The best part of being underwater, Cambrian reckoned, was that the rain didn’t bother and the gnats couldn’t go underwater. Hell, he’d welcome the rain, an opinion many in these scrappy, forsaken settlements rejected— after all, it was fresh water, easy to breathe, clearing up the built up dirt and gunk from the old water, cleaning the sewer systems and canals… it made his stomping ground far easier to, well, stomp around. Swim around, actually… 

It was the light that woke him up. The light that filtered absolutely [i]everywhere[/i] and refused to let his sensitive eyes rest. As far as Cambrian knew, he descended from lots of weird deep-sea creatures… so he let himself have that excuse for his eerie preference for darkness. Unlike most days, though, he didn’t dread this one. This was the day he might be able to eke out some semblance of freedom. Maybe he’d no longer hide away in a crevice and camouflage once he solidified a space in the V.E.T. He gave a loud hiss.. this damn mafia he’d been working for his whole life. It was scary, was it not? The squid swam out of his crevice and let himself become his normal self. Reds, whites, and blacks suddenly reflected off the rusted surfaces and danced with the light— his colors, broken up only by his tanned humanoid skin and the pale sweatshirt and pants he still wore that billowed with the water. He looked up from the water— so much, it was so much. The gnats made the sky look clouded. Disgusting. The worst part about these wretched bugs was that standard issue gas masks didn’t fit over him properly, leaving the slits he actually breathed through exposed. He opted for a large neck gaiter, instead, and tucked the lower part under his sweatshirt while the upper half sat snugly over his ears and the bump on his face that vaguely imitated a nose. It had to be good enough. 

Finally, he surfaced. He met the sun. He met the gnats. He met the rain. He met the day. Cambrian thanked his past self for preparing— for meeting his quota early so the higher ups won’t go looking for him today. He had the day to himself today, to “rest,” he mentioned to his slavers, but he knew it was to run off. To be free.

————————————

The lobby didn’t have any gnats in it, so Cambrian promptly pulled the gaiter down to reveal his gentle face. He proceeded to bite at his hand until it started to bleed an inky black substance. It calmed him. The pain helped overcome his anxiousness. The pain helped tune out that captain that assumed he was just there for… a warm body? That wasn’t right, at least not for him. He’d sooner stab her and rend her flesh to ribbons before sitting on her lap. Then again, he’d sooner do that to anyone— he found that idea fascinating! Flesh ribbons. What would he do with those…— 

His thought process was cut off by that sound of the beast. Perfect timing! The bastard didn’t even choose to wait for the captain to finish, he just kept to his feet when he was told to take that damned stone-horn creature on. After all, he so deeply wanted to turn one thing into ribbons at that moment. Oh, it would be great, just one touch of his fingers against that skin… first, though, he had to break open the damn rocks and gunk that the stupid lizard built up. Or, he had to find an opening. A weak spot. Counting the guards acting like useless buffoons with their dumb pointy sticks, there were… five..? People. Five and a half, counting the non-wastefolk rat. 

The hide wasn’t entirely uniformly stone, just stones cobbled together like a pathway, fused with the flesh instead of making a solid armor piece— resistant to normal attacks, of course, but not to what he was planning. The tail couldn’t swing up to the neck. The neck couldn’t bend unless there was a gap in the stones. On top of all that, this meddlesome, godforsaken creature was being bombarded by the five other people there. The lizard thing couldn’t reach for Cambrian with its teeth on its neck… that was when Cambrian knew where to strike, where to make beautiful crimson spill like paint. 

He decided, then and there, to climb up wherever he could, leap for the beast’s neck, and make blood spray from a gash wound as big and deep he could muster. This was going to be fun.