The Animal Within You

Chapter 17

           Warm light—activated by the movement of the entrance—flooded the semi-large room as the door opened completely. We stood there, stunned from the finding, but also expecting nothing less. After all, we weren't normal, so something like this was bound to happen at some point. The question was, who's room was this? It seemed like it wasn't used for quite some time, considering the amount of dust collecting all over the furniture of the room.

           I finally found the ability to move my feet and lift my legs, strolling myself into the office. Motioning the boys to come in, I closed the door after they passed through by pushing my stone into a similar indentation on the other side. The doors joined together, clicking in place. I turned back and briskly walked around the room, looking through everything.

           "I'm starting to think that this might be a secret room of your mother's." Dylan reported, thumbing through some files. It did seem possible, since she was always the type to do things over the edge.

           "Did you guys find anything useful or even somewhat interesting?" I asked, skimming the bookshelf in front of me.

           "I think I have." Jackson voiced from behind me just has his arm lifted above me, reaching for a burgundy hardcover book. There were gold letters in bold printed on the cover and he blew on it, the dust particles flying to my face. Coughing, I hit his arm before taking the book from him. He gave me a sheepish smile, indicating that he was apologizing. I simply rolled my eyes before reading the cover.

           "The Enigma of Animal DeoxyriboNucleic Acid Found in Humans." I read out loud, my eyebrows scrunching up. "Erwin L. King, Federica Wuite, Victor Leveque...Maria C. Garcia." Looking up at Dylan and Jackson, I saw their eyes filled with confusion.

           "Look through the book and see what you can find." Dylan ordered me as he grabbed Jackson and pulled him aside. I tried hard to listen to their conversation, but the attempt was deemed useless.

           Bringing my attention back to the book, I smiled. My mom helped write this, and by how large this book was, had stuffed every single piece of useful information that she and the rest of them knew about Animal DNA inside. I carefully flipped through the book, reaching the introductory page. It was written by hand in a beautiful cursive I knew very well. Her handwriting made me wonder whether she had a journal of some sort. 

           "Search around and see if you can find anything else that will be of use to us." Jackson spoke up from behind me before gingerly taking the book out of my hands. "I'll look through this and see what I can get out of this." I nodded before heading to her desk, which was placed in the middle of the room neatly.

           The first thing that I did was scan the top of the cluttered desk. It was neatly in piles, but they were tall and the things the piles consisted of varied. Slowly, I thumbed through the piles, carefully taking out books and folders that seemed at least mildly important. When I was done with the outer part, I worked my way down to the drawers. 

           I wasn't surprised when I found out that you could only open them with the necklace that I was currently possessing. Quickly pressing the orb into the indentation, the drawer to my right popped out. I sighed with frustration as I tried opening the one in front of me. Finally giving up, I crawled to the right drawer and searched through it.

           Beat up paperbacks and hardcover books were jammed in there, making it a hard task to remove all of the books. Cautiously, I flipped through books that involved Animal DNA and even found a textbook that was filled with past historical figures who had animal genes.

           Julius Caesar, who had the rare DNA of a Dodo bird.

           Abraham Lincoln, who had the DNA of a Gorilla.