Specimen was a human working as a research associate (read: intern) working with anomalous objects. After a failed experiment, he is cleaning up in the laboratory, when the object suddenly emitted an unprecedented burst of techno-magical energy, triggering the Big TE, (Transformation Event) transforming around one-third of the human population into anthros, taurs or stranger! The specimen, being in so close proximity to the anomaly, was severly transformed, into a human-sized centaur-like skunk, with four arms! While not unique, the severity of his transformation is rare.

  yoyobuae did a freaking stellar job of this, the first picture of Juniper from his canon, the district of Ellzee. Yoyobuae, you're an absolutely amazing artist! Thank you so very very much!

The artifact is unnamed, but it is not the MCU Tesseract. It's a lot more wooden and inert at times, and absolutely a mystery! Its not just as simple as touching it to transform.