Article 1: Personal Logs of Dr. Boris Gannibal, PhD (Translated from Russian)

April 2nd, 1970

Today I received orders telling me I was to be stationed at Milovice Mládá Military Base, effective immediately. Where the fuck is that? It sounds Bohemian but it’s not any of the major cities. No details are given, so I don’t even know what I’m going to be working on.

On plane to Prague, transportation to Milovice awaiting me there. Another scientist is with me, Dr. Sokolov. It seems we will be working together. His field of study is biology, I cannot imagine what kind of work overlaps that with geology. He’s scrawny, and wears wire rimmed glasses. Looks to be about forty or so, but has grey hair that’s thinning fast and a face that looks like it’s always just told a joke no one’s laughed at. It’s pitiful.

It’s sixteen minutes past midnight. Gunfire from outskirts of town. Persisted for approximately a half hour. Long bursts of sustained automatic fire. Appeared one-sided. Too tired to write more now.

April 3rd, 1970

Today I was introduced to the Commander of the base, Captain something-or-other. I’ve known him for less than two minutes and I already can’t stand him. One of those pompous military assholes who can’t go five seconds without praising the motherland with a moustache that looks like a nest for the world’s smallest rat. It looks like his uniform and all the pea soup stains upon it have been handed down through the generations. I was also shown the reason for my presence here: a strange new rock sample unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I’d say it’s maybe a quarter of a square meter, irregular but roughly teardropped in shape, with a pronounced hump along it’s top and bottom with sloping edges, like a solidified dollop of molten lead.

Texture is smooth overall, but with strange ridges throughout, reminiscent of an ocean wave. It’s off-white in color, almost like bone. There is strange symbol on the bottom. It’s not carved, or scratched, or anything that would suggest the symbol had been etched in; it’s mostly smooth, some ragged edges, with a perfectly uniform depth, almost as if it cracked as it cooled. How that could happen is beyond me, besides use of a mold, but it shows no signs of being casted.

According to the report I was given, all signs point to it being natural in origin and formation which I simply don’t understand, but that line of questioning is simply above my pay grade. I’ve begun tests, but a large percentage of the proper equipment is not available for one reason or another due to some bureaucrat who can’t pull his cock out of his ass. I can’t even get a microscope until next week. Pathetic. I’ve been forced to rely on more primitive methods. It’s metamorphic, I can tell that much, and reacts strongly to acid. It contains carbon, then. Further testing reveals a high presence of tricalcium phosphate, which almost suggests it’s organic in nature. It has a reading on the Mohs scale of between five and six, and a density of 3,371 kg/m3 . It lacks any ability to conduct electricity and proves fireproof, but is slightly magnetic. Any ferrous object I hold up to it sticks to it, but the adhesive force isn’t terrible strong. I’m not sure what else I can do, I’ve pretty much exhausted all options until I get some more goddamn equipment.

April 4th, 1970

Came into the lab today to find the table holding the sample completely wet and beginning to rust. It appears that whatever this is, it seems to condense water. I’m going back to bed, woke up with a splitting headache. For the first time I since I was a child, I was plagued with horrible nightmares. I dreamt of a great topaz sea, a blue crystalline expanse stretching out to infinity, terrifying in its depth. In it’s bottomless facets I saw things I was never meant to know, forbidden knowledge which my brain violently removed before further damage could occur.