They found the rosetta. It was in one of the dark places, the deepest part of humanity’s beginning, where nobody had been in thousands of years, hidden from everyone. The ancients had known that the only way to stop an idea is to forget it, to make sure that no attention was drawn to it.

There was no portend, no essential wrongness of the place, no ominous murmur, no arhythmic hum. They took it from that place, took it away to study and uncover and translate and reveal. They succeeded. They spoke aloud what was written, and unleashed once more the thought-specters, the idea ghosts that move through speech and song, the dead terms.

Now, they speak only pain and sing only despair.

Our numbers dwindle. Their numbers can only increase, they of the wraith voice. Our children ask why we move, why some of use cannot speak, why some of us cannot sing. Our children ask why we must run from the others.

We tell our children: their words are haunted.