• He wrinkled his nose.
    The air was filled with a warm and muggy stench of moisty walls, mixed with the typical smell of medicine that still stuck in the room, The whole underground level was abandonded for many years, but still all devices were there, as if the scientists and assistents grabbed their things in less than one fatal moment and never returned. As David swept the cone of light of his flashlight over the tables and shelves, stuffed by hundreds of glass jars with all kinds of chemicals, amboules and old gagdets of the laboratory that has been covered by a thick layer of dust over the years, he wondered what kind of research had been done down here, below the actual, official laboratory. He squinted, not daring to move away from the door, but he tried to find something, anything in the circle of light, while everything around him was covered in darkness.
    Silence
    There was nothing but his flat breath.
    He didn't know what he would find down here, he didn't even know what he was actually looking for, but he knew there was something down in these abandoned rooms that would finally give him answers. He had to think of the documents he found in Dr. Clarks office. IT-SOLID, that was it's name and the following pages were filled up with lots, LOTS of data. The first pages were filled with all kinds of information like you would find in a birth certificate, but then he came across protocolls of his development , physical as mental, appereantly from the day he was born on. He always knew that Dr. Clark and Below payed special attention to him and that they had higher plans with him than the rest of the students. Not only because he was the best, it was because of his father.
    His father, the hero, the legend. What did he know about him anyway? Not more than anyone else, the stories about him and his reputed achievments. He never really talked to him, the few times he met him he remained silent, leaving the word to the Doctor or Below, waiting, watching, observing. It always felt like he was not allowed to talk, had to stay in the background and keep enough distance to the big man in the uniform.
    Yes, meeting him always was a little awkward. But the last and probably the first real words he said to him made everything even worse.
    You and me, wer are the same. But I'm not your father.
    He was not his father? How could it be? Dr. Clark, Below and even himself always noticed that almost identic look of them, was David his brother? No way, impossible. Probably he just wanted to make him clear that he will never play the daddy for him, why else did he refuse to raise him when he was just born? David never really saw him as his father either, he was more like his icon, someone he would never reach. But in some way he was always faszinated by his appearance, wished to be like him, no, better than him. Atleast some day. But didn't Dr. Clark also put some personal notes on the last pages of those IT- SOLID documents? David started to remember again, they must have been documented years ago, the ink was already pale and written in an almost antique handwriting, but definitely from the bizarre old woman.

    After so many failures we finally captured the victory against nature, the subject carries all the dominant genes and shapes up just as I planned it, this is a huge succes for everyone who was involved in this project! I made the unthinkable possible. I am creating by my own will!

    Underneath it there was a big, grinning smiley. It was like a bad thriller, and his imagination went wild, was that huge succes the product of the research that had been done down here in those cold laboratories, nothing more than ruins filled up with junk nowadays? What did Dr. Clark and her team do down here, hidden from public and any control? What did it have to do with himself? A cold shiver went down his spine and he knew that they were hiding something from him, Below, Dr. Clark, everyone. Standing stiff, not moving, his arm sank and the flashlight signed the ground with a weak circle of light.
    He couldn't stand the silence anymore, he stared into the darkness. His zest for action was gone, now all he wanted was to leave and just forget about all this.
    Delusions and the craziest apprehensions were creaping up his head as a slowly killing poison, it was like they were sneaking up behind him, but he couldn't move, were it his paranoid imaginations or the darkness that scared him to death? Was there just a light windblow coming from the door? The ones you feel when somemeone moves behind you, that awkward warmth a close body emits?
    Your just paranoid, and tired... very tired... you need some sleep.
    He felt like he had not slept for days, even though the hypnotics they had infused him in the hospital-station completely had taken him out.
    Just dont loose your mind now, its just a damn cellar and there is just no light, you're no child anymore so keep yourself together!
    Didn't he just hear a klicking from somewhere in the darkness? He couldn't make out where it came from. Was it infront of him or behind him? Was it far away or close, maybe even right next to him? And what kind of thing would produce such a sound?
    No further klicking. It was probably just one of those ancient devices.
    His flashlight began to jitter. The sudden guttering made his heart make a bump.
    "Oh No", he thought, "Please not now, please not now!"
    The walls around him seemed to be moved as they were lightet and then covered in darkness again second after second.
    He blinked.
    Then, Darkness.