"Spectre One, I'm going in. I won't be able to keep in radio contact, but I need to check this. It's .. it's big."

"Big? How big?" Cayman, the Spectre's netrunner sounded worried. She did not like the voice of her leader. It's was too calm, too cold. Something was really bothering him.

"I don't know. I ... I think I found ... home."

Being the result of an ingenious lab project the young freelancer bear hybrid was not born naturally. Instead he has been artificially gestated, modified, implanted and conditioned for combat, resulting in a much younger age than his looks would suggest, only 14 years old. That and the fact that he never had a childhood.

"Please Ghostbear, just be careful." pleaded another voice over the com channel, belonging to his best friend and second-in-command Cobalt. "You shouldn't have gone alone."

"I will be careful, don't worry. The place has been abandoned for years now. I will report in as soon as I'm back on the surface. Out" Without another word he wrenched oped the old hatch, gripped his weapon harder and entered the airlock that led into the darkness.

Fourty minutes later he had already ventured deep into the compound, a mace of abandoned laboratories and storage units. Carefully making his way through the old research complex until he finally reached the laboratory he was looking for. Managing to startup an old backup generator the lights hesitantly flashed up, cold blue light illuminating the room.

"Oh god..." was all he could say. Broken and abandoned gestation tanks with their inhabitants still inside. Dead, but preserved by the greenish liquid. Bloody operation tables, syringes and IV bags lying around. Bitter bile rose up in his throat and he had to fight hard to keep his lunch down.

Trying to shut out the terrible scene around him he started one of the computer terminals, using Cayman's ICE-breaker virus to gain access. The data stored in there confirmed what he already knew. This _was_ home, this was the place where they ... made him. He quickly downloaded the data, somehow he managed to suppress his emotions, when a strange ripple behind him caught his attention.

The big mirror on the wall suddenly glowed with an eerie light, ripples of energy floating around the surface, when something happened that were never supposed to happen.

Two parallel worlds intermingling for a short moment. Two realities that should never have touched connected through the mirror.

Unbelieving he stared at the completely impossible scene in front of him.

A little bear, only a few years younger than his real age, looked back at him. Honey colored eyes wide with surprise and curiosity but no fear as he placed his paw at the mirror from his side. That bear, it was impossible but it was .. him. The same hooded sweater, the same face, the same streak of fur, only dyed in a bright purple color. Even the earrings were the same. And that room ...

Somehow the little bear's child room mirrored the laboratory. A crib instead of the gestation tanks, a skipping rope instead of a discarded IV line, a garland continuing as a pipe.

Staring at the little lynx plushie his parallel self was holding in his paws and then on the SMG he himself was grasping it's suddenly hit him like a punch. The lynx was the child's best friend. And his weapon ... Ouch.

Suddenly the freelancer had to fight back tears as he realized that he never had something like that. No childhood, none at all. Thrown into a brutal, cold world.

No innocence.

Trying hard not to cry he placed his own paw against the younger bear's paw, who was still looking back in childlike innocence and curiosity.

Two worlds, just separated by a mirror.

The freelancer stood there for a long time ... even after the image had faded and the connection between both worlds had been broken.

......................................................

Commission for Ghostbear2K, text by him. :)

Watercolor, watercolorpencils, pencils and chalk on bristol paper.