The smell hit us first. It wasn’t turkey, stuffing, or pumpkin pie. It was something darker, sharper, and completely wrong. Exhausted from preparing Thanksgiving dinner, we pulled the roasting pan from the oven, expecting another ordinary holiday meal. Instead, we discovered something none of us could explain.
At the bottom of the oven lay a warped, alien-looking lump fused to the metal surface. Tiny fragments glittered beneath the kitchen lights. For several seconds, nobody spoke. We stood frozen, staring at the strange object as though we had stumbled upon evidence from a crime scene.
Finally, someone crouched down for a closer look. The object was roughly the size of a thumb, smooth in certain places and jagged in others. A thin metallic spine ran through its center, surrounded by twisted, blackened material. Whatever it was, it looked as though it had survived an extraordinary amount of heat.
