Sixth Entry

May 12th, 2027

For the past few weeks, I kept myself active, tiring body and mind to induce sleepless dreams. So far it has worked, at the cost of more white hair than all my previous years combined. The pills help, of course.

But for how long?

As for my work, I have found no further success as of yet. Communications with Earth have been sporadic at best, sometimes refusing to work properly for days on end. During those moments, I cannot rely on the team back at base for support and must endure the task of cracking this code by myself.

So far, not much has been learned. The language seems to resemble the Egyptian hieroglyphs in some aspects, in the sense that the symbols look more akin to semagrans depicting ideas or objects rather than letters.

How I wish I could find my own Rosetta stone in these desolate lands.

To make matters worse, they don’t seem to follow any pattern or linear sequence. When most cultures write, they follow a horizontal or vertical line, as it is easier for humans to read it this way. But the monument has no such thing, at least not in its entirety.

Some parts have them arranged in spiral or circular patterns, only to break suddenly and go into straight lines. Some cross over others, creating pathways of words all over the stone. At least, I think they do, considering how every inch of open space on the fucking rock has been covered in the runes.

Thei did no want noone to disturb. [20]

I often find myself staring out the window, watching the wind scorched desert surrounding us. Untouched by at least thousands of years, according to the studies conducted by Takamura and Riikka, they remain hostile to our presence. A thought popped into my head just the other day, so absurd in its content that I haven’t shared it with anyone yet.

This expedition uncovered bits of organic matter scattered across the ruins and around it. Breaks in the terrain indicating the presence of rivers teeming with aquatic creatures and even a few pieces of bone from the beasts that one day roamed these lands.

They all disappeared around the exact same time: Twenty thousand years ago.

Much speculation arose among the team, for an extinction event of such magnitude, capable of whipping out the life of an entire planet in a very short timeframe seems impossible. Earth itself had many major periods where the vast majority of species got obliterated, but never all of them. Nature is resilient and those who are more adaptable to the changes thrive while the rest falls to the wayside of history. But here on Mars, everything died at once.

Many hypothesis came forward, such as solar winds or a meteor crashing on the surface, but I have a suspicion. Whenever a discussion comes to this particular intrigue, I think on how all the writing at the ruins had been tempered. Not by the ravages of time, but by sentient hands. Makes me question on the unthinkable. Even so, my gut keeps telling me there is something there.

Did the Precursors eliminate all live on their planets on purpose? [21]

It sounds ridiculous, reading it like this. But I can’t keep this idea just inside my tired mind any longer. It must be given some voice, even in these private pages. I mean, why would any sentient beings consider the destruction of billions, if not trillions, of creatures? And how could they do it without leaving any vestiges of their doing?

Once the city was uncovered, a fine comb of a search followed, looking over every conceivable place on the surface of Mars. Armies of drones came over to aid in the search.

We should have seen.

And not a single thing could be found. Only this one particular carcass of the past.

It feels too deliberate, too clean. I do not speak to my colleagues on this, for fear of questions of my sanity appearing. Even so, I cannot help but wonder.

May 14th, 2027

Zhang has gone missing.

When I say that, I do not mean she went out for some chore outside the station (a ludicrous idea already, as what would a nurse require outside). Whenever we get out, a log is made automatically on the archives, in case something does happen so we can find out as soon as possible. No such things have been recorded regarding Zhang.

I considered erasing this last part to make it cleaner, but I have no energy for such things. No one will read this shit anyway, so why bother? But I shall try and recount what has happened today for some semblance of context.

Dr. Ngwenya had been the last one who spoke to the poor woman, yesterday before going to bed. She seemed tired, shaken by everything going on. The good man confided in secret to me about how she had witnessed the strange forms watching us several more times afterwards. This took a tool on the woman, who refused to say anything again, thus avoiding Takamura’s reproach.

This morning, she wasn’t at the medical bay, so he went to look for her. Finding her door locked, he requested assistance in opening it, fearing she had passed out in some way. Instead, an unused bed greeted him, no signs of the nurse.

An extensive search followed, all hands on deck. The boys from engineering scoured the many spaces she could have hidden, while the rest of us searched every room on the premises.

Still nothing.

A shared thought dominated us all, one we could not voice. Could one of us have snapped and done something to her? With the high levels of stress among all, it didn’t seem implausible this could happen, yet considering it felt too dangerous. Still, at some point it had to be addressed.

FOOL! FOOOLISH BASTARD!!!

I wasn’t in the room, so I have nothing but a general idea of what happened, but Takamura and Ngwenya had come to blows. A shouting match at first, they had to be separated by us all by the end of it. The doctor accused Takamura of being the culprit, for his seemingly lack of concern for the missing woman. The geologist on the other hand claimed he had been the entirety of the previous night at his lab, looking over samples.

Why not look over the cameras spread across the premises, you ask? They could provide definitive proof of everyone’s innocence, or lack of it. But from the moment Ngwenya left to his room to this morning, a glitch had erased all recordings. This prompted another heated physical altercation between Takamura and Aydın, who couldn’t explain what had happened.

The air has been the heaviest since we arrived, with no one wanting to spend time alone this night. As a matter of fact, Riikka has come into my room and is sitting by the couch taking notes as I write this entry. Too nervous to stay by herself, she says. And I more than welcome the company.

I also do not wish to be alone, in case the worst is confirmed.

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[20] Whenever pieces of the Monoliths have been uncovered thus far, no sign of this writing has been revealed. The only thing pointing to them ever belonging to the artifacts has been the radiation pattern found on each piece. Considering the use of the texts, I wonder if this language belongs to the Wardens or the Ixlyth. We shall see if the specimen reveals more on the nature of these symbols.

[21] For more information regarding this hypothesis, seek Far’tu Saik’s additions to the Great Archive for more details. For my part, I used the full rotation of their planet at the time of these writings and concluded the “twenty thousand years” referenced here correlates to the same general period all the other Warden planets got stripped of organic forms.

Everything in this document has been fully translated from their original language into High Zatoreny.