The thin light searched for the hunched figure in the room. The window was small after all; only a tiny gleam covered Doctor Gallimore’s wrinkled forehead. He sat in deep thought.

     This time it worked… But what was different? 

     As his knee bounced up and down in excitement, the door of his office swung open and a high-pitched voice followed. 

     “Subject 12.1 is awakening, sir!”

     The doctor fixed his glasses in an attempt to hide his grimace at the word that his subordinate used. He never named his beautiful creations 'subjects'- a word that left a bad taste in his mouth. 

     But all of his subordinates were just kids who thought that everything was just a playground. Chirpy Science students and fresh graduates of the Academy. If he would show them a simple bean and tell them it will grow into a monkey, they would watch it for weeks before they would ask him why nothing happened. The ‘smart’ ones would even ask if they should water the said bean. 

     Fools. All fools, the doctor thought.

     He stood up from his chair. The limp wouldn’t help him rush to the hallways like he would have desired. At the news he received, even he would become a chirpy kid. Instead, he left his office in a calm manner, followed by the student.

     The light on the hallways was as dead as in his office. The people passed them with their heads bowed down to the ground. He knew that the subordinates hated him. They would jump off a bridge if they would see him on the other side of it. Luckily for them, the corridor had walls.

     He never liked it there anyway. Even the small photo frame with his family that stood on his desk wouldn’t have made him comfortable in that place.

     “But the Counsel will go on with this, sir?” the student asked while looking on a paper. “All subjects should be adult sizes…”

     Fuck the Counsel! Doctor Gallimore knew that from the embryo should wait to rose an adult. They all died in that process... Only Su survived. But he remained at the approximate age of twelve. They reached for the laboratory and passed the opened incubators that reminded him of the failures. In the back, there was build a room where the clone should have rested.

     Machines purred faintly at the head of his bed. Doctor Gallimore stared at them to see the stats.

     “Leave us,” he said to the subordinate. The young man startled and nodded.

     He walked to the bed to grasp the little hand that started to move.

     “Open your eyes, Su! See the world I’ve made you in,” the doctor whispered. His heart raced in joy seeing the quick flutter of the boy’s eyelashes. “I hope someday I’ll able to say why I have created you and why you are so different.” A gulp made him pause. “Death is the greatest gift to humankind. Because one will never be able to live with the pain of immortality. But you, little Su, won’t feel any pain. You are the first clone to have survived. And I will protect your life forever, with the price of my own.”