Humanity 5 "The Beginning"

Chapter 9

ASHLEY’S POV

I take a shaky breath as I flick on the light in Ryan’s old bedroom. I haven’t been in this house for awhile. I’ve been staying with Damon and it’s been better than being here, reminded by the memories.

More specifically, I haven’t been in Ryan’s room since the funeral. It hurts too much.

The light illuminates the room that is cleaned to perfection. Everything is exactly the way he left it.

I can’t dwell. I need to get in, find what I need, and get out.

I carefully walk over to his desk and open the top drawer. It’s filled with pens and pieces of paper, but not what I’m looking for. I close the drawer and pull another one open. Bills and files that he always kept really organized.

Moving on, I open the top cabinet of his desk. Inside is a stack of old family photo albums. Oh no. I can’t look at those right now.

I shake my head and open the next cabinet. Bingo.

I pull out the thick folder titled, Whitmore Files.

Dr. Wes enlightened me to the fact that Ryan worked at Whitmore. He was apparently a big deal there, but I don’t know why. He told me he just studied mythology. Now that I saw him in that picture with Megan, I think it’s time to find out what my brother actually did.

I don’t like to think about it, but looking back, Ryan was extremely secretive about work. He never really explained what he did and he always worked the most bizarre hours.

I place the folder on his desk and open it. I flip through the first few papers. They’re just old documents from the mythology department. Most of the ones on top are about vampire legends. He probably looked through them after I came clean about Stefan and Damon.

I keep flipping and I’m not finding anything out of the ordinary. I sigh in frustration because if I don’t find anything here, then I don’t know where else to look. I can’t really ask anyone at the school because they’re all so suspicious about me already.

I close the folder and open the cabinet to put it away. When I do, a picture falls out and lands on the floor. I pick it up and look at it.

It’s a picture of my brother and some other guys. His colleagues…I guess. I’m about to put the picture away, when a face catches my eye.

Wes Maxfield.

I immediately open the cabinet that this fell out of. As I dig around, my hands find another folder. I quickly pull it out and start flipping through the pages, but one particular sheet catches my eye.

Origins of Subject 19520

-The structure of the jawline in the subject reflects that of previous specimen.

-Subject shows no discrepancies in build do to injections.

-Subject has been drinking blood rations regularly.

-Subject is no longer responding violently due to fatigue.

The above characteristics of the current subject have been authenticated by the head of the Mythology Department as well as the Laboratory. The signatures below confirm this statement.

I squint my eyes to make out the messy signatures that occupy the two lines at the bottom of the page.

Wesley Maxfield

Ryan Scott

So, they worked together. The mythology department and Wes’ laboratory worked together in experiments. That explains why Wes knew my brother. I had no idea that my brother was the head of the department.