It's a trap!

As I go deeper, my eyes now used to the dark, detect a faint light. I let the light guide me, and I run towards a door. But the moment I open the door, all the lights in the room go out. Once again, I'm surrounded by darkness and silence.

Then once I'm complete inside, the door slams shut behind me. I rush over to try to open it, but it's securely closed and doesn't budge at all. Where am I...?

A voice echoes from the darkness. A cheerful, yet cold voice, that instills fear in those who hear it. A faint light appears in the gloom, and standing in that light is Evelyn. "Good evening. We meet again, brother."

"Evelyn." I say.

"Are you all right?"

My breath catches in my chest.

Pretorius comes in. Septima is the leader of Progenitor. She commands the entire organisation.

I knew that already, but.... I didn't think she'd show up in person. "Why are you here...?"

Septima laughs. "Don't look so scared. What's the matter?"

"Am I that frightening?" Evelyn asks.

"I think she makes for a very cute sister." Septima chuckles to herself. She continues without losing her smile. "Why am I here? There's only one reason. Because I am the one who lured you to this place. Also, I had learned the location of this place a long time ago."

"What...?" I ask.

"It certainly took you long enough. I'd almost given up me you would ever reach this place. But, I'm glad you're here. I was beginning to worry that I'd overestimated the abilities of Lupin and her group." Septima continues to talk as I stand there, stunned. "After that incident on the train, we desperately sought to find where you were. But, no matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find you. It seems impossible, doesn't it? Even if Lupin is a master escapist, one woman against the power of an entire nation... There should be no way that you could continue to keep yourselves hidden from Progenitor. Yes, it seemed impossible... But, in the end, we had to set some bait and wait patiently for you to bite. Something is getting in our way. Some sort of organisation that not even Progenitor's intelligence services can uncover... Tell me... Who is lurking behind you? What are their motives for inferring with us?" ...What is she talking about?

It's true that we've been very careful about covering our tracks on a daily basis...

But I can't recall us ever setting up any kind of interference against Progenitor itself. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really...? I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. You've come to me here. That's enough for me." Septima says.

"If you lured us here...did you put together Frankenstein's writings that were the prize at the Family Gathering?" I ask.

"Yes, precisely. I was Frankenstein's assistant. I used that as an invitation to you. Haha, I'm so glad my efforts didn't go to waste." Pretorius says. "Of course, if you lost the airship race, I knew you'd resort to trying to steal the prize and would be caught by Sherlock Holmes. Then I would have stepped in and taken you back. Even if whatever scheme Lupin came up with did work, Holmes would have investigated the theft and led me straight to you. Of course, if you lost the race and decided that stealing the prize was too risky, well, that was your only lead. You'd had no other recourse other than lay low, making you unable to act against me and I would have tracked you down eventually, it would have just taken longer."

This strong feeling, almost like a wish, makes me speak out to Evelyn. "Tell me, Evelyn...why are you after me?"

There is a long silence.

Evelyn seems to have lost any cheerfulness, and turns to me with a cold, dismal countenance. "...Brother. Why did Mother love you more than me?"

"What...?" I ask.

"I can't comprehend the reason for it at all." Evelyn says. "She screamed 'It's alive!' and then just recoiled in horror and abandoned me... And, yet...she didn't abandon you. Why... Why, do you think? It's not right. We are siblings, both her children. So why does she only love you?"

What I see in her eyes forces me back. Anger, hostility... I don't see any of these things. Just the opposite. I can't see any anger or emotion at all.

She is simply...empty. Her colourless emotions instill me with a bottomless fear.

Maybe if I had been created first, Victoria would have abandoned me and I'd be the one asking Evelyn these questions.

"...You want to know what you truly are? I'll tell you." Septima says. "I mean, I was going to tell you anyway, even if you didn't ask. That was the whole reason I brought you here. To this place...Frankenstein's laboratory, a place that became my laboratory. This place, you see, if the perfect place for you to learn the truth."

The lights go out, plunging the room once more into darkness.

I can barely see anything. "Septima...?" My breathing becomes shallow. "What are you..." With a loud mechanical sound, the room is filled with a bright light that blurs my eyes with tears. I hear a noise, and what I see next... "What is this...?" I see...things, suspended in tubes filled with a glowing blue liquid.

A thing with wings growing from its back.

A thing with scales all over its body.

A thing with four arms.

A thing with melted skin, muscles visible.

All of them, based on the same basic shape.

"...They all have my face...?" I ask. "How can this be...? What is this...?" I look at one in particular that looks exactly like me.

He seems to move a little.

"It's exactly what you see here, my son. These are all you." Septima says. "Except these are 665 out of the 666 that were created. All of them are failures. It's very difficult to create the kind of homunculus that would be god of the new world. I went through so much trial and error, for so long...to create you. Every single day, ever so carefully, not even bothering to sleep..."

"Are you glad? One misstep, and you, my brother may well have been the one inside one of these." Evelyn's smile never changes as she speaks, but my mind hasn't caught up with what she or Pretorius' saying. "Ahaha! Oh, brother, that's what I just told you. That's right, you're not human." Her sunny, angelic smile of pure glee sends a chill down my spine, and I tremble. "Aren't you happy now, brother? This is truth you were after. You possess a power no other human has...and rightly so! Obviously, because you aren't even human! You were created from the cells of the Alpha Human, Abel!"

"The more you love... The more you will be made to suffer." Pretorius says.

"N-No... I'm human... These things... They aren't me..." I say.

"Things? Ahah... Hah... Hahaha! My son, you're too cruel! These 'things' were created, and perished, just for you. And here you deny their existences. You know, deep down, that what we're saying is true, don't you?" Septima takes one step. Then another. Septima approaches me.

"Stop... Leave me alone...!" I say. "St-Stop... Please... Stop..."

"Don't do this anymore, son. Stop pretending to be human. You're a creature, not a human. You're more than human. It's nothing to be sad about. Don't be afraid. I'll take good care of you. That's an important mission. Staying with me will do you good. You don't know yet. There's no place for the likes of us in the human world. Come with me. Let us fulfil the reason you were brought forth into this world. Doing that... Come, my son... Will you come with me?" Septima slowly extends her hand to me.