“Not the point! You should kill him anyway. No one likes him! His policies are trash! Plus, he didn’t even show up to your father’s funeral. Seems suspicious to me.”

Hamlet sat up and glared at Yorick’s empty eye sockets. It was hard to hold eye contact with his new roommate, but he hoped the sheer force of the glare would get the message across. “I am not killing my uncle if I don’t know if he’s guilty! I could be killing an innocent man!”

“Not so innocent when it comes to your mother…”

Hamlet’s foot met Yorick’s thick skull. It spun around a few times before Yorick caught it and twisted it back into place. “Okay okay! Not mentioning Mom, got it.”

Hamlet lept to his feet and started to pace, phone forgotten, the only thing occupying his mind was his father’s death. “If I kill my uncle, and the ghost isn’t my father at all, I would be killing my own family due to my idiotic rashness! And if it was my father, and I do nothing…” Hamlet stopped, and his heart sank. Explosive anger rose within him, at his uncle, at his mother, at everyone for moving on so quickly.

King Hamlet had been beloved by so many, and yet they all had forgotten him so easily. He just didn’t understand.

“Okay,” Yorick scratched his skull, still sitting on the couch. “So without any evidence, we’re kinda fifty-fifty on this, right?” Yorick unhinged his jaw and reached inside. He pulled out a coin.

“Where were you hiding that?” Hamlet asked.

“You don’t wanna know,” Yorick held out the coin. “Heads, your uncle’s guilty. Tails, that ghost was full of it. Ready?”

“This is stupid,” Hamlet grumbled. “Fine, we’ll do it your way then.”

Yorick flipped the coin and caught it between his phalanges. He opened his fist. 

Tails.

“He definitely did it,” said Hamlet.

“Ah, the good ol’ coin trick,” Yorick kissed the coin, Which was impressive, considering he didn't have lips. “Works like a charm.”

They planned to strike at midnight. 

The silence around the castle was disconcerting. It had been a while since Hamlet moved out, and the mix of childhood nostalgia and sheer wrongness did nothing to curb his mounting anxiety.

He shuffled around in the bushes at the end of the moat, shoulder-to-shoulder bone with Yorick, hoods pulled over both of their heads.

“Coast seems clear,” Yorick said, peering at the windows with his skeletal fingers curved around his eye-sockets like a makeshift pair of binoculars.

“Look!” Hamlet grabbed Yorick’s skull and rotated it until he was facing the upper-story window of the king’s private quarters. It was hard to spot in the dim light, but it was the silhouette of his mother. She seemed to be pacing around the room, a worried habit Hamlet had inherited. 

Something welled up in the back of his throat, and Hamlet turned away from the castle, curling up into a ball and squeezing his eyes shut from the sudden sting.

“Hey, hey!” Yorick put a hand on Hamlet’s shoulder. “C’mon, kid-”

“I’m not doing this,” Hamlet mumbled into his knees.

“We’ve come all this way-”

“I just need to think!”

Hamlet clamped his hand over his mouth and looked toward the window. 

The silhouette of his mother approached the glass and opened the window. She leaned out to scan the yard, looking for the source of the shout, her brow tense with worry.

“Oh boy,” Yorick whispered.

“Shh!”

Not spotting them, Hamlet’s mother closed the window.

“That was close,” Yorick said.

“I…” Hamlet trailed off, still looking through the window to his mother’s chambers. No doubt his uncle was there too. 

That, miraculously, made something in his mind click into place, and these last few weeks put it into perspective. His uncle’s pandering behavior, his mother’s comforting gaze. Horatio’s worried glances, the servants’ anxieties.

“She has no clue, does she?” Hamlet said. “You know, I used to think she was in on it, that maybe she had also…” He shuddered. “But she really has no idea he killed my father. She’s just moved on, and I resent her for it, but-”

“I knew your parents for a long time,” Yorick said, “they always seemed head-over-heels for one another. Maybe it’s not that simple.”

“Maybe,” Hamlet stood up and pulled his hood over his head. “Let’s go. I won’t let him deceive her any longer.”

They darted over the moat, past Bernardo and Marcellus, who had neglected their sentry duties once again and were peacefully snoring, leaning upright against one another near the gates. Hamlet gave them a fond glance before unlocking the gate. 

They were in.

They spoke little as they made their way through the castle. The weapon Hamlet had brought, a dagger that his father had gifted to him on his thirteenth birthday, weighed heavily on his belt. Yorick couldn’t help but rattle along, but he tried his best to be discrete.

The king and queen’s quarters were right down the hall when someone behind them cleared their throat.

Hamlet turned, and his heart leaped through several different emotions at a speed no one could fathom.

Ophelia stood in the middle of the hall, glaring at Hamlet. 

“Uh oh, lady trouble,” Yorick whispered.

“Why, pray tell, are you here, sneaking around in the middle of the night?” Ophelia asked. She finally noticed Yorick. He gave a small wave. “And who is your…skeletal friend?”

“Oh, that’s Yorick,” Hamlet said. “He looks a little different.”

“You’ve come back from the dead?”

“Eh,” Yorick looked away bashfully, “you could say Hamlet called me back.”

“I see,” Ophelia said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah, you too, kid.”

“But you,” Ophelia pointed at Hamlet, “why are you here? They told me you left, and that you had a ‘condition’...”

“You mean depression?” Hamlet muttered.

“Oh,” Ophelia looked crestfallen, “I didn’t know. If I can-”

“You can go back to bed,” Hamlet said.

“Harsh,” said Yorick.

“But-” Ophelia’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Please,” Hamlet cast an anxious glance behind him. At the end of the hall lay his uncle’s bed chamber. “It’s for your own safety.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Ophelia stomped her foot. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t want to do this. Ophelia was one of his closest friends, and even he knew he’d already been cruel to her. But even back then, before he’d met the ghost, he was hardly in a mental state to be dating anyone. “I’ve come to tell you…”

“Yes?” Ophelia looked hopeful.

“That I-”

“Yes?”

“Will read your letters. Just…we’ll do it together! In a bit! Just wait for me in the library, and we can…uh…talk? And uh, stay away from water? I had a bad vision a few weeks ago.”

“Oh,” Ophelia blushed and nodded, “alright. But you’d better be there.”

“Yup,” Hamlet squeaked, “I will.”

They watched her walk away.

“Nice save,” said Yorick, “the library’s in the farthest hall.”

“I wanted to say something cruel to her,” Hamlet admitted, blushing for some reason. “I suppose this works though. She’ll find out the news sooner or later, no matter what it is.”

“Hey,” Yorick took him by the shoulders before Hamlet could walk away. “Don’t talk like that, okay? Why’d you think I rose from that grave? No more of that ‘to be or not to be’ nonsense. I want you to be. And I want you to keep being. Claudius is the one whose grave they’re gonna be digging.”

Hamlet tensed, then nodded. He wiped at his eyes discreetly. “Okay.”

They entered the king’s chambers. It was dark, hard to see anything, but Hamlet didn’t dare pull out his phone. He navigated it from memory. 

Yorick hung back as Hamlet entered the bedroom, and Hamlet swallowed, horribly anxious. His mother lay on the far side of the bed. His uncle on the other, his sleeping face tucked into a pillow. It was nauseating.

Hamlet put the dagger to Claudius’s throat, and his uncle woke suddenly.

“Do not move,” Hamlet whispered, words seething, “get up. Do not wake my mother.”

Cold sweat erupted over his uncle’s brow. “What is this?” He looked frantically between Hamlet, the dagger at his throat, and Yorick, who grinned wickedly. “Hamlet, what are you-”

“Get. Up.” Hamlet twisted the dagger, and Claudius winced.

He brought his uncle to the parlor, the dagger at his uncle’s back.

“Great!” Yorick whispered once they closed the door to the bedroom, “Now finish him off!”

Hamlet walked over to a wall of display cabinets and opened the top one. He pulled out two rapiers.

“Nice! Do it with style!”

He tossed one to his uncle, who shakily caught it, looking bewildered.

“No! What are ya doing, kid?”

“A fair duel,” Hamlet said. “Justice is on my side.”

“Terrible idea! Not a good idea!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Claudius demanded, his voice breaking from the fear.

“I know what you did,” said Hamlet.

That was all it took for the thin veneer of innocence to fall. Claudius scowled, still afraid, but now with a lot more murderous intent. “You will regret this, boy.” He pointed his sword at Hamlet.

“We’ll see,” Hamlet rushed him, thrusting his rapier. Claudius stumbled back and barely parried. He snarled and lunged at Hamlet, the force of his strike threatening to throw the sword from Hamlet’s hand. 

Yorick whimpered and shrunk back into the corner, not knowing what to do.

Hamlet managed to parry, laughing out of spite, “Harder to kill someone without poison, isn’t it, Uncle?”

Claudius thrust again, then grabbed the nearest object, a heavy metal lamp, and flung it at Hamlet. The prince dodged the strike of the sword but yelped when the lamp hit him on the head. 

Claudius struck again. The sword fell from Hamlet’s hand. Hamlet stumbled back, falling to the floor. 

“No, no, no!” Yorick cried. He tried to move to help, but Claudius slashed at the skeleton, threatening to turn him into a pile of inanimate bones.

He then pointed the sword at Hamlet. 

“Go to hell,” Hamlet spat.

“Not anytime soon,” Claudius remarked. He thrust-

And toppled, the sword falling harmlessly to the side. Standing above him, a heavy mace held high above her head, was Hamlet’s mother.

Hamlet looked at his uncle’s still body, then at his mother, not sure what to do.

“I had planned to use poison,” Gertrude remarked, looking over the bloodied mace, “I thought it would be ironic. You forced my hand.” She dropped the mace and helped Hamlet to his feet.

“Mom?” Hamlet still couldn’t quite understand. “You knew?”

“That he killed your father?” Gertrude looked down at her second dead husband. “Of course I did. Do you give me so little credit?”

“Wow,” Yorick said, “Your Majesty, that was crazy.”

“Yorick?” Gertrude squinted at the skeleton.

“Oh yeah, I’m back. Also, your husband’s a ghost. So, you know, there might be a happy reunion sometime in the future,” Yorick trailed off awkwardly.

“All this time,” Hamlet said, “you were planning to avenge Father. I thought-” Tears welled in his eyes.

This mother hugged him. “No tragedies befall us today,” she said.

“Amen to that,” said Yorick.