Dear Sirs:

I deeply appreciate the attention you have given my team, and our findings. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the early part of the 20th century is, of course, one of the most important episodes in the field of Bible scholarship. They have been studied and transcribed for decades, so it was quite a shock when a previously-unnoticed Hebrew text was found in the collection. My translation team has sought to convey the most exact meaning, while retaining some of the poetic flow of the original. There have been some successes, although we certainly haven’t managed the weighty, memorable tone of the factually appalling King James Bible. The “prophetess” declares her name to be “Zarah”, meaning, in Hebrew, “the strange woman”, generally used with connotations of moral looseness. The theology of this text, apart from references to Sheol (the abode of the dead) and the primordial chaos monster Leviathan (tamed by Yahweh in the Yahwistic creation story preceding the one given by Genesis 1 and 2, but preserved quite more fully in the Ugaritic texts, with whole passages on the Canaanite hero-god Baal prevailing over the primordial ocean) is quite unlike anything found in the Qumran community, the Bible or the Ancient Near East as a whole. Here is the entirety of the text, as translated so far:

This is the vision of prophetess Zarah,
revealed to her in the dark of a dead land
and written in the dust of a blind moon.

There are Things that were tamed in the beginning of the cosmos
and chained by the stars,
which were placed in a sigil of five dimensions
in the tongue of a formless race, which was ancient
before the elements.

Their servants were condemned to the mirrors,
to serve as reflections until the sigil of stars
comes undone.
At that time their Masters will return
and the one called Leviathan will drown the stars
in his ichorous waters.

The Gods of Man will be as mortals
and those who knew life after death will suffer
as the living.
Blessed are the godless.
Blessed are those for whom death is extinction.
All the host of Sheol and the lives after death will alike
be tormented by the Returned Ones,
whose hatred has festered for millions of years
as the burning stars chained them
beyond the attainable World.

The rippled Reflections will creep from the waters in a drought land
to cackle and sizzle in a tongue without reason:
and they will catch mortals and drive them to madness
and those will be lucky:
for their Masters will come and they will not allow
the salvation of Madness.

Time will die before them and their reign will be timeless.
Reason will be slaughtered and space will be senseless.
Black stars will hang in the sky choked in waters

Primordial, as before Man’s Gods tamed them briefly.
The Gods of the mortals will be feeble before them
and no law will be left but the whim of the hateful,
the Things that were chained when the cosmos was formed.
Blessed are the dead who know nothing.
Blessed are those who did not trust Salvation
but had faith in extinction at the dust of the body.
These are the only ones who are spared.

All of this I, Zarah, have seen in the dead land,
and inscribed in the dust of a blind moon.
It has been revealed to me in Sheol,
and been made known to me in the Pit.
And it has been shown to me that writings from Sheol
will be seen in the land of the living
as the chain of the stars become weaker.
As the sigil comes closer to breaking, the

It should be noted that the translators make the ridiculous assertion that more writing appeared from the start to the completion of their reconstruction of this text, and indeed that vague impressions of letters have already formed below the last sentence, which now ends at “the”. This should be taken as a highly unprofessional attempt at explaining away the slow process of translation. The grisly suicides of, as of this writing, two of the original translation team, should likewise be ignored.

We are clearly not prepared for publication at this time.  However, we would be more than pleased to comply with your request for a facsimile to be sent to your Miskatonic University Library, for further study by qualified professionals. It is my recommendation that you refuse access to the facsimile to all but the most sober and grounded among your staff.

Sincerely, Dr. Eric Benson, PhD.

c/o Israel Antiques Authority

Jenne Kaivo is a full-time student and aspiring lunatic in Northern California. She finds a strange comfort in the notion that terror can strike at any time, for no reason mortals comprehend, and also likes dinosaurs. She is a friend to animals, except the delicious ones, and earns a living as a respite worker.  Visit her website at mngamojemo.deviantart.com If you enjoyed this story, let Jenne know by commenting — and please use the Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus buttons below to spread the word. Illustration by Galen Dara. Return to the table of contents