Event period: from 14 to 16 July 2016

  Well, hey, I thought that the rest of the summer would comprise me working until I returned home in September to prepare for the peat bog excavation project, and it turns out that in the end it won’t be that way. Because these days I’ve become a kind of naturalist devoted entirely to observing and monitoring the behaviour of a living fabric from at least thousands of years ago.

  Let’s see, we can start by saying that it doesn’t have a specific time of activity, it doesn’t seem to be diurnal or nocturnal, it simply activates and moves when it wants to, and that’s usually when I’m not present. The way I see it, it must think I’m a threat, maybe a predator or something, or maybe its behaviour is just naturally very fearful. Anyway, I’ve had to rig up a sort of surveillance camera with my laptop and the built-in webcam. It’s not very effective by any means, and the computer shuts down whenever it feels like it because of the battery or inactivity, so I’m going to use part of my salary to buy a camera with a night vision that I can plug into the power supply or has a long-lasting battery.

  I also asked the cleaning ladies to stay out of my room, as they might make a mess without even noticing. No luck with that, because even if I tell them not to come in, they must clean the room at least once a week, so I will have to look for an alternative or a solution.

  Regarding the fabric itself, I’ve been doing some research on the internet, and I have found nothing that resembles it. The most similar in behaviour is an amoeba, or a slug, but it is neither as malleable and microscopic as the former (it maintains, with no alteration, the 5 × 5 centimetres squared shape with which I cut it from the shroud) and not as complex or anatomically defined as the latter. I also see similarities with glaucus atlanticus (which is still a gastropod like slugs and snails) and with starfish, but they are still not exactly the same. The only characteristics they share are that the fabric also moves around on itself, crawling or sliding along the bottom of the box, and that it also absorbs food through its skin or by some kind of mouth without a jaw. The last I found out because I was doing some tests (I’m getting to that now), and it is clear to me that it is not that the fabric got into an empty mussel, no, but that it ate the mussel that was inside the shell.

  In this same period, I also discovered that this animal (or plant, I’m still not sure) is a great escape artist. The best comparative example I can think of is that of octopuses, which can shrink in on themselves to squeeze through tiny cavities or crevices in order to escape or feed. And I could see that because the bastard slipped through one hole, I made for it to breathe and went on its way through the world once again, so I had to pick it up again and put it in a different box, this time with very small holes in the lid, made with a needle. I’m still not sure if it needs air or not, because after all, it was locked up for a long time and apparently alive in an oxygen-deprived environment like the peat bog, but I don’t want to risk it dying, and I’m hoping that since the holes in its cage are so small, it won’t have a chance of leaking through them. Just in case, I’ll keep my eyes open.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Without knowing much more about this kind of plant-animal-animal-fabric, all this reminds me a lot of the dormant viruses or bacteria that appear in the corpses of animals frozen thousands of years ago or under layers of ice, in small, isolated pockets, in ice cores or in permafrost[1]: they remain hibernating while conditions are adverse and, as soon as the environment improves, they move and living again as if nothing had happened. It is possible that at some point I will dare to test the fabric under extreme conditions to see how it reacts. If it dies, I can always try to take another piece of the corpse from the beach.

  And speaking of the mummy, in this period of time I have found that the fabric consumes food. I tried leaving it near another mussel and it ended up approaching it, wrapping itself around it and, as I understand it, consuming it. It left no trace. This is why I told you that in my opinion it did not enter an empty mussel last time but went in search of food and found a bucket with a prepared feast. All this leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, the body I found was not actually wrapped in a shroud, but that this animal, sometime later, discovered the lifeless body and tried to feed on it. If this is true, the size of this animal could reach truly substantial proportions, so much so that it could effortlessly wrap an adult human being. This aquatic scavenger was eventually trapped inside the peat bog and must have entered a phase of stasis or hibernation until the present day.

  At this point, I am grateful that I took the care to use rubber gloves to handle the fabric. I don’t know if what I have here is hazardous to my health, but just in case, I don’t want to come into contact with it or touch it with bare hands, and that will remain the case from now on and for as long as I have it under my care.

  [1] A quick internet search should allow the reader to find several references on the subject, which is of particular concern in the wake of global warming, as it could mean the return of various microscopic organisms for which we are immunologically not as prepared or as accustomed as our ancestors.