Excavation Site 44-C, the Terminal Fields. Here we uncovered the largest concentration of Parting Shrines yet recorded, vast halls of glass with rows of tethered seats, all facing the same barred threshold. The Ancients called these thresholds "gates," and the word is well chosen, for our evidence suggests they believed a soul who passed beyond one might never return.
Consider the choreography preserved in the wear patterns. The floor before each gate is scuffed in a tight cluster, as though supplicants stood pressed together, reluctant to disperse. Beyond the barrier, the scuffs vanish into a long clean corridor. The message is unmistakable: to cross was sacred and solitary, and those left behind were forbidden to follow.
Note Artifact 44-C-19, a small square of laminated fiber recovered clutched in a skeletal hand near the threshold. We believe these were offerings, surrendered to a robed attendant who tore each one, ritually breaking the bond, before permitting the pilgrim to pass. The tearing must have carried great weight. Half of every offering was kept by the traveler; half remained with the attendant, so that the covenant could never be reassembled by one party alone.
My colleague Venth argues these halls were places of joyful festival, citing the abundance of nearby food vessels and the softened seating. I cannot accept this. The residue on the barriers tells another story: countless smudged handprints at the height of an embrace, pressed and pressed again against the glass, as if the living hoped to leave some warmth on a surface they could not cross.
These were a people who built temples not to their gods but to the moment of separation itself, who gathered by the thousands each day to practice the one art no civilization masters: letting a beloved thing walk toward the light, and staying behind to watch it go.