Bai Zhu stood at the entrance to the compost storage, watching the claw marks on the wall shift away.
Milluki had already pulled half his body back outside, only poking his head in as his flashlight beam swung back and forth.
"Th-this place wasn't holding a room full of monsters before, was it? Ones like Pix?"
"Doesn't look like it." Bai Zhu finally spoke.
Ignoring Milluki's expression of What the hell are you talking about?, he walked in on his own and had Milluki brighten the light.
"Look at these spots." He pointed at several especially deep marks halfway up the wall. "The spacing is about the same, like they were left by the same thing. And look below."
The beam moved downward. Directly beneath the claw marks high on the wall, several blurry but recognizable dirty prints lay in the sludge by the base.
"These were made by feet pushing off." Bai Zhu crouched down and poked them with a small stick that had not touched any rotting matter. "It wanted to climb up and tried over and over again."
A chill ran down Milluki's back. "A Pix that can climb walls?"
"...I think you need to get your brain fixed. We're tracking an experimental subject that escaped from the research institute, not a Pix duplicate." Bai Zhu stood and brushed off his hands. "Don't jump to conclusions. The changes on Pix don't mean whatever is here looks the same."
"Sure, sure, you're right about everything." Milluki agreed with his mouth, but his feet still edged another half-step back. "So what now? We have to check these boxes, right?"
The two carefully stepped around the mess on the ground and headed for the smashed white insulated containers.
Nothing remained inside or outside the containers except greasy grime and sour,