The agony didn't recede; it intensified, reaching a crescendo that made the previous explosion feel like a dull ache. My left eye suddenly felt as if a branding iron had been thrust directly into the socket.
My hands flew to my face, fingers clawing at the skin around my eye, trying to tear away the source of the heat. My body curled tighter.
It wasn't a growth; it was a purging. My arms and legs began to twitch and stretch, the bone marrow boiling as the old, brittle frame was liquidated to make room for the new.
The sensation was so alien, so sickeningly deep, that my mind fractured. In a blind, white-hot haze of pain, I dug my fingers into my own forearm, my nails slicing through the fabric of my shirt and sinking deep into the meat of my arm.
"ARRRRGGGG!"
I wasn't trying to hurt myself—I was trying to find a different pain, any pain, to distract from the tectonic shift happening inside my cells.
"Rio! Rio! Rio!"
