He replayed the footage alone in his apartment, frame by frame. The red symbol, jagged and unmistakable, matched files he’d once seen buried in an editor’s locked drawer—stories killed without explanation, sources who stopped returning calls. Now the symbol was on his screen, on his hard drive, and burned into his mind.

The next morning, his inbox filled with sterile legal language: non‑disclosure agreements, confidentiality clauses, veiled threats wrapped in corporate politeness. Yet alongside them came anonymous messages—coordinates, names, fragments of similar sightings. Someone wanted him quiet; someone else wanted him digging. Jonathan understood the choice wasn’t about a single object under a cliff. It was about whether he’d accept the safety of silence or risk becoming one more name people whispered about, a warning attached to the kind of truth no one was supposed to surv.