Personal Log — Researcher H. Keene I watched the file once, under supervision. The first minute sits in my chest like a heat that won’t find an outlet. It’s not pleasure that draws you—it's recognition. I thought of lanterns in my grandfather’s garage, the way he taught me to respect a match: make light, then let it die. The compulsion is a perversion of that lesson—an insistence that light be earned again and again. Afterward, I chewed through grief like kindling; the urge to test edges of danger was there, bright and foolish. The exposure period ended with me scrubbing match residue off a tabletop and crying for an hour. The ethics board insisted I continue fieldwork. I refuse to be careless again.
