(Influenced by the tragic story of the doomed Franklin Expedition, and this is by far one of the most challenging and difficult things I've ever written about before! It really pushed my writing ability to the limit, but hopefully the end result was well worth the effort. I made up the part about the lost manuscript, as well as the name Douglas Montgomery, but pretty much everything else really did happen.)

Manuscript found on King William Island, in the Canadian Arctic, left by the late Douglas Montgomery:

Poisoned and slowly dying, I suffer horribly.

The food which supposedly was to suffice my needs,

Has in fact become contaminated and spoiled.

Lead poisoning from the tin cans has sickened us all,

Combined with subzero temperatures of the arctic,

Has driven everyone insane and destroyed our minds.

This ill fated expedition shall end tragically,

As our friends die from eating food meant to save them.

And while they are perishing in unimaginable agony,

Others around me have gone completely insane.

Thinking that eating their fellow human beings,

Would counteract the effects of poisoned food,

And provide these maniacs with proper nourishment.

So they sat about savagely butchering one another,

Turning the white snow red with blood and death,

Feasting on those whom once were called close friends.

Although I am near death and given to madness,

I shall not join in this descent into dementia.

With what little strength I have left inside me,

And knowing that soon my body shall be eaten,

I break off a sharp thick piece of ice nearby.

And before either cannibalism or poison claims me,

I painfully impale myself onto the knife-like shard of ice,

Dying with dignity and honor amidst this scene of chaos.