Chapter 9

The silence in the room was painful. Ariel wanted to ask if all of this was a joke, but as her eyes shifted over the file, a sickening dread began to settle into her stomach, making her feel nauseous. The information in the file was not only through, but well documented with photos and even written descriptions. It felt like the group stood there is silence for a long time, but it was possibly just a few moments. Someone picked up the file and everyone else grabbed other files. The one that Ariel got detailed the plans on how to track an individual suspected of being a werewolf, and find their pack. It went into further detail on how to set up specialized traps to not only disable, but slowly poison and kill them.

The traps were first coated in a thick rust resistant paint, then soaked in the crushed and boiled meat of acorns for several weeks to lose and scent of metal or paint. They are then painted with a silver powder mixed with alcohol. The alcohol would make the silver dust stick, but would evaporate quickly and leave behind no traced. According to the document, silver was deadly to wolves and the silver powder would kill them once in their blood stream.

"This all has to be fake." One of the twins remarked, plopping down the file she was holding. it read 'Eradication through Integration.' The first few lines laid it out perfectly. Take werewolf children away from their packs and raise them as humans, and have them breed with humans to eventually dilute their blood and wipe them out.

"This is eugenics" Ariel muttered, and everyone looked at her and she felt very hot all of a sudden.

"This has to be fake." The other twin added, looking at Ariel as if she were the one who had just told her all of this information.

"I don't think so." Austin placed down the file he was holding. It was a file on Sarah. It has pictures of her from every year since she was about two or three years old. It detailed where she had come from and what family she was placed it. It also detailed the dosage of the 'suppressant' that she was supposed to get daily to ensure that she could not change. It detailed her upbringing and personal things about her, like birthmarks and even her fears.

"There is one on all of us." Jane said as she turned around and picked up a box, placing it down on the table. All of the files in there had names on them. The names were from the 'kids' of the town. Everyone under the age of thirty had a file. They all dug into the box to find their own files, reading through them in a sort of frenzy, learning things about themselves that they had previously been unaware of.

Ariel was surprised to find that she came from someone up north, though it did not detail where from. It did however state that her packed had been cleansed successfully and only her and two other children were liberated. It detailed the couple she was placed with. The hunter who had liberated her from the wolves. Justin. Her father.

If this was true, if this was all real, then that would mean the people who raised her were not actually her family. They were not her parents. In fact, the man she thought was her father very well could have killed her actual parents. Maybe even siblings she might have had. Her head felt heavy and her chest too light. Her heart pounded in her chest and she was aware of someone else saying something in the room. She could not hear what they were saying at first, but a hand on her shoulder brought her back to the moment.

"Deep breaths." Jane told her, and Ariel nodded, sucking in a shaky breath. She placed the folder down and closed it, pushing it away from herself.

"What is all of this supposed to mean?" One of the two twins asked.

"I did a lot of digging when I first found this. I had thought it was some elaborate prank that was filed away when it didn't go over well. But this is what I found in place of the documentation of the heavy metal poisoning we were all said to have experienced as kids. There was nothing on that. Not a single file, no tests, not even medical records. All there was, was the same news articles we have seen a million times over in school." Jane explained, placing down the rather new looking newspaper. They all looked at it for just a brief moment, then back at Jane.

"So if this is the truth, the real truth." Austin began, seeming to finally wrap his head around the entire situation.

"This would mean that we are all some sort of monster and our parents are just our kidnappers?" He finished, to which Jane shook her head.

"They are documented as monsters in the files, but I don't think what they call werewolves are monsters. I don't think they are even what we have seen on TV and in movies. There are some rather graphic scientific files that go deep into what they are and what they are about."