The Book

To: ElenaC12@******.com From: Marster415@****.com

Dear Elena,

It appears that, over my several months of continued searching, I have found the item you requested, it appears to meet your quite thoroughly detailed description. The dark circle on the cover, the bindings made of what I believe to be horse hair, and the outer shell made of some mysterious, leather like material (I double checked to make sure it wasn't cow hide) and the quite strange and ritualistic text within the book. I am unable to require photographic evidence do to a strange phenomena that has left all of my electronic tools and cameras from the trip handicapped and unable to function, I am currently emailing you from a friend's laptop. I warn you though, this item seems to insight strange hallucinations when read, and I have not been able to decipher them or their intended purpose.

I found it whilst hiking to a small cave in the Ozark Mountains after receiving a tip from an old store owner about an ancient Native American 'item' hidden within a certain section of the Mountain range. He did not give away the location of the item to me specifically, rather it looked like he was trying to discourage me into continuing my search. But I trudged up the Mountain Range anyway.

It was very peaceful and scenic there, the town I had gotten the tip from was 50 miles away, and there were no roads or buildings closer to my position than that. After a grueling three day search in the mountains,( I had come well prepared) I finally spotted a small indent in the side of the mountain I had currently been combing for signs of the item. I ran up to it, full of anxiety and excitement as to what could be inside. Well, the indent itself was not very deep, it only went about 4-5 feet into the mountain, before it abruptly ended before a solid wall. I intensely searched the small Hole, only to find absolutely nothing, I was quite disappointed, after all, this meant I would have to go back to square one and that I had lost my one and only lead.

Still, I couldn't get this unsure feeling out of the pit of my stomach that there was more to that little indent than what I had seen, and so, before I trekked off to the next mountain, I took a quick step in and gave it one last examination. Now my head was swimming, where I had seen the wall before was a small, 1-2 foot wide hole. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, it was still there. So I stepped in the indent and looked through the hole. For a split second, I swear, I saw what appeared to be a hand, reaching out to me, it was covered in ritualistic markings and tattoos... But when I backed away and looked again, all I saw was a black abyss, it seemed endless.

I took out my electric Conan and attached it to a feed wire with my laptop at my end of it, this way I could view how far the hole went without me actually have to go down there, or so I thought. As I stuck the camera into the hole at first, it seemed as if nothing was inside, but as I continued to feed the wire farther in, I saw what appeared to be... markings, written in strange texts containing even stranger drawings. One of the drawings I saw with the camera seemed to be depicting a human sacrifice/execution, with red paint consisting of berries depicting an intense amount of blood.

I felt slightly un-nerved by the markings but never the less continued feeding wire, the markings went from slightly gory to downright disturbing, some depicted scenes of strange worship and others depicted murder, greed, and genocide. I was definitely not at ease when I hit the end of the tunnel. I was relived to finally see an end to this seemingly strange and creepy hole. The wall that cut me off from going further had a oddly perfect rectangular cut in the center, it seemed loose, so I got out one of my tools, wrapped a tough and straight wire around it and stuck it through the hole. I could view the cut and the tool from the cameras point of view, so it was easier pulling out the rectangular block from its cast.

When I felt it with my own hands, it seemed much heavier than I would anticipate a small block of granite to weigh, after checking over the pictures I took from my camera, I headed out back towards the nearest trail, which was 10 miles away. Elena, you have no idea how hard it was to lug that thing and all my supplies for 5-6 hours, never stopping, not even for water and a restroom break.

As day turned to night, I felt increasingly paranoid that someone, or something was following me and/or watching me. I would casually look over my shoulder every now and then, but as I progressed deeper into the woods, I started looking more frequently, around every 5 minutes or so, at one point, I even dropped my stuff and took a full view of my surroundings, until I had triple checked I was alone. I tried to keep myself occupied by thinking about better things, me returning home, clocking in my research, and having a nice cup of coffee at that café across the street form the library. But it only worked for a little bit, I started to think I was hearing whispers, chanting, coming from my backpack.

I set it down and looked inside, and to my surprise, I found it, the Book. It looked like something out of a satanic ritual, it had the black circle on the cover and blood red pages. I opened it, wondering what it contained, and that's when I saw it. The markings, the drawings, they matched exactly what In had seen in the tunnel, except they were much more detailed, like they had been drawn by a professional. I threw up when I looked at some of the more gruesome ones, including a drawing of a spider pulling a mans entrails out.

After that, I immediately closed the book and stored it back in my backpack, I was on edge the rest of the trip. I couldn't sleep at the hotel, and I swear there was tapping on my window, and I was two stories up.

I am currently back in town, waiting for you to return from vacation, but I have a few questions, why did you send me out to find this item, what purpose could the museum have for this? I really do not know.

I fear for my life as I type this, the images and details of the book will always haunt me, along with whatever I brought with it. Something is tracking me, following me, it wants me to fall into its trap, which is why I am going to be away for the next week or so, I need to recollect my thoughts and throw this weight off my shoulders, the Book should be on your desk when you arrive, I wish you the best of luck with it.

Sincerely, Martin