Silent Ice Petition

Wind sheared the last footprints before they could crust—so the letters rose instead, quarried slow from the frozen sheet, word by frozen word. Each glyph stares east, throwing long obsidian shadows like sundial marks across the drifts. The text was never ornament; it was signal, a rendezvous compressed to one question, its grainy edges rough under gloved hands during construction. Field Dispatch 77. Coordinates fixed. Horizon clarity extreme, no motion beyond static glare. Ambient temp: −41°C. The message holds. Legends say language left in ice speaks backward, so I trace the carved V with bare knuckles, skin burning in reverse. We thought Vojta would surface when these letters aligned with the solstice arc. They align now, yet the plain hums empty. My breath feathers, brittle and fugitive, while far under the crust something keeps still. The question remains louder than the wind: he has not returned.