There he lies, motionless and almost faceless. His arms made of oak branches, disoriented face carrying a terrified expression. One of his nostrils is open only when he turns that thing some call his head to a certain direction. Because otherwise, the loose plastic-like skin dangling above the nostril closes the gap and sticks to the rim. It makes a whistling noise when he breathes. It is certain that he never fit in any group of naturally created divine people, or even a herd of swines, not even when they are covered in their own filth.

One of his legs is underdeveloped. He would have to bend his other knee more than half-way for that little blobby piece of meat which is supposed to be his foot, left foot to be more precise, to be in contact with the ground. He must have hated standing or walking. One could argue that it is more convenient for him to just skip on his right foot like a one-legged swallow would. But he could not think of that. He was only capable of understanding basic commands and executing them, crudely. He is not flawed. He is flaw. This little toddler-sized being is an insult to nature and the artful hands of the great non-existent all the way from his disgusting appearance that wakes up the vomit peacefully lying in the stomach of man to his inability to perform any intellectual operation however basic it may be with its unbalanced and hilly, minefield-like chestnut of a head. Its maker has failed majorly imitating the most intelligent and upright creation.

The human, on the contrary are made with a rule set of the most well-built proportions. These proportions are a marvel to observe whose secrets are known only to one, and the one is no human. Yet, some of us have strayed far away from our true places into the dark ways of alchemy. Alchemists know no limits. All but them know that boundaries are to guard the inferior from dark mysteries, mysteries so high in importance that anyone who even thinks of their acquisition is cursed for eternity. Alchemists, foul in their ways and morals, look over the many curses cast upon them and foolishly proceed their dark studies. None has ever noticed their helplessness and none ever will, as all are forever blind to the light shone upon their faces by our priests and other righteous believers.

They have tried and failed over and over for centuries to discover the ways of the great non-existent, which are rightfully to remain mysterious to all who have and will ever set foot on land. through the will of their dark cult shamelessly spreading their relentless shadow. They observed the dead, found that the soul flows with the blood in our veins. They observed the old, found that the youth escapes the skin if not contained with heat. They observed men, found that the will of life transcends to the seed in semen. They observed women, found that the womb is the home of creation. They observed the young, found that their growth is induced by white milk. They observed feti, and found that the seed of life is protected inside an egg.

Their dark methods gave way to dark wisdom. They experimented, countless times, attempting to combine their accumulated knowledge into a working recipe. Some discovered how to make life, some to shape it, some to sustain it; some gave intelligence to their creations, some strength. But all, without exception, caused never-ending distress to us. They angered the great non-existent, mocked it, imitated it. They, mere humans, knew not their places and set their eyes on becoming gods to rival each other in this dark theatre. For years our community endured their erroneous ways and evildoings. Our products stolen, livestock vanished, friends and families gone all for their endless greed, and in place they did not even spare us with an opportunity to grieve over the lost as we prepared for another cruel threat. No one could enter their sheds, burrows or caves. No, not as long as they were alive. Their darkness ruled over us until our saviour’s curses came into effect and made every alchemist disappear for good. Their so-called humans—those that could— were free to roam in the sunlight for the first time. All that centuries of years and centuries of alchemists amounted to nothing with all of their flawed creatures, incomplete and incapable. Cursed by the great non-existent, these dark creatures barely remained alive under the shades of their makers’ hideouts. At the time we did not know, and it took the very last creature to whistle his last puff of air for us to understand that these creatures were kept alive with various substances such as the milk of our cattle or blood of our hounds—or sometimes their mixture—fed into them by the black hands of the alchemists.

This miniature beast lying in front of me was the last one of them. He will rot in front of our very eyes into dust and soil, and one day become a real living wonder, constructed to proportions and harmony as all things should be. There will be no relic left for the generations to come to remember these dark alchemists or their ill-gotten abominations apart from our memories, and nightmares.