The saddest story in Middle Earth

Okay. So this essay was originally something I was doing just on my own time. And it was so fun that I decided to start writing it down…and it became this. What I want to do is to take the little book that they found next to Balin's tomb that was kind of hard to read and had words covered over with blood and guts. And I want to just process out loud for myself what is going on there.