Disaster struck the U District Monday, as a 6-foot, three-hundred-pound man-mouse hybrid escaped from containment at the University of Washington’s Comparative Genomics Center (CGC) and rampaged through the neighborhood, leaving a trail of terrified children and weirded out adults in its wake.

“It was awful,” said U District resident Penny Orting. “It just came out of nowhere and started waving its hands all over the place, slowly walking toward the children… and they just stood there, paralyzed with fear.”

The genetic abomination is the result of ten years of study at the CGC. A secret project codenamed “Icy Smoke Emu” was funded by $82 million obtained through an innocuous-looking line-item for “test vials” in the biology department’s annual budget.

Students and U District neighbors have long suspected that the CGC has been performing experiments that can only be described as a terrible affront to nature, but until Monday accusers lacked any proof.

“I’ve reported the CGC to police hundreds of times in the past few years,” said Herman Kornwall, who lives across the street from the facility. “They always refused to follow up on my reports, saying that mysterious late-night deliveries and strange sounds that seem to emanate from underground were not enough evidence to open an investigation.”

After the morning break-out, Seattle Police were called in to neutralize the threat, but were unable to locate the beast in a fifteen-minute sweep of the area. After taking statements from witnesses, it was nearly lunch time, so the search was called off.

“The worst part was how it never made a sound,” said John Rice, a sophomore at the UW.

As of noon, the creature was still on the large.  It was last seen in the vicinity of Children’s Hospital, where it snuck up on a crowd of thirty recovering cancer patients between the ages of four and eight, then disappeared into an alley.

Residents are encouraged to report further sightings of the monster to the Seattle Police at (206) 625-5011.

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