[specimencollectionv2]

i really cannot put into words how much i love mutant rennick specifically. i love human rennick too of course but every time mutant rennick appears in anything the heart emojis pinging from me blot out the sun 🥺💖

[specimencollectionv2]

( Does Rennick have any fears (be them rational or irrational)? And how does he sleep (what is the optimum room temperature, favored position, does he toss and turn or have any weird or recurring dreams)? )

SUCH CUTE QUESTIONS THANK YOU SM 🥺🙏‍💖💖 in my mind rennick is weirdly boring in the fears department. nothing really fazes him. he is for sure scared of dying but not more than i presume most people are. he is not at all afraid of dying from illness though because he considers himself to be a "real man" and "real men" never get sick. you couldn't pay him to see a doctor because he thinks it's a waste of time and money

he is a light sleeper and doesn't need much of it to function, but he is slow to get out of bed. he does have recurrent night terrors stemming from having witnessed both world wars in his lifetime 😔 he'll wake up all delirious and miserable, drenched in cold sweat. makes the mornings even worse for him and the workday worse still for his poor employees. as if he wasn't enough of a draconian bastard on the regular

[litteris]

At the sight of the two titans starting to detangle from one another (or at least, what he can make out of their shapes in the dark), relief floods Clarence, releasing some of the extra pressure in the form of a thankfully muffled, shuddering exhale. In all (forever unspoken) honesty, he has to hand it to Philip for making it as far as he had, if this is what human anxiety feels like. He's already very goddamn sick of it. But of course, the relief doesn't last long when—

Initially, Rennick's assailant lets go as well, attempting to scramble in the opposite direction; that is, before the metaphorical switch flips again, and at the last second, the creature reaches back, groping for any lingering remnant of the other to try and keep him pinned below the next portion of rock to give way. Succeed or fail, the sinewy silhouette of a nightmarishly thin, long arm as it emerges from the debris to fish for the overseer is the last thing Clarence sees before yet more of the tunnel above them unceremoniously collapses.

The following seconds, feeling like minutes, are spent staggering backward and blinking through grit, despite procedural memory having lifted his arms and shielded his face. A breath reflexively sucked in, a syllable almost uttered, only to result in a coughing fit, all brought on by another explosive cloud of debris, this time having erupted mere feet in front of his face.

[specimencollectionv2]

This deep in panic, Rennick barely registers that one remaining forehand clamping a stretch of flesh near his tail, anchoring him somewhere between certain death and a fleeting chance at freedom. Whichever of the two is closer, he hasn't the faintest idea. His arms are halfway pinned fast against the walls, so, in a last-minute bid for... something, Rennick whips out a few tendrils, scrabbling blindly for Clarence's form in the nothingness, screaming the name of his companion between mouthfuls of dirt sputtering out.

He's not sure what he's hoping for, if anything, other than Clarence still being out there, for reasons that he cannot explain. A last-minute rescue is physically impossible, but the memories flashing before his eyes like a violent, asynchronous film has him believing that he is human again, that there is really no meaningful size difference between the two of them, and that if Clarence pulled hard enough in the opposite direction, he would be freed before the inevitable collapse of the tunnel.

[litteris]

Taken by the element of surprise, the amalgamation of flesh and bone goes down easily, claws scraping for purchase against the worn tunnel floor but finding none before it’s dragged back, where it flails and thrashes like a wounded animal, tearing at the tendrils enveloping its maw with its remaining arm. It doesn’t just use its arm, however, lashing out with its powerful legs wildly in the blind hope of snapping, ripping, piercing. Of course, it’s constrained by the same comparatively small space as the other, and each poorly aimed strike leveled at the walls brings with it more rumbles. More plumes raining dust and tiny rocks down directly over their heads.

Clarence knows the quickest way out of this whole mess is to suffer a heart attack and perish on the spot. And yet, the body persists. Even though said heart is beating so fast it might break a rib, he’s lightheaded, and his limbs feel like wet spaghetti noodles. You should’ve ran when you had the chance, he thinks. You should still run. He doesn’t know how blocked the path is behind him; he’s too afraid to look back, but maybe he could squeeze through, right? Sure, he may come to an impasse, something that he would need his tunneling friend to traverse, but at least he’d die in peace, instead of getting crushed under who-knows-how-many tons of bunker.

Deep breaths. Stave off the panic. “Rennick!” It doesn’t bloody sound like he’s staving off the panic. He’s already backing away again. “Now’s a really good time to get outta here— please!”

[specimencollectionv2]

Under less dire circumstances, Rennick would have been positively delighted to hear Clarence utter the word "please" outside of a sarcastic context, providing him with ample ammunition for future teasing; as it is, however, all that registers to him is the terror in his companion's voice, alerting him to the fact that the ceiling is quite literally coming down on their heads. Even the slobbering bone-beast is not exempt from misfortune; of all the different forces at play, whichever way they might manifest themselves, however ancient they might be, gravity is king.

Rearing into an upward crescent like an alarmed grub, the former Shelter manager tries his damnedest to tear away from his, he's certain, would-be kill. There is indeed enough space for Clarence to squeeze through the tunnel behind him, and enough time for a two-legged little thing like him to reach safety, too, but bets are still out on whether there is enough for his larger friend, who, presuming that Clarence intends to lead him to safety, is already on his way over.

[litteris]

“In the broadest sense,” is all Clarence can think to say, and it’s unclear even to himself which one he’s responding to. Now that the chaos has settled down for the moment, and there’s no immediate concern that the walking garbage disposal is going to pop his free ride (because of course that’s all this is, a partnership of convenience) like a water balloon, he’s left wondering if getting involved was such a good idea, after all. And where he takes it from here.

Without looking away, the beast slowly, seemingly gingerly, begins to remove itself entirely from above the Scotsman. Dragging one limb behind it and ambling along on the others, it moves toward Clarence, who quickly starts to match it step-by-step, only backward and in the opposite direction. “What are you doing here? What have you done?”

“You requested to speak with me just now.” The voice again, same as it was the first time it and overseer had spoken, containing innumerable qualities all at once and rippling across his mind like a pebble skipped across a pond; though fainter than before, as if its foothold over his psyche isn’t quite as strong as it had been. “End this farce, and we can talk.” The implication is perhaps all too clear: do what the other body is now resisting. Put an end to the one-armed creature and Rennick’s misguided accomplice. “You are reasonable.”

[specimencollectionv2]

If Clarence calling both it and him sons of bitches wasn't enough of an indication that this is very much an unhappy reunion, whichever unfathomable way the two happen to be acquainted, that 'What have you done?' is plenty telling on its own, as is Clarence's understandably unenthused reponse to the beast's approach. Reasonable, yes, Rennick thinks, but a gambler, too, and now that he has confirmation that his ticket out of here is still in one piece, the stakes are different: outplay the presence, and he can live; outplay it, keep Clarence alive, and he can be free.

The explosion of violence is ferocious: heartened by hope, this time, instead of anger, Rennick launches himself at the abomination, raising a sickle-like arm as far above his head as is physically possible in the tight space before bringing it down, driving it through the knotted bones like a slaughterhouse hook and dragging their pursuer into a tangle of whipping tendrils. "Turn your back on me, eh!" Arm-thick ropes of viscera wrench around the abomination's teeth, driving them wider and wider apart in an attempt to snap its jaws. "I'm no— arrh!— letting you ruin this!"

Two behemoths battling to the death in several rounds was not one of the safety criteria (of which, as per usual, only the barest minimum for certification were met) considered during the tunnel's construction, as is reaffirmed when a fine mist of dust erupts from the ceiling near Clarence like a sprung leak. Then another, accompanied by a disqueting rumble from somewhere above. Almost immediately afterwards, a cascade of coarse earth plummets to the ground somewhere behind Clarence, scattering pebbles on the ground, close enough that a rolling few bump to a stop against the heels of his shoes.

[specimencollectionv2]

the angry little finger twirl he does when he says "but he does not run things around here" is the cutest thing to me 😭💖

[litteris]

If it helps the overstressed overseer to feel a bit better in some cosmic kind of way, Rennick isn’t the only one chastising Clarence’s half-baked distraction tactics— Clarence himself is doing plenty of that on his own; now that the impulsive panic is waning, and he’s left with just regular panic. Maybe the hope had been that the larger of the two would seize the opportunity to maim the other arm, or somehow manage to snap the monstrosity’s nonexistent neck. Hollywood makes it look so easy, after all. Whatever he was thinking, he must be out of his fucking mind. A chuckle, seemingly faint in the profound darkness. “Well, how’s that for gratitude? Whatever happened to standin’ by your pals, huh?”

Fortunately, before Clarence can run his mouth some more (something he’s fully prepared to do at any given point), Rennick hears a grunt from above him, followed by a flinch, the massive torso of the beast shrinking back and to the side; he may recognize the sudden onset of a headache, not unlike the one he’d suffered in the tunnel beneath the library, not at all that long ago. As it cranes forward a moment later, that biting pressure against him eases off entirely, and the creature stares ahead. When it speaks again, pain is more readily evident than before. Undersized tongue forcing exaggerated enunciation.

“... Philip?”

[specimencollectionv2]

And thus the pendulum swings. The presence is back, heralded, as before, by a headache that defies comparison to anything Rennick has ever experienced prior to falling ill. A rope of blood-tinged spittle yawns into a low, wide arch as he hoists his hammering head slightly upward, his gaze not so much shifting as careening wildly from Clarence to the thing and back in an attempt to make sense of what this means, first and foremost, as per usual, for his own survival.

Perhaps the wee man does know what he's doing. Gotta be a first time for everything.

'Clarence. His name is Clarence,' he thinks, unexpectedly offended by the misnaming, sagging back against the ground with his eyes still on the smaller infected in an attempt to glean some sort of meaning from that fishbelly-pale face. Reassurance too, maybe—not that Rennick would be caught dead admitting it. "You two know each other?" Observing silently would be the wiser course of action, but far be it from him to pass up an opportunity to get in the last word.

[litteris]

“You are wasting time. Prolonging the inevitable, maybe.” It says this as if answering its own unasked question, because it is. It may not particularly care for them, but there is some genuine curiosity regarding humans and their nature— and given Rennick’s refusal to assimilate, he is still entirely too human for the entity’s liking. Which is why it doesn’t let him up, despite this vessel operating with one less appendage; why it doesn’t entertain the notion of satisfying any of those curiosities. No. Instead, it simply clamps down harder, gaunt fingertips threatening to punch right through the flesh as its terrible maw begins to close the gap between them once more.

“I know.” He hadn’t intended to get involved (should have, in fact, been a mile and a half away by now), but the words leave Clarence’s mouth before he can reconsider, feet regaining the ground he had retreated just a moment ago. He’s scared, and he certainly sounds it, but there’s also something else: anger. And concern? Surely not for the ornery old Scotsman. He’s doing all this to try to save his own neck, at the end of the day.

Looking up and past Rennick, the creature does pause. Although probably not for long, if the previous dialogue had been any indication.

“I know what you are now, I know who you were before, and yet somehow, both you sons of bitches are the reason I’m stuck in this glorified deathtrap!”

Seeing as it’s his side the bony claw is currently digging into, the overseer might notice its iron grip loosen just a little bit. Absentmindedly. If the body hadn’t been mutilated beyond all recognition, there may very well have been a glint of realization behind its unseen eyes.

[specimencollectionv2]

The 'oh, no' of realizing that Clarence decided to act against his orders, because to hell, right, with the man who just saved his life, switches to 'oh, yes' when the stabbing pressure against his belly lessens, then right back to 'oh, no' when Clarence starts running his mouth again. Being accused of anything, justly or otherwise, has Rennick seriously considering teaming up with the creature to flatten the smallest among them like a tick before the two of them return to tearing out each others' throats. Hopefully he'll get to tear off its other arm before he goes—leave it lying flat in the dirt, using its feet to launch itself forward like a fucked up frog that never gets off the ground.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" This being his second time asking him that in a far too short span of time. His incredulousness at Clarence's attempt at divine intervention is such that he simply cannot muster the mental willpower for a surprise attack while the other infected is distracted. "What— I told your stupid erse to run!"

[litteris]

With an involuntary lurch forward and to the side, Rennick can feel the pressure against his left go slack when suddenly, the arm that had been pinning him down is reduced to dangling by a thread of shredded, twisted muscle. The pain that cuts through the creature’s entire being, experienced to the fullest even now, is unimaginable; forks of lightning setting every nerve on fire. And yet, the only noise that escapes from its mangled, fleshy gullet is a low and grating rasp.

For a brief moment, it doesn’t move, which is perhaps a blessing and a curse: no longer trying to rip and tear at the other, but also continuing to dig into his right. After this beat passes, it slowly recenters above him. “I am here. Ever-present.” The voice, coming from a source other than the Scotsman’s own mind this time, is singular. The speech is stilted, emerging from somewhere deep inside and struggling to form around a tongue that’s too small for the space it occupies. Despite this, its most recognizable trait still prevails: an English accent. Thicker than the one his companion has been phasing out. “Do not invoke me with mere taunts. You cannot be allowed to keep on this path.”

His companion, who has taken a couple of steps back. Torn between listening to Rennick’s order and hightailing it out of there while he has the chance, or staying put for whatever good he thinks that might do. At this point, if the big guy goes down, he’s as good as dead anyway. The decision is made for Clarence, at least for now, when the two begin exchanging words, already wide eyes managing to round even more, fear turning to shock. He isn’t speaking to Howard, no, but the others— the Tuurngait, and he knows it.

The one I spoke to before.

… Why haven’t they spoken to him?

[specimencollectionv2]

"Worked, though, didn't it? Hello, beastie." Of all the things he was expecting, an actual response was not one of them, and the uncanniness of it, of that rough, brittle voice being produced by something so grotesquely inhuman in appearance, almost makes Rennick wish there was none. Again, he wonders if Clarence made it to safety, and that is presuming, perhaps foolishly, that such a thing even exists anywhere in the Shelter. Does it know where he was planning on taking Clarence? Where they were going to hide? Is it, in fact, probing his grey matter this very instant, and he simply cannot tell over the white-hot agony already tormenting him?

"We can keep doing this all day, or we can... we... ah, Jesus..." A trapped lungful of breath loosens as a tortured, closed-mouthed groan that leaves Rennick gasping wretchedly for a replacement, as though to remind him that only one of them is realistically able to keep fighting, and that that someone is most certainly not him. "What's with the accent? Who are you, really? Indulge an old dog, will you, before you... pop my fucking liver..."

[litteris]

Clarence’s gasp is cut short when all the air is forced from his lungs upon making contact with the ground. While not quite as traumatizing as going through a car’s windshield, the body does roll several times, luckily protected enough by the arctic-grade parka Philip had shown up in as to avoid flaying most of his already necrotized skin off in the process— most of it. Somewhere in the confusion, he’s aware of a heat rising against his left cheek; warm liquid beading to the surface in bloody patches.

When Rennick tries to look, he might catch a glimpse of the humanoid numerous feet ahead, failing at first to climb back up from his hands and knees, but succeeding the second time, albeit with a wheeze, a cough, and a stumble.

Before much more thought can be given to the least threatening among them, however, the creature is on top of the overseer with shocking speed, skeletal hands brought forward to either side in an attempt to pin whatever flailing limbs they can, while its maw (once so aptly compared to a meat grinder) lashes out like a savage dog, intent on ripping loose whatever fresh it can.

[specimencollectionv2]

This isn't a farewell either, because he is not going to die to a hair claw clip made flesh; more of a 'get the hell out of here before it turns its attention on you,' but Rennick cannot adequately convey that when a shamble of sinew is stamping around on top of him, driving its limbs deep into his mostly boneless body. Those hideous fangs arch above him like ribs filed to points, and, oh, okay, so its feet are hands, too, preventing him from moving what might once have been his hips. Wonderful. Thank god he still has his tendrils.

"Put your mammy on the line," he gibbers breathlessly, hardly able to speak past the mutual flurry of savagery but insisting on trying, for his own sake, in an attempt to keep his bravado from crumbling. "The one I spoke to before. I want a word. Or are they already listenin'? Are you? Am I speaking to you right now? Is this the best you can do?" So much blood, by far most of it his. Hooking one quaking, gore-slick arm and a tangle of equally unsteady tendrils around the abomination's left humerus, he musters every remaining iota of fast-waning strength still left in him and wrings the bone around, spitting through his gritted, bared teeth, in an attempt to wrench off the limb at its base.

[litteris]

Digging its claws into the rubble, the creature launches after the pair, abnormally long legs giving it a powerful yet clumsy start— clumsy, since it doesn’t allow itself time to gain its bearings; large, mutilated mass, unfamiliar even to itself, trying to fit within the confines of the tunnel ahead; the slick, bony protrusions jutting out from its body scrape along the rock walls as it works to reorient itself while already on the move. Because of this, there’s an initial misstep or two, further adding to Rennick’s lead. If only by a small margin.

“No arguments here, you know this shithole better than I do!” Clarence shouts to be heard over the chaos directly behind them, and to compensate for the fact that he’s currently trying to make himself as small as possible, tucked in and clinging on for dear life. Again. The word, “shithole,” is spat out with more vitriol than perhaps strictly necessary, but between daddy dearest and the reality of turning around empty-handed, it’s shaping up to be a particularly crummy day all around— to put it delicately.

[specimencollectionv2]

No light reaches them here, this far from the hole in the ceiling that previously served as their one and only source of it, but Rennick is blessedly adept at seeing in pitch-darkness; his main problem, aside from the very large one snapping at their heels, is Clarence, who is at risk of slipping from his grasp with each graceless, panicked lunge forward. The rapidly-advancing abomination leaves him no opportunity to measure his movements—not like before, when he first carried the other infected here, before their situation turned from bad to worse, then to absurdly horrible.

And now Clarence does slip from his grip—is all but launched, in fact, from his safe spot against Rennick's shoulder, when a skeletal hand clamps down on Rennick's trailing tail, yanking him backwards with a strength far surpassing his own and bringing their flight to an abrupt halt. Phantom limbs still heed the call of the nerves they were severed from, but all the former overseer manages to do is to thrash uselessly on the floor like an infant swaddled too tight, sputtering and jabbing blindly at the thing with the ends of his arms.

"RUN!" he bellows, whipping his head around in an attempt to spot Clarence. What did he say again? 'I really think you can take him.' Maybe he can. Maybe he has to. Fucking hell. "Run! Just fucking do it!"

[litteris]

For an instant, Clarence’s panic-stricken mind does indeed mistake that invitation for a farewell. It’s only by the grace of whatever fictional character one chooses to believe resides in the sky that he doesn’t blurt out the first thing that enters his head (it was a joke! C’mon, you can take a joke!), solely because he wants to say everything at once, effectively causing a bottleneck of words that die in his throat. Externally, this translates into stammering, mouth opening and closing (not unlike the fish he’d just been compared to), with nothing more helpful than the occasional nonsensical sound escaping in between.

Every time he thinks his anxiety can’t spike any higher, it surprises him. It’s been steadily building since waking up alone in the sewer, and now, his chest feels tight from trying not to hyperventilate. He’s had misgivings about his compulsory comrade ditching him this whole time, but maybe he hadn’t realized how much he wholly dreads the thought of ending up alone again.

This floundering only spans a couple of seconds, but before Clarence can gather himself, a deafening boom erupts from above— a sizable chunk of the floor dislodging, crashing down, and briefly obscuring the tunnel with billowing debris. What’s more troubling is the noise that follows: a second thud, wet and moving, suddenly down there with them.

“Look, whatever you say, okay? Just don’t leave me here.” Clarence finally manages, rapidly, tone suggesting that he’s just about at his absolute stress limit.

[specimencollectionv2]

"I won't, you daf—" An earsplitting crash. The presence, now bloodcurdlingly close, looming in the whips of dust like a nightmare mirage, revealing itself to be much larger and far more terrible to behold than Rennick presumed it would be. In his mind's eye, he imagined its mutation to be something similar to his own: grotesque but messy and not exactly practical, but this... this is a weapon through and through: a living phalanx with a maw like a flesh grinder, every inch of it intended to rend limb from limb.

That is when every single nerve in his body fires all at once: a cacophony of primal impulses that he cannot resist any more than he can consciousness, driving him to seize Clarence without warning, shoving him feverishly under the base of his arm like he did on their way here before lunging into the smothering darkness. His stream of thought is a never-ending string of curses that he mutters under each quaking breath, incoherent but venomous enough that there is no doubt as to their family-unfriendliness.

"Different route this time."

[litteris]

Every new ache the body experiences at this point is a drop in the bucket, so if the catch results in a little whiplash, well, it’s better than the alternative. Once Clarence is back on his feet, they immediately begin carrying him backward several steps. His eyes aren’t as well-adjusted to the darkness anymore, so Rennick can feel fingertips running along his side, serving to keep him steady. Secretly, the contact might also help quell the flight response (forget fight) he still feels simmering in his chest.

“I-I really think you can take him,” Clarence says, after a moment, his voice pathetically weak. Clearly trying and failing miserably to hide his barely restrained fear.

That gnarled arm spasms while other parts of the monstrosity contort. The same soppy noises from before as skin, bone, and organs continue to rearrange themselves; blood trickling down between exposed muscle and sinew. Despite what should be blinding pain, the creature presses the balls of its misshapen feet into the floor, mashing itself hard against the opening to swipe at Rennick with jagged, elongated claws— the motion spattering the tunnel with bright red droplets.

[specimencollectionv2]

"Take it? Me? Have you lost the plot? You woke it!" Perhaps Clarence is right: perhaps he could take it, but confidence is everything, and Rennick, staring down his nose at the mangled body breaking itself upon its own bloodlust, has none of it. Fuck this, actually, and that notebook and that might-be cure of Swanson's, because nothing is worth dying for, and those claws are hideously sharp, as he is unfortunate enough to discover first-hand when two of them snag in the skin above his right brow.

"Come on down, then, you mawkit prick!" he bellows at the inexplicable mass roiling above them, flecks of spittle flashing in the sliver of light that winks in and out of existence like a dying lamp with the lurching of that huge body. It's a challenge that Rennick has no intention of following up on, but his pride would never let him turn back without this admittedly pathetic attempt at saving face after being caught unawares by its talons. "Let's see how well you fare without the upper reach, taking potshots at a pair of fish in a fucking barrel! Ohh, aye, that's bravery, alright—bravery the likes of which I have never seen! The Danes are falling over themselves to stick a medal on your tit!"

Turning to face Clarence, he realizes, mortified, that every inch of him trembles ever so slightly. Even his tendrils. Him, frightened like a bloody kid... "I'm leaving. Now." Cold though it may sound, it is less of a farewell and more of an invitation for Clarence to join him in evacuating the premises post-haste. Never let it be said that the draconian, notoriously self-serving David Rennick is entirely heartless.

[litteris]

Almost as quickly as it had been established, the connection is severed; the being, intimately nestled inside his head, gone (undoubtedly not by choice, given their self-professed omnipresence), leaving Rennick free to worry about the recent arrival of a new being existing outside his body. Turnabout is fair play, however, and whether intentional or not, he would be left with a few parting sentiments, gleaned from the entity, as well: Amabel. Expunge. And a strange but seemingly genuine feeling of grief.

For a couple of seconds now, there had been the faint sound of wood scraping over stone, perhaps very easily missed in all the unrest moments before. The overseer may or may not recognize this as one of the bookshelves working to reveal the small, hidden space tucked away in the room. Not bad intuition on Clarence’s part. The problem is that just as suddenly as the presence is sensed, the whir of machinery isn’t the only noise coming from behind the secret door; there’s grunting, bones cracking, flesh tearing. Something large and wet slams itself against the sliding frame to try and get out and into the rest of the library just a little bit faster.

Fortunately, Clarence had felt it, right in front of him, in fact, so with that and Rennick’s urging, this all comes on the heels of footsteps, hauling ass back in the direction of the hole, back toward the Scotsman, accompanied by two words, repeated over and over: “Catch me catch me catch me catch me—”

And then, Clarence is scurrying over the edge and back into the darkness below.

[specimencollectionv2]

Through sheer luck, he manages to do just that, his outdated human instincts prompting him to use his arms, not his tendrils, to catch the understandably panicked figure hurtling towards him. It is by no means a graceful or gentle catch; for Clarence, the sensation is best likened to two sallow, wizened boughs snapping shut around him like a woodland trap, but it spares him the impact and puts him safely, albeit clumsily, back on the ground.

'What did you DO?' is Rennick's immediate thought, but terror snaps up the unfair accusation a mere heartbeat before it passes his lips. That's a hand. Those are fingers dipping into the tunnel from above, huge ones, defleshed all the way down to the still moisture-filmed bone, stretching from a smooth swell of muscle that makes up the palm of a massive, equally skeletal limb.

[litteris]

“I am ever-present. We should be as one, but you are resistant— whether you mean to be or not— and are suffering for it.” Speaking slowly, with emphasis on each syllable, the myriad voices are all equally calm, simply stating what they believe to be an indisputable truth: suffering, in this case, alluding to the fact that Rennick is actively trying not to glimpse any part of himself. Perhaps the sentience at the root of it all had caught on to this, as it was at the forefront of the overseer’s thoughts mere seconds before the intrusion occurred.

“And so, I must ask again.” With a twinge of pain, all those ghostly fingers converge on one spot, like the sudden onset of a headache localized deep near the base of his brain. Probing for information not so readily accessible. “What are you doing?”

All the while, the quiet noises from above persist, uninterrupted. Rennick’s begrudging companion, none the wiser to the peculiar conversation happening just below his feet.

[specimencollectionv2]

"Get tae fuck!" Another defiant slap to the base of his skull, this time more out of exasperation than anything, because while there might be no defending himself from that which is everywhere all at once, Rennick is determined to make it abundantly clear, in any which manner possible, that he wants it gone. What is it with the things down here speaking in tongues, anyway? Clarence did, too, back when they first met. Something about being greater than his body. I have always been here. And it is with that realization that Rennick succumbs to suggestiveness, allowing the disembodied entity to pry a precious few concepts from the closely-guarded vault of his mind:

Doctor. Sickness. Notebook.

Ground into silence by the intensity of his headache (his low pain tolerance doing him no favors), Rennick drives the tips of his arms into the ground like pickaxes, steadying himself against the force pressing in on him from all sides, and raises his mouth to the hole in the ceiling.

"Clarence! Oi!" he bellows, practiced enough in guiding the shelter personnel through emergencies that there is no hint of fear in his voice. "Come back! Something's—" Awakening. "Shit, I dunno, just— just get back here now! It's no safe! I can feel it! There's something up there with you, and it's close!" His companion might have already have felt the sudden intrusion of a third presence, but Rennick is done taking risks when his own life is on the line. "And don't you fucking say anything about me not paying attention, because it wasn't there two seconds ago!"

[litteris]

The fact that it’s voluntary this time doesn’t stop his stomach from doing flips. Apparently, he had left his arms free only to use them to cling onto the tendrils that lift him, knees pulling up to his chest until the floor is close enough to touch. It’s deft work for someone operating blind, but add that to the pile of things Clarence isn’t about to admit aloud, along with any expressions of gratitude. All Rennick gets is a, “All good,” called back, after a beat to steady his breathing and examine his new surroundings. “Now, gimme just a minute to find this blasted book, so that we can get the hell outta here. This place gives me the creeps,” he adds, voice lowering— though without any real care whether the other can still hear him or not.

At first glance, the small library is quiet and empty, and for a long moment, the only sound from above is the subdued footfalls of Philip’s heavy-duty snow boots walking across the stone tile. That is, until the overseer would undoubtedly hear something else, because it would feel as if it were coming from inside his head, as if it were his own thoughts; the faintest of whispers, like several voices speaking all at once, feminine and masculine. And in case this wasn’t unpleasant enough, it comes with a sensation: phantom fingers flittering across his brain like raindrops.

“Lost. Wandering. What is this one doing?” they ask.

[specimencollectionv2]

Presuming that there will be no need for him to do anything until Clarence is ready to descend, Rennick rolls over onto his back, drawing in a few rasping, laborious breaths before deciding to lay down on his belly instead, tucking his arms under him so that he cannot see them at all, even in the far periphery of his vision. Before Clarence, when all that mattered to him was survival, when any coherent thoughts spilled through his mind like sand through a sieve, leaving only crude detritus, there was no mental bandwidth for higher cognition; everything was as everything is, but now, looking at himself is an unpleasant reminder that he is deeply ill.

His immediate, instinctual reaction to being spoken to from every which way around him is to slap, startled and exasperated, at his head, hunting an invisible mosquito that has not only spontaneously developed the gift of language but also bored into the cup of his skull to taunt him from within. The accompanying sensation of disembodied fingers playing piano on his cortex is so incredibly bizarre, so wholly alien that his guard drops just enough for a flicker of fear to flash across the slough of his face.

"Who's there?" he eventually manages to mumble, swollen lips barely parting, careful not to speak so loudly as to alert Clarence to the fact that something strange is happening to him. Rennick can just hear him ask, in that annoying fucking voice, cooing with cloying mock concern, if 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' is scared of the dark. "Are you down here with me?"

[litteris]

Just as Clarence begins, in earnest, considering what might be the safest route when using his rather large companion as a makeshift ladder of sorts, Rennick offers a boost. The infected’s head immediately darts down and to the side while his eyes, narrowed yet again into a dubious squint, stay trained on him. Credit where credit’s due, he could’ve just snatched him and shoved him through the hole already; he doesn’t know much about him, but so far, the man seems to become a battering ram the instant a problem arises— no matter whose head he’s using.

Good for business, he’s sure, but bad for the cranium.

“All right,” he says, not even trying to mask the apprehension in his tone. And since he’s already standing a touch closer than he had realized, he simply lifts his arms over his head in an effort to keep them unrestrained. “Just remember, I’m doin’ this for you, too. So no concussions, and no ditching me once I’m up there.”

[specimencollectionv2]

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters bitterly, wagging his head from one side to the other with each word. And up Clarence goes, with exactly the same unsettling ease as before, swapping smothering darkness for sickly pale flourescents that wink at him from above numerous bookcases stuffed to the brim with books on everything from the technicalities of underground ventilation systems to epidemiology.

Placing the not-quite-human on the floor as opposed to just chucking him up there is a matter of slight difficulty, given that Rennick cannot see anything other than the ceiling and what might be some sort of furniture, so Clarence's feet are experimentally dabbed against the floor like a paint brush held by an unsteady hand before the tendrils release him and retreat from whence they came. All he can do now is wait, something that the former manager was never good at and which is already fanning the flames of his sour mood. How much longer until he gets that fucking cure?

"All good?"