It was either yesterday evening or a particularly dark afternoon when I found what I believed to be a carcass, engulfed in a swarm of tiny carrion flies while it reclined upon the spongy moss of neglect beneath a stunted tree. As my phrasing has already implied, it turned out not to be a carcass at all. That is to say: it was not deceased, nor was it composed of living tissue. It was roughly human in shape but considerably smaller in scale, formed in equal measure out of what appeared to be unprocessed metal and a highly crystalline variety of stone. What attraction this held for the flies, I still could not say.

My first response upon stumbling across this perplexing scenario was a mild anxiety, brought about by a conditioned sense of social responsibility. Was I obligated to take any action to either assist or remove such a thing? It soon became clear that it was not in any discomfort -- it could even be described as perfectly content with in situation. This was a source of relief to me, and I happily abstained from offering it any sympathy. My curiosity, however, was not so easily assuaged. I studied the small figure for some time. Perhaps because of the poor lighting, or -- even more likely -- for reasons far more arcane, I was never able to clearly perceive the surface texture of its various parts. Sometimes it appeared to be moist and pliable, and then it would shift to convey an equally strong impression of being unusually hard -- possibly even brittle. Needless to say, I could never bring myself to actually touch it; this struck me as an unthinkable violation of both of our respective boundaries.

It was not long before the light degenerated to a point where the object of my scrutiny was described in only the most vague of outlines, and I knew I was wasting my time -- quite likely outstaying my welcome as well. I returned home and attempted to create a facsimile of the strange figure from memory, using whatever materials were at hand and seemed most appropriate. Within the hour, my ability to recall any details of my discovery had entirely failed; leaving me burdened with a crude, vaguely human-shaped relic of my own creation that filled me with an inexplicable dread, and bore absolutely no relation to the encounter from which it had been born.