She screamed, her voice loud enough to be heard throughout the entire complex, and yet, despite her fear, despite her noise, the creature paid no attention to her, its feet drifted forward, its tendrils turned abruptly from her, shooting out at terrifying speed as the body swelled up, further limbs erupting from within. It knocked her down as it shot past.
Too late, Doc Labyrinth realised what was happening. Blood spurted from his mouth as his body was skewered by the force of the creature’s appendages, his shaking hands holding onto a deck of cards drawn from the inside of his bespattered lab coat. He held them for a moment, and then let them fall, thin shards of machine printed card tumbling from his grasp and scattering against the ground as he dropped to his knees.