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Chapter 15

The next day we were all looking at the writing on the walls when we heard voices from down the tunnel.

"So the Lockwoods have no idea these tunnels are underneath their property?" Elena asked.

"Yeah," Alaric answered. "Careful where you shine that thing. Bats hate the light."

"Wait, what?" It was quiet until Elena gasped. "God Damon."

"Scaredy-cat," Damon said.

"Just ignore him," Alaric said. "That's what I do."

"So you really can't get in?" Elena asked Damon.

"No," Damon answered. "It seems even the ancient Lockwoods were anti-vampire."

"What do you mean ancient?"

"See for yourself." About a minute later Damon appeared near Dimitri in the doorway. "Well this is as far as I go," he said stopping.

Alaric and Elena walked past Damon and into the cave room, as I call it. "What is all this?" Elena asked.

"As far as we can tell," Guardian Alto said, "it's a story."

"He's right," Alaric said. "In simple archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story." He paused and shone his flashlight on the pictures of a moon, man and wolf. "That right there is a moon cycle. A man. A wolf."

"A werewolf," Elena said.

"Yeah," Damon said from the doorway. "It's the Lockwood diaries. Pictionary style."

Dimitri made a show of rolling his eyes which caused Henrik to laugh. I still can't believe a thing he says," I thought.

Elena ignored the laughing boy. "I don't understand." She paused and looked at Alaric. "I thought the Lockwoods came here with the original founders in the 1860's."

"Well," Alaric started, "maybe the Lockwoods did. But according to this wall, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that."

"How long?"

"Long," Damon said. "Gets better. Show her, Ric."

Alaric walked to another wall. "Names," he said. "And they're not native. They're written in runic. A Viking script."

"Vikings?" Jesse asked with eyes bugging out.

Alaric shined his torch on a name, apparently. "This name here, when translated, reads," he looked at Elena, "Niklaus."

"Klaus," Elena breathed.

Alaric looked back at the wall and shone his torch on another name. "And Elijah." Another "And Rebekah." And another. "And Rose."

What? I, and along with most of us from St. Vladimir's I'm sure, thought.

"These are the names of the Original family?" Elena asked.

"Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls," Alaric said. "Or even the entire new world, for that matter."

"Okay, this has got to be one of Klaus's fakes," I said. "I have known Rose my whole life."

"That's what I said," Damon spoke from the doorway. I stared at him incredulously. "Not the 'known her my whole life'." I shook my head and looked back at Alaric.

"Well that could be true," Alaric said. "Except the last name up here made us think otherwise." He shone the torch on yet another name.

"What's the name?" Guardian Petrov asked.

Alaric turned to Elena, who seemed to know more than us.

"Mikael."

"Mikael," Elena repeated. "Mikael, as in the vampire hunter who knows how to kill Klaus?"

"Yep," Damon said. "I now like to call him Papa Original."