The Unknown Life

Steps

This was it.

We were going to find the light.

Breathe. Breathe. In. Out. Fumbling I shuffle towards the sound of True's voice. Mountains of books trip me, not helping my current state of paralysis. I forgot how to walk.

Blowing out a puff of air, reminding myself to walk. One slow step at a time to reach the light. Ever so close.

True smirks. "Come on. We haven't gotten forever."

Frowning, I command myself to pick up my pace.

"What did you find?" I ask him. He smiles. He pulls out a book.

It looked the same as every other book. It looks a little extra horrendous, in my opinion. The perfect book to hide mysteries in, I would have never read it.

"How do you know that the book is just a regular one?" He hands me the book in response.

Opening the book to a random page, I make a face at the sight. It was just like any other present history book. It went on and on about useless things.

Judgmentally, I look up at True. "How is this any different?" He shakes his head in impatience.

"There are pages between, that are stuck together," he tells me

I take a page and, using my fingers, slowly peel another out of it. He was right.

I stare at the hidden page. It was not real words. Just a bunch of random letters bunched together.

"That's what I was not sure about," True says remorsefully, "I wish I could say I knew what it meant."

I nod. My brain is searching, searching for some possible way this whole mess could be solved. Some way the letters could make sense.

I had an idea.

"Where is the journal?" I ask True

He searches the ground. He finally comes across the purple and black journal. He hands it to me and raises an eyebrow.

"Maybe there is a hint in the code," I explain to him. I flip open the book to the first page.

S. 7.

E. PG. 95. L. 6.

P A. PG. 300. W. 20.

"Do you think you have an idea of how this helps?" I ask him.

He stares hard at the page of the journal. "We had an idea that it was combined of multiple codes," he says slowly. "Maybe the letters in the book are a code."

My face lightens up.

"Think. Think what code has a bunch of random letters." I instruct

We think long and hard on possible codes that would work.

I go through the list of codes I have learned over the years.

I go through the list over and over again.

My heart screeches to a halt as I discover the code.

Caesar Shift.

The letters were shifted a certain amount of time to the next letters, that's what made the letters seem random. It was quite a simple code, really.

Simple, yet brilliant.

"It's Caesar Shift!" I exclaim to True. "The code in the book is Caesar Shift."

He smiles and nods his head. He goes to look at the journal. What is he looking at in the journal?

I continue, assuming he is listening. "But how do we know how many times the letters are shifted?" I say, wonder out loud.