Sonadow - The Island

16: Number 300

I'm so sorry I let you wait for a month! Writer's block was with me again and I have a lot going on right now. Sorry about that, I try to hurry with the next chapter, promise.

Out of breath, John watched the numbers on the display in the elevator counting down. In his head, he tried to understand, what he had found out recently.

Not only was there a secret underground level 11 – until now, he had thought, that they only had 10 floors under the ground – no, this mysterious number 300 was there, too! But why should his father cage a hedgehog so deep under the surface? And why didn't he hear, that this hedgehog got captured? Usually, news like this spread like a wildfire around here...

The floor -11 was a mystery in itself, now, that he thought about it. There wasn't even a single clue about what happened there, he had found out about its existence by a mere coincidence, while browsing through some files. The button in the elevator to this floor hadn't been visible, it had taken him two minutes of running his fingers over the metal walls to find it opposite the panel with the other buttons. You only found it, if you knew of its position – or searched for it in all possible and impossible places. Seriously – who would EVER search for this stupid thing anywhere else, than close to the others? It was a good thing, that John had learned to think out of the box, when it came to his father's methods. Didn't solve the riddle about number 300, though...

The elevator reached the floor -11, making him look up, when it stopped, and the doors opened. John looked carefully around, but couldn't see any kind of guard. Strange, but not unwelcome.

The hallway wasn't really one, it was only a small space between the door of the elevator and another door opposite of it, on which someone had painted a giant white Z. John cocked an eye brow, but ignored it for now. He discovered an electronic lock next to the door and cursed, as he had forgotten his laptop in Kylie's office.

The young man was just about to turn around and get this stupid piece of technology, when he remembered something, that let him stop. He had hacked into several rather important and personal documents and files of his father, that had been locked away with codes. And as he had quickly found out, it was always the same code, that Jester used. It were eight numbers and it didn't take John too long to realize, that it was a date, that was about 40 years in the past. He didn't know, why this date was so important for his father, but maybe it was also the right code for this door?

He typed it in, careful not to make a mistake, as he wasn't sure, how many he could make, before the lock would block itself and he needed a special code to unlock the block for more tries.

Finishing with the last number, the signs on the small rectangular display vanished for a second, before the relieving words 'ACCESS GRANTED' flashed on it and the door slid open.

John congratulated himself silently, before stepping in. He took a look around – and his jaw fell. What the hell was this!?

He stood in the middle of a staircase, that led down on his left and upon his right, giving him an overview over the giant – definitely bigger than on the map – hall. On his left was a giant complicated looking machine, whose purpose he couldn't even begin to imagine, as it was completely closed with metal, allowing not one peek inside. The thing – whatever it was – was silent and most likely turned off. He could see a bit of the floor behind the railing of the staircase and saw a large array of tubes laying there and leading away from it to the middle part of the hall.

In front of him was an army of different machines, connected with the tubes and with clear round glass containers in their middles, almost as large as he himself, filled with a strange, faintly red liquid. And maybe it was his imagination, but there seemed to be something swimming in those containers...