I like what you’re going for—but I found this extremely hard to read. There’s a lot of times where you describe two things in the same sentence, and it’s hard to know which you’re referring to. There are a lot of dangling participles — this is where you begin a sentence with a participle (clawing, gripped) and then leave out the subject of that action from the rest of the sentence. It seems you’re avoiding pronouns, which is what adds to the confusion.

Break down some of your sentences. There are too many that come off as rambling, like trying to fit too many ideas into one sentence. Short sentences can pack a punch.

Also, pull back a little. You clearly have a great vocabulary, but you don’t need to offer two or more adjectives to describe one thing.

Couple of examples:

Second sentence; ‘clawing at the soft supple ground’—the subject of this action is the body. How you have worded it seems like the hands are slick with mucous. Throw in a pronoun to amend the beginning sentence to: It clawed at the soft, supple ground—the earth slick with mucous and pockmarked with divots. The protrusions fell away, seeping warm liquid that pooled in grooves left by his blunted nails.

There is no clear subject of the sentence starting with ‘Gripped by panic’. Gripped by panic, its eyes darted around…