Far out in uninhabited terrain, in an underwater secret lab, the scientists were working with genetic experiments, trying to isolate the iota-mutations from the mundane genetic data, by creating clones with different iota-mutations.

These mutations became new races, unity across the old racial borders, racism starting over the new ones. The iota radiation failed to reach Earth, but anywhere else in space, one was affected. Some showed no change, but developed an immunity to the radiation. Others started changing, skin, skeletal structure, hair, even some of the more complex oprgans showed changes. Subjects undergroing the mutation had to be vaccined in time, or they'd mutate beyond help.

Then there was also genetic research, trying to find what caused the mutations to take the way they did, as some were affected seriously, some barely aty all. Some followed the pattern of one mutation, others another. Genetic maniupulation might have helped, which was why the base had been built.

There were tubes working as incubators, glass tubes containing a strange semi-liquid nutriment-oxygen mix, as well as the developing creatures. Some were humanoid, even human by the scientists' definition. Some were something else.

The scientists were suddenly faced with an emergency, as one of the more developed and dangerous specimens got loose, elsewhere in the lab base. Since areas could be sealed off, the problem was not that the being would go on a rampage, but that the confused, genetically enhanched superhuman, would destroy the base. One of the goals of the lab was to create such mutants for military purposes. But they were supposed to be controlled. They weren't.

The scientists evacuated, leaving the lab base to be torn apart by the underwater pressure, and the mutants.

Nineteen years later, when water managed to leak into a so far waterproof machine and set of a chain reaction of electrical activity, a being awoke, conscious of being trapped within a glass container. He was basically an eselroin, but had some combat-oriented features, both on the inside and the outside.

An eselroin was a human, white of origin, but due to the iota radiation in space, the race had developed to have a dark blue tone of skin, as well as a partially different skeletal structure, and some other details that few other than scientists bothered with.

The being bashed through the glass, finding himself in water. He couldn't breathe. He was in panic, kicking his way to the ceiling. There was fortunately an air pocket there. He had to find a way out of the labs, he knew that. He looked around, and soon enough found an open door. He swam along the water surface as far as he could, and dove the rest of the way towards it. He got through, and followed the corridor to another air pocket. Then he headed for an exit he had seen.

He soon enough broke the surface of the ocean, spitting water. He had a hard time swimming with his thin feet, as they were more like the paws of a large dog. His legs had a joint more than mundanes, as he was an eselroin.

He did, eventually, find his way to the shore, and in the dark of the night, he ventured on, towards the world of the humans. He knew nothing but what the backflashes he had could tell him. He turned around, and saw the purple horizon as the sun had recently set.

He had now found himselfe a name. Ghost Horizon.