7 May, East Ward

A Gremlin child was brought into the clinic this morning after a hatchling scatter went badly. “Child” is not quite correct. Hatchling, perhaps, and less than a day old. There had been dozens of them. They dispersed through a warehouse district after emerging from a clutch hidden beneath a loading platform, and most vanished into alleys, cellars, drains, workshops, anywhere dark and warm. This one had been badly bitten and was too weak to run. A Human dockworker found it and carried it in wrapped in his coat.

The creature fought us with astonishing determination for something so small. It tried to bite my thumb, then the nurse, then the blanket, and eventually it exhausted itself and fell asleep gripping one of my fingers. I have dissected Gremlins, and I have written about their reproductive behaviour in terms I still consider accurate. I had not, until today, held one.

The dockworker returned in the afternoon to ask whether it would survive. I told him probably. He then asked what happened to Gremlin hatchlings afterwards, and I explained that they disperse, survive independently if they can, and usually develop without parental care. He looked at me as though I had described throwing infants into a river. I explained that the comparison was biologically misleading.

He said, “It’s still awful.” I told him that nature is not obliged to satisfy Human sentiment, and he replied, “That doesn’t make it less awful.” I had no useful answer.