Family Secrets

My name is Rene,

I hope this letter finds you well whomever you may be.

I never knew my family well. Well, not in the way I should have. You see, my family was known for being bland farmers in the south. We never had anything exciting where we lived and never experienced anything out of the norm. Until now. I was getting ready for spring cleaning seeing as I had nothing else better to do in my spare time. I happen to be the last living member of my family, I was an only child and so I inherited the house when my parents passed. I have been living here ever since. I never properly unpacked all my belongings so most of them sit in the storage room that used to be my mother's office. She spent much of her time elsewhere when she was alive and never used the space herself. I was never allowed to go into the study and I never knew why until now. She never cleaned out the desk nor did I but this year I thought I would and oddly enough as it would sound I did not find anything out of the ordinary except a little lever you would not have noticed except the drawer it was in was barren except for well, the lever and an envelope with my name on it. It was my mother's handwriting. I have not examined the contents of the envelope but I did switch the lever. I heard a clicking sound followed by other mechanical whirrs within the walls. I have yet to discover what it did but it sounded like it came from the bedroom upstairs. In which case I should go investigate. I will say this house was built by my father or so I was led to believe, so whatever happens to be upstairs my parents knew about it. Inside the bedroom a chunk of the blank wall space was missing and the inside of the walls was left exposed. I went to find a flashlight which is odd, seeing as our cellular devices have them but I was not thinking about it at the time. Heading into the wall led to a ladder which in turn led to a crawl space, I happened to be horribly claustrophobic but was determined to find out what my parents had been hiding from me and the rest of the world my whole life. The crawl space was short and in the end there was a drop which led to a dirt path. It was dank and dusty so I presumed I was underground following this path led to a cavern-esque type of area. Inside were rooms some barren and others were covered wall to wall with pictures of people and places, dates too. I did not recognize any of the people in the pictures except my mother and father. Other rooms had boxes upon boxes of journals and equipment. Did I happen to mention I activated a tripwire when I entered one of the several rooms? It did not do anything, no beep, no noise whatsoever, nor was there any sort of trap or weapon springing out at me. Much to my disappointment. Within the hour I had done my fair share of investigating. It turns out my family, well, my parents were international spies. Which would explain the lifestyle and my fathers absences during my childhood. However they soon stopped when I finished high school. The envelope from earlier contained a key and a room number as well as a letter. They wanted me to carry on as soon as I finished college.(which was well over 15 years ago I am 37 years old now) Leading myself back to the house through the innards of the walls there was another secret in my own bedroom. It was a compartment my mother detailed to me in the letter post scriptum. It has everything I need to follow in their footsteps if I really wanted to. I did not have much going for me in terms of my current future but I lacked general knowledge and the works for being a spy in the first place and was not very sure this was the line of work I was cut out for. I checked the rooms again from earlier and found entries of my mothers from when she began work as a spy she met so many different people who helped her and she had friends at Interpol. I, like any normal rational civilian, tried to decide the pros and cons to my parents' plans for me, on the plus side I would finally have something to do with my life but on the downside I would need to endure training and travel outside of my home and country. If you knew me personally you would know I am not the most active person around, nor do I like to leave my home seeing as the outside world has always been a bit foreign to me. I only ever leave my house to attend classes, go shopping, or visit friends. Never for foreign adventures outside of the county I have been living in for the last 37 years. Well all that changed in less than 24 hours because I am currently on a plane to Dubai with some friends of my mothers from Interpol. It turns out the tripwire sent a signal to the agency my parents worked at and they must have figured I could be the only one left to have activated it without knowing. It was the strangest experience too. Around midnight (I suppose my parents stayed up late to meet with their friends when I was younger) The house was broken into, well, I should not say broken into because these folks had a key on them. It certainly gave me quite the fright as you would expect because I was not made aware I would be receiving any visitors. They are nice people however and I have left the house behind, for now. I am not sure where this journey will take me, how long it will be or when I will return home but for now I know I am in good company and will soon join the legacy of my parents and those who came before them as a special agent working overseas on foreign affairs. So unless we meet when I arrive at the agency or you happen to be one of the folks my new friends are concerned with signing off for now this is Rene Marington