Awaken has the most negative connotation in part due to the brusqueness with which it is introduced at the very end of the excerpt. After reading the work awaken, one is left with the impression that perhaps it would have been better for 'it' not to awaken.
This sense of misfortune is heightened by the calm and almost hypnotising descriptions that come before. It is only after the rooting action is mentioned that the reader becomes aware of a grip and, finally, an awakening that cannot possible bode well.
I think the creature was the Minotaur but could be something else.... In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull.