(Excavation Site Addendum)
Researcher's Log — Year 2020
Filed three nights after the discovery of the silver-burial skeletons.
What follows is not interpretation.
It is recorded observation.
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⟡ INCIDENT REPORT
On the third night after uncovering the burial chamber,
the site was secured with stone markers and iron lamps.
At 02:17 AM, several team members reported movement near the outer stones.
At first, we assumed animals.
We were wrong.
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⟡ WITNESS DESCRIPTIONS
A group of children—
no more than five—
were seen approaching the site silently.
Bare feet
Pale clothing
No lanterns
No sound of speech
No visible breath, despite the cold
One witness wrote:
> "They did not walk like children.
They moved like they already knew the path."
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⟡ THE TABLET
The children went directly to the largest stone slab.
The same stone that concealed the damaged diary and ritual carvings.
Without tools.
Without effort.
They removed a small stone tablet we had not yet catalogued.
No alarms were triggered.
No guards reacted.
One researcher later admitted:
> "I remember seeing them.
I also remember deciding it was normal."
That decision no longer makes sense.
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⟡ RECOVERED DETAILS (FRAGMENTARY)
The tablet was described as:
Hand-sized
Covered in symbols unlike the others
Warmer than surrounding stone
Marked with repeated carvings resembling childlike crescents
Only one line was partially translated before it vanished:
> ❝…when the young come to reclaim the word,
the silence must remain…❞
The rest of the symbols were never recorded.
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⟡ AFTERMATH
By morning:
Footprints were gone
Memory logs were incomplete
Two researchers could not recall standing watch
One sketch of the tablet appeared in a notebook
— no one remembers drawing it
The stone slab was sealed again.
From the inside.
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📌 FINAL NOTE (UNPUBLISHED)
> This site was not abandoned.
It was guarded.
The children did not steal the tablet.
They retrieved it.
