Chapter Text
Instinct was working over time - as if the heart hammering in his chest wasn't enough motivation to dig, dig, dig, - out of the cold and onto the light. A moment ago, he had awoken into confusion, into the cold, closed world around him. Blood was pumping around his veins for what felt like the first time, it drums in his ear. His throat clenches in dryness. Dirt clogs his mouth, and his nose, there isn't anything around him that wasn't the suffocating darkness.
He didn't belong down here, not anymore, not since his consciousness woke up.
Claw
Climb
Get out at any cost
It was time
The damp earth squeezes around him, traps him down, and pulls him back in. Don't go, - it's cold down there. Cold and damp and everything in him is screaming at him to get out. He digs and digs until he thinks he is buried far too deep to ever make it up there. But still, 'up there' exists, he is as sure of it as the screaming need for air is stabbing his chest.
He is flailing in places. He is going to die down here.
An arm breaks through. Yes, the surface! It's here!
One more push and he is free.
The creature flops down onto the ground like a dying animal. It breathes like a man pulled from the throes of drowning. It then shivers and does very little else but curl up around itself, wrapping its limps around its scrawny body.
It takes it a minute to collect itself.
It takes even longer for it to realize it is not alone in the room.
Philip sits by the table, content to watch and see how this one fares. He is not hung up on the survival of this one dastardly creation. There are three others in the ground growing at the moment - fluids pouring into their plots in a measured flow to ensure they don't grow too fast. He didn't need more than one running around at the same time.
This one looked sickly, too scrawny, it looked almost skeletal - the visage of a starved man with a painfully familiar face - and it wasn't breathing right.
They never last too long anyway.
Oh, it was looking at Philip now, mouth opened in question, no words just a weak groan comes out.
He sighs, might as well get this over with.
Philip was right - about this one not lasting long.
He set it down to rest in the corner of the lab. He planned to feed it tomorrow and start preparing it to join polite society. However, when he returned the next morning Philip found it dead in the cot he put it in.
Something was wrong with it. Externally it seemed fine but maybe something on the inside didn't grow well.
It was always a gamble.
What a shame.
He will have to look through his notes and review the progress of the other grimwalkers, to make sure they don't develop the same defects. Until then, he looked down at the deceased creature. Why should he let his hard work go to waste when a perfect learning opportunity presents itself? He could learn things from it that would benefit the further generations of these cursed creatures he had to make.
He shouldn't dally too much.
There was always some work to do.