Tell Me The Truth

Revelations

There was nothing in the documents that suggested anything like a research project, so far, I had found invoices, certificates, acknowledgments, invitations to events, but nothing that indicated a project for the 15th century. I even found an invitation to give a guest lecture at a university in his documents.
My left hand remained on the letter, the letter I hadn't wanted to open for over 6 months, but I couldn't delay it any longer, not after the visit of this Elijah Mikaelson.

My dearest Marlin,

If you get this letter, it means that I am death. I did not die a natural death, because my notary is only supposed to deliver this letter to you in the event of an unnatural death.
I would have liked to spare you this, but you must be very careful now and please follow my instructions exactly.

1. Don't invite anyone into the house, nobody under any circumstances as soon as the deed of the house is in your name.
2. There's a book in the library, a first edition of German myths, pull that to you and a door will open.
3. In the room you will find all the information about the supernatural, including weapons to defend yourself.
4. From now on, please always wear vervain on you. You will find a necklace in the room, in which there is vervain.

It is very possible that my long-time friend, Elijah Mikaelson, will visit you, in my collection you will find more information about him. Do not give him, under any circumstances, information about the Petrova doppelganger.
This will be a lot now and I would have preferred to tell you myself and introduce you, but unfortunately this is no longer possible. Be careful and listen to your gut.

With love

Uncle Joe

What was my uncle talking about? Petrova doppelganger? The supernatural? I turned to the bookshelf and my eyes fell on the book he had spoken of in the letter, had he really had a room built where he had hidden a collection of the supernatural? I couldn't imagine what exactly he meant by the supernatural and what exactly a Petrova doppelganger was. The letter had raised more questions than answers, I had gotten no answers, just more questions.

I did as he told me to do, and the next moment I was standing in a room behind the bookshelf full of weapons and books. To my left, he had hung wooden stakes, crossbows from small to large, daggers and dried plants that he had labeled as vervain, wolfsbane, and others, I couldn't even read some of them, so yellowed was the writing. The books he hid were books full of sayings, as if there really were people who could do something with those sayings.
That could not be true! This was not possible.

My gaze fell on a folder, E.M. was the inscription, when I opened the folder, the rug was pulled out from under my feet, according to the information, Elijah Mikaelson, a vampire, was not just any vampire, but one of the first, did I just read that right? My brain struggled to process the words.

The man who had been sitting at the kitchen table here in the house earlier was a vampire who had been walking this earth for over one thousand years. "That's not possible, Uncle Joe, that's not possible," I muttered to myself, this could not really be real, but he had even written down the aliases that had been used.

My uncle had added notes, Elijah was considered very dangerous, one should not be deceived by his manners, his well-groomed appearance and his apparently human demeanor. This couldn't really be true, could it? He had even mentioned the rituals Elijah had wanted, which were in a safe with other dangerous substances, the combination of which he had not written down.

Really, Uncle Joe? I had folders full of information about all kinds of creatures and the most important thing was that a vampire, one of the first, was also dangerous to do according to Uncle Joe's, and he seemed to have forgotten to leave me the combination.

I spent the next few hours sifting through the information and learned that there were not only vampires, but also werewolves, witches and sirens, but nothing about the Petrova doppelgangers he had mentioned in his letter and whose information I was not supposed to give to Elijah.

My stomach made itself felt loudly when, after what felt like years, I put the documents back where I had found them and left the secret room. To my surprise, it was already dark outside, a quick glance at the clock revealed to me that I had spent at least 6 hours in the secret room, if not longer. I went through in my head what I had in the fridge and decided not to cook for myself today, but to order something. After half an hour, I had a pizza on the couch table in front of me and some guilty pleasure program was playing on the TV, my thoughts revolving around the information I had learned about Elijah Mikaelson, who seemed to be a vampire. I still couldn't believe it, him and a vampire. He had seemed as human as someone in his 25-30 years, a bit young for a historian, but there were those, too. But I only knew that because I had been involved with historians since I was a child. Some of them had been around since they were children and were therefore my age, so I hadn't questioned why Elijah seemed so young.

This is something I should have been suspicious of; it was something my father and Uncle Joe had told me over and over again. Be suspicious, anyone could lie, play tricks on you, anyone pursued goals, how far you went for it, that was never easy to judge and now I had probably messed with a vampire. A vampire!

Something I was still struggling to comprehend, how was that possible? How had he been able to walk around undetected all this time, he had to be registered, how did he finance everything? Did he bribe people to keep his secret? This was something that my Uncle Joe had not mentioned in the file. Only that I should definitely carry verbena with me and never lose weight. But why? This is something I hadn't found out yet, but I would 100% find out for sure. Just as I had only now learned, at almost 30 years old, that there were vampires and werewolves, witches and sirens, who knew what else existed that my uncle had no idea about or had not had time to write it down. For today I would stop thinking about it, tomorrow was another day. I had no idea that the next morning had some surprises in store.