"...it may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures."
-Charles Darwin
A long, dark corridor. Only a thin beam of artificial light seeps in through tiny glass panels from an adjacent room, illuminating the opaque hallway. Utilitarian, crepuscular tiles and metallic, whitewashed walls lend an eerie feeling to an already abandoned, seemingly forgotten location. Yet, the spotless cleanliness and highly sterile nature of the hallway indicates the presence of people who have deserted the place for some unknown reason. There is no sound in the stygian environment. Rather, the empty expanse is a sea of complete silence. Here, even the buzzing of a fly's wings would seem louder than a skyscraper construction crew. Utter silence reigns.
Footsteps break the hallowed silence of the mysterious and eerie hallway. A dark human shape moves through, barely visible in the nearly light-less space to anyone who may be looking. The steady yet quiet steps of the man's shoe soles resonate against the tiled floor. The man is the only moving object in the room, a flurry of motion in a long expanse of tranquility. The echoes of the man's formal wear shoes bounce back from the walls, like a bat's sonar. Only these waves, unlike those of the bat, disturb the perceived environment to any human outsider. Just like the bat, the man's walk is quiet, confident, and purposeful. The reverberations slowly die out, to be replaced by new ones generated as the man continues his stealthy gait.
The man stops at a barely visible door, the outline made visible only be the light from the man's cell phone, which he uses to illuminate the path around him. The cold, steel door in front of him has no windows, no knob, no keyhole, and no keyboard. Merely a magnetic swipe machine, which controls access through the portal. Seemingly undeterred by this, the man pulls out a card on a chain and proceeds to slide it through the swipe machine. A dim red light above the machine turns to a bright green, followed by the thack-thack sound of heavy locks being retracted within the door. With apparent familiarity with the system, the man pushes the door open, and enters the guarded room beyond.
Inside lies another dark and obscure room, this one lighted by dim green light. The room, approximately fifteen meters on each end, houses an array of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, from multimillion dollar microscopes to a cryogenics quarantine capsule. The man walks over to a small pedestal in the center of the room, where a cylindrical object approximately the size of a human head lies. The object is attached to numerous tubing devices and a small LCD screen and monitor. Bold print stating the warning "Caution: Hazardous Material" faces bluntly outwards towards any who may, in the unlikely event, see the cylinder as an object of curiosity. The man steps up to the cylindrical device and pushes a button located on the side of the cylinder. Promptly a hissing sound emerges, followed by the top of the cylinder rotating slightly. The man pushes the top cone of the cylinder upwards, allowing deathly cold gases to escape from the device. Inside, arranged in a circular pattern, are six small vials. With the vials' cryofreezing process seemingly disrupted, the man puts on a pair of latex gloves.
Reaching into the cylinder, the gloves draw out one of the encased glass vials. Carefully opening a small case he brought along and placed onto the table, the man carefully and diligently places the vial in the case. The hand reaches into the cylinder to draw a second vial and place it adjacent to the first in the case.
The man returns the large metallic lid onto the top of the cylinder, sealing it shut. The lid snaps back on with a hiss, leaving the man alone with the case. He closes the case, and slowly, silently walks out of the chamber the same way he entered. This time, no card is required to access the space beyond- merely the turning of a knob. The man leaves the laboratory room and closes the door behind him, making sure to lock the multitude of locks. Satisfied that every conceivable trace of his presence has been removed, the man walks back out the corridor from whence he came from. His silhouetted figure retreats into the darkness, the echo of his footsteps quietly dying out as he fades into the blackness. Then there is nothing at all, as if the empty corridor was not graced by anyone's presence, as it seemingly was meant to be. An ominous dark emptiness once again pervaded the arena, seemingly forgotten by the outside world.