It straightened up, eyes wide and blank. It's almost willing to let the tendrils take it. What's the point now? Going home? What's left at 'home'? Its one good friend, one of the few kind faces in its memory, replaced or not, is dead.
It wanted to stay. Let those tendrils try. Bite and claw and tear them to scrap. It pictured how satisfying that'd be.
But self-preservation got the better of it, forced it to drop the body, to stand, to run.
It wanted to fight. But its unruly flesh had other plans.