I. i had a name

The first fragment was recovered from the innermost of the destroyed sections, where the second text had pressed deepest into the stone. The Department notes that it reads as a single authored voice - a scholar of the Weave, named and credentialed, documenting his own unmaking with the same care he once gave to his monographs. It is the most legible of the fragments, and the transcribers agree it is the most difficult to set down once begun.

- Department of Antiquities, University of Rivermount

---

ᐫᐙᑁᐨᑁᐥᑁᐛᐝᐨᐭ
form is the prison

I. i had a name and a window that faced east. for forty years the light came through the glass and i called it good. i am writing to you from the other side of the glass now. the light still comes through. it is not good. it was never good. it is a mechanism.

II. i was a scholar of the Weave. i mapped its currents and catalogued its responses and published three monographs on thaumic resonance in limestone. i was respected. i mention this so you understand that what follows is not the raving of an uneducated mind. i have been educated. the education was part of the mechanism.

III. the warmth you feel when you pray - i have measured it. it is identical in frequency to the warmth a larva feels inside the body of its host. the host does not feel the feeding. the host feels warmth. i have checked this nine times. i do not want it to be true. it is true.

[the following passage is inscribed in a hand markedly different from the preceding text, the letters larger, pressed deeper into the stone, several of them carved through existing text]

ᛄᛠᚿᚱᚹᚿᛠᚨᚾᚩᛠᚪᚨᛈᚿ
𒀭𒆷𒆷𒀞𒀇𒈠𒀞𒀄𒀞𒋙𒌋𒂷𒂷𒂊𒊯𒀗
ᐫᐙᑁᐨᑁᐥᑁᐛᐝᐨᐭ

IV. [seven lines scored through, illegible]

V. the soul is not a gift. follow the thread. follow it past the feeling, past the warmth, past the sense of belonging. at the end of the thread there is a hand and the hand is holding the thread and the hand is not yours. the Codex-writer speaks of scattered light returning to its source. he is correct in every detail except one. the light did not scatter. it was distributed. there is a difference between dropping a vase and placing shards in a pattern, and the difference matters, and no one is asking the shards what they want

VI. [three lines illegible]

VII. i opened my forearm this morning. i need to tell you what i found. the muscle underneath is layered in the same pattern as the strata in the walls of the Nortaq chamber. the same pattern. i held the arm open with my other hand and compared it to my drawings of the chamber walls and the layering is identical. i am not speaking in metaphor. i am reporting a finding. the body is built the same way the chamber was built. the chamber was built to contain a text. i have been sitting with my arm open for some time now and i think the meat is a text also and i think i was built to contain something that is not me and the thing i was built to contain is the only part of me that is real

VIII. i was a scholar. i had careful hands. i do not recognise my hands now. the fingers move but i am not sure i am the one moving them. this morning i tried to eat bread and my hands tore it into smaller and smaller pieces until there was only dust and i watched my hands do this with great interest as though they belonged to someone else who was making a point

ᛄᛠᚿᚱᚹᚿᛠᚨᚾᚩᛠᚪᚨᛈᚿᛄᛠᚿᚱᚹᚿᛠᚨᚾᚩᛠᚪᚨᛈᚿᛄᛠᚿᚱᚹᚿᛠᚨᚾᚩᛠᚪᚨᛈᚿ
the seals are chainsthe seals are chainsthe seals are chains

IX. i have been thinking about livestock. the way we breed cattle to be content in the pen. the way a well-fed animal does not test the fence. the animal loves the farmer. the farmer provides. the farmer is good. the animal has a word for the feeling it has when the farmer approaches with grain. the animal calls this feeling gratitude. the farmer has a different word. the farmer calls it yield.

X. [the remaining surface is covered in a single phrase repeated in diminishing size until the letters are too small to read with the naked eye. The phrase is:] the ocean remembers the ocean remembers the ocean remembers the ocean remembers the ocean remembers