Date: 11 March, 2023
Author: Dr. Advait Sen
Site: Excavation Zone B-17, Karshanti Foothills, India
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I never meant to write this.
I've always found diary-keeping a sentimental indulgence, the sort of thing lonely students or egotistical romantics do to immortalize boredom. I'm not one of them. My name is Dr. Advait Sen, tenured archaeologist, and my life's work has been centered on comparative Vedic sites across South Asia. I've led dig teams in Lumbini, deciphered lost inscriptions at the Bhimeshvara Caves, and published six papers on proto-Sanskritic burial rituals. I don't get scared easily.
But something is wrong.
I'm writing now not because I want to—but because the world is blurring. Things are slipping, people are... fading. Last night, Ravi, my assistant of three years, stopped responding mid-sentence and just stared at the fire for twenty-three minutes straight. His eyes were open. Breathing steady. But gone. And this morning, I found his tent collapsed, torn from the inside. No sign of him. Just that smell again—burned ghee and something else. Something wet and old.
They think I'm overworked. They think I'm seeing things. They don't realize that I already know what's happening. Somewhere deep inside, I know. I shouldn't have unearthed that alcove. I shouldn't have read that inscription aloud.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let me start from the beginning.
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It was late February when we got the clearance for B-17, a zone considered non-essential due to prior surveys concluding it held only erosion debris. But our equipment picked up something strange—stone resonance beneath the clay layers, and faint signs of regular alignment in the soil compression pattern. Artificial.
By March 3rd, we uncovered what appeared to be the shattered facade of an unknown vihara, its architectural style predating Mauryan symmetry but exhibiting tantric symbols alien to Buddhist canon. We dubbed it a "ghost vihara." No historical record. No oral mentions. Nothing in the monastery archives of the nearest village.
On March 7th, we found the central chamber.
I was the first to descend.
The chamber had no murals. No deities. Only a smooth circular wall and a plinth of volcanic black stone at its heart. On it lay a bundle—tightly rolled leaves of bhurja bark bound with blackened thread. One knot. Then another. Seven in total. The thread was not decayed, despite its age. That should've been my first warning.
Still, I brought it back to the base tent. Stupid. Academic curiosity will be my undoing.
Each bark leaf was inscribed in a dialect that mimicked Pali but was filled with inversion. Words reversed. Sutras restructured. I spent three days translating one line:
> "To end the path is not to escape it. Nirvana can be folded. Fold it, and you walk inward forever."
We joked about it. Folded Nirvana. False Nirvana. Like enlightenment trapped in a box.
Then the dreams began.
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I started seeing a monk in red ochre robes, his face completely smooth—no mouth, no eyes, just skin stretched tight like parchment. He stood outside my tent at 3:33 a.m. every night for four nights straight. When I would wake, the flap would be fluttering, and my boots soaked in cold dew… though it hadn't rained.
Yesterday, I tried burning one of the bark pages.
It screamed.
Not metaphorically—there was a sound, high and tight like wet glass breaking, and the fire went blue. For two seconds, every single light in the excavation site turned off. Generators failed. My laptop still won't boot. It only shows one phrase in ASCII script repeating over and over:
THE NIRVANA YOU SEEK IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE.
THE NIRVANA YOU SEEK IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE.
THE NIRVANA YOU SEEK IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE.
I hadn't typed anything. No one had.
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Something ancient is buried here—not just stone. Not metaphor. Real. Pulsing. Watching. I don't think it's a spirit. I think it's something older, something that saw the first monks try to name it and failed.
And now I fear I'm not just studying the curse.
I may be its scribe.
I'll continue writing. If anything happens to me, maybe these pages will help someone else understand what not to do.
But if you're reading this...
Stop.
Put this down.
Don't turn the next page.
Please.
~ Advait
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