There were rows beyond rows of filing cabinets that no one even sorted through since, I swear to God, the Fifties. There seemed to be absolutely no system, it was like the system was that everything was random and the "there's a place for everything" rule was like a joke compared to what I was sorting through.

"Okay, I'm done," I sighed, shoving a folder back where I found it in the shelf. It wouldn't have mattered if I had put it in a completely different spot, it was already lost in this mess.

"It's a very complex filing system, Sam. If anyone can figure it out, it's you," Heffburn continued looking through his filing cabinet, the irritation evident on his face that he really couldn't figure it out.

I groaned. "Why do I have to be the smart one? Can't someone else do it today?" I closed my eyes and threw my head back."

Jason laughed and helped me to my feet from where I sat on the ground. "Come on, love. I know it's hard, but we need you." He placed a kiss on my hand. Someone somewhere threw a file on the floor and then another. When we got into the room, we all branched out. Jason, Heffburn, and myself scoured as much ground as we could together. Emily and Layla went together and Silas joined Rousseau's mindless muttering to search through the back part of the room.

Honestly, it was like a giant safe.

There wasn't a key to get into the room, but the huge silver door that looked menacing enough to turn away any curious passersby. And if anyone opened the door inside, the nearly thousands of cabinets placed in rows after rows in a room that looked like a giant warehouse. Then, to top it off, there wasn't any sort of system to the files. Everything was randomly placed in a cabinet and then the door was closed and the file was never thought about again.

At least I didn't think there was a system.

I opened a brand new filing cabinet, hoping the new information would shed some light on the situation.

Melinda Evelynn Grace
DOB: December 01, 1812
13-05-07 L01X

The next files:

Helen Venus Burtess
DOB: August 21, 1864
08-25-02 H21X

Rufus Edmund Hurst
DOB: February 02,1905
18-05-08 B02Y

I groaned and threw the folders back into the filing cabinet. There was absolutely no pattern. The birthdays were all different months, the names had nothing in common, and the years weren't even within thirty years of one another.

"Um, Sam?" Jason asked, staring straight up at a sign hanging from the ceiling. "Do you think maybe we can't figure it out because they're grouped by section?"

I followed his gaze to a sign that said "Section B" . There were five signs hanging from the ceiling, all having a different section

"I'm sorry, Heffburn, but this isn't helping," I admitted when I realized how much bigger this search for information was going to be.

He grunted, "Well, we came in here to find the file for the building. So far, all we've seen are people, right?" I nodded, he continued, "Well maybe the file that we're looking for isn't even in this room. This is the records of patients that have been worked on-maybe around the United States." He took a quick scan of the room we were standing in. "But perhaps what we're looking for isn't a record."

"Hey, Sam!" Emily called. I turned towards her voice, half expecting her to be holding up blueprints and saving me the trouble of having to look through all of this shit. "I found your file."

I blinked. "What?" I had to walk through rows and rows of filing cabinets and obnoxious metals and disturbing smells of old papers and information. It was like walking through the biggest torture chamber, knowing that at the other end you'd be given some form of information. I couldn't even describe how stressed out I was. I couldn't make it across the room to Emily fast enough.

My file-though I wasn't surprised-was red. Not like a line across a manila folder like the rest of them. My file was made from red paper and on the front of it said "IMPORTANT" in big, black letters. The tab at the top said:

Samantha Margaret Ford
DOB: February 29, 1996
19-13-06 B29Y-3

I flipped the file open faster than I would have thought possible and read everything I could about what they knew about me. It was a little scary that everything that I saw was 100 percent correct. I gasped and kept flipping the pages. Everything that they knew about my brother was in here too. I looked up at him, "Collin."

He immediately walked over to me and read with me. It was almost like we were reading the recollection of events of our entire life. The worst part about it was that some of the things that I didn't remember going through when I was three years old was in that folder too. I looked back at the beginning of the folder. The file number was different from the last three I had seen and studied.

Melinda Evelyn Grace. I went back to her filing cabinet and pulled out her file. It was easy to find because I remembered putting it back. I looked at the three parts of that number under her name 13-05-07. Could it have been a date? No. Her birthday was December 1st, 1812, the numbers didn't correlate at all. I pulled out another file from that cabinet and read the name.

Tabitha Anna-Marie DelRey
DOB: January 03, 1832
20-01-13-04 A03X

Four parts. Four names.

"Oh," I whispered. The numbers were representations of initials. 01 for A. 04 for D. It went in order. There were 26 letters in the alphabet, the numbers, I was willing to bet, never went over 26.

"Look through the files at the three-part number under the date of birth," I called to everyone, not really caring who listened and who didn't. "Let me know if there's ever a time that the number goes over 26."

There was immediate rustling of papers behind me as I pulled out the next file in line and read the name tag.

Kyle Henry Wheeler
DOB: August 03, 1832
11-08-24 H03X

None of the three part numbers went over 26, which was hopeful. And I think I started to get how they were categorized. I was certain it was by their initials. But only the last number in the three part progression. I pulled out the next file to check my theory.

Peter William Adams
DOB: July 04, 1832
16-23-01 G04X

01 didn't follow the order. "Damn it," I muttered. What was I missing? I scanned over the four character nonsense next to the numbers. If the numbers weren't a date and instead were the initials of the patient, what was the four character code next to it? I studied the several files in my hand.

"Sam, none of them go over 26," Jason called.

Good. The numbers were representative of the initials of a person. But what about this code?

I squinted my eyes as the possibilities raced through my head. The numbers faded together. "July fourth and G04. The 04 is the day of his birth." But the letter? Peter didn't have a single G in his name, yet oddly enough the number G was attached to his birthday.

Oh, a date.

The second part of coding was a date. G must have meant a month, right? There was no other possibility that could have been remotely close. But if it was a month, why didn't whoever made this just put a J to represent July? And a U to represent June since it was the next letter in line? But what about January? J for January, U for July, N for June. But November would be O? But what about October.

God, this was a huge mess.

Someone leaned over my shoulder and stared at the dates with me. "Seven-four-eighteen-thirty-two? Wow, he must be ancient now."

Seven. The seventh month.

"What's the seventh letter of the alphabet?"

There was a pause while Rousseau counted in his head, "G."

G04 meant July fourth. A smile spread across my face as I made sense of this ridiculously obnoxious filing system. "July fourth."

"What?" he asked.

"Do you see these numbers?" I pointed to the three-part number below the date of birth. He nodded. "They're the patient's initials. The numbers correlate with the number of the alphabet that the letter is in. So A, being the first letter of the alphabet, is 01. B is 02." I smiled and continued, "The next part of the sequence is a letter, then a number, then another letter. The first letter is the month, G is the seventh letter in the alphabet, and July is the seventh month. The letter here corresponds with the number of month that their birthday is in. The number here," I pointed to 04 on the file "is their day of birth. He was born on July fourth, meaning G04."

He blinked. "What about that X?"

"Whoa! I found a W!" someone called and laughed. "Holy shit, this guy is old!"

"What's his birthday?" I called, not taking my eyes off of the files in front of me.

There was a pause then Layla called in clear words, "October nineteenth, 1771."

1700s, one of the oldest files here. And he received a W on the end of his birth date. Peter was born in the 1800s and got an X. Me, I was born in the 1900s and got a Y.

"Look for a file that has the four character code along the lines of A through L 01 through 31 Z, and tell me the year they were born." I scoured through the filing cabinet that I pulled the other four files out of and hesitated when I saw a file with the four character code of D15A.

"What?"

"Sam, I found one."

I looked up at Emily who was holding the file with unsteady hands. She swallowed, "The birth date it, um, November 21st, 2015."

"Is the four character code K21Z?"

She nodded slowly. "This baby isn't even a year old, Sam."

A shiver crawled up my spine; I nodded then hung my head. It wasn't as if my opinion of this man was getting any better, but if there was any hope in me thinking that there could have been a good person hidden deep under the surface, it was gone now.

I took a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm myself down.

There was a faint buzzing that sounded really far away. I hadn't really noticed it until my head started to vibrate with it. My vision became fuzzy and I cried out in pain. It felt like my brain was being knocked around in my skull.

"Sam?!" Jason ran to where I was standing, clutching my head in my hands. Before he could reach where I was standing, I collapsed to the ground. The whole room began to vibrate with my brain and I screamed.

"Sam!" I heard my name but didn't know from whom it was shouted.

Someone grabbed me and in that same instant the buzzing stopped. He wrapped his fingers around my arms and bared his teeth. "Samantha Ford," Mathias purred. "We meet again."

The vibrating continued and I cringed away from the pain only to find out that when it stopped, I looked at Mathias and fell in love.