Date: March 28, 2023
Location: Bodh Gaya – Site 3B
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I write this in trembling breath.
Because one of us is dead again.
Not vanished. Not maddened. Not lost.
Dead.
And this time, I saw it with my own eyes. We all did.
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The Death
Name: Pritam Dhar, Assistant Linguist, Kolkata Museum
Age: 29
Function: Manuscript handling, assistant in scribe recovery
Time of death: Approx. 4:47 AM
Location: Central encampment, just outside Chamber Theta.
Cause: Unnatural. I use that word because there is no other.
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We heard it first. A low, guttural chanting that began around 3:50 AM. I assumed it was another night terror or one of the interns breaking down again, so I took my torch and stepped outside.
But it wasn't just one person.
The entire camp was echoing with the sound.
Not from mouths—from the air itself.
The firepit sparked blue. The relic crates began rattling.
The unfinished carvings of the Bhantaragya's sigil began bleeding—inky red fluid pooling from the stone.
Then Pritam screamed.
We found him collapsed at the tent entrance, eyes wide open, mouth agape, blood pouring from his nose and ears.
His chest was cold, lungs deflated. No pulse. His hands were clutched tightly around a scribe fragment from yesterday's excavation.
And on his forehead, in angry red skin—
the same spiral rune from the Bhantaragya doctrine.
Drawn.
Burned.
Seared into him.
Just like the glyph we had once seen on Kavya when she died—but dismissed then as an old tattoo from her college days.
It wasn't.
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Blame and Revelation
Panic erupted.
Rohan accused Liang of having used some kind of tech—hallucinogens, sonic pulses. Liang retaliated. Mira shouted for everyone to shut up.
Then Zhang said it.
He turned to our Japanese scholar—Kenji Yamazaki—and asked why he was trembling.
Kenji finally broke.
He admitted that over the past three days, he'd been translating and copying the Bhantaragya scrolls into his own journal. He believed—believed—that this was an early syncretic doctrine, some form of proto-Esoteric Buddhism, and he wanted to understand it before others could suppress it.
He thought he was doing it for preservation. For history.
He admitted he had spoken some chants aloud.
Last night. Alone. Near Chamber Eta.
I lost my temper. I won't write what I said, but the others were not kinder.
Kenji wept.
He said the mark on Pritam—he had seen it in the text. It was a "curse of awakening," a sigil that meant someone had been marked by the Bhantaragya to serve as his mouth—or his vessel.
The moment he said that, Lu's eyes widened.
She said she'd seen the same spiral carved—on the inside of her tent wall. She thought someone was pranking her.
Then Zhang opened his shirt.
The same spiral. On his ribs. Faint. Like someone drew it while he slept.
This is no longer theory.
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We Are Now in the Ritual
I called everyone to the center. Twenty members of the core team. Thirteen interns and junior scholars.
Everyone accounted for—except Roshni, an intern from Hyderabad. We haven't seen her since yesterday evening.
We are assuming the worst.
I told them we cannot afford hysteria. Panic is instinct, but it gets us nowhere. If Kenji's mistake unsealed something, perhaps something else can seal it. We must reverse the ritual. Translate the entire scroll. Study the artifacts—not to use, but to understand.
Mira and Lu will start cataloging the chants backward—many Eastern curses are known to embed mirrored structures.
Ashan and I will conduct a full sweep of all tents for markings, hidden scrolls, or signs of possession.
Zhang has barricaded Chamber Eta.
No one is allowed in. No more unsealing.
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The Chant Speaks Again
At 6:20 AM, just now, as I finish writing, I heard the Bhantaragya.
He did not speak in Sanskrit.
Nor Pali. Nor Tibetan.
He whispered—in my own voice.
He said:
> "One walks behind you, Sen.
One walks inside you."
And then the spiral appeared—on this very page.
The ink is not mine.
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God help us.
We are not in Bodh Gaya anymore.
We are somewhere older.
And the Bhant
aragya is not a myth.
He is waking.
I will try to keep writing.
Unless he starts writing for me.
Advait Sen
Lead Archaeologist
Site 3B, Bodh Gaya