Sol screamed.
Ahhhh!!!
Within her core, something woke.
Lurched.
Twisted.
What is this?!
The pain spread, gnawing at her senses.
Chewing away the very essence of who she was.
“Nooooo!!!” Agony detonated down her spine—molten metal poured into her marrow—forking through every nerve ending like lightning seeking ground.
Her bones didn't just ache.
They screamed.
They shattered.
They rebuilt themselves from the inside out.
This wasn't pain—pain was a human concept, small and manageable. This was primordial rebirth, the violent awakening of something savagely colossal and ancient that had slumbered in her DNA since before her first breath, now clawing its way free through flesh that was never meant to contain it.
Shattering.
Ripping.
Splintering.
No! No! What is happening to me?!
Her screams began to sound wrong.
They sounded. . .monstrous.
Deeper.
Rougher.
More wild animal than human.
And then her body began to violently transform.
The shift ravaged her hands first.
Her fingers bulged—widths and lengths that shouldn't exist, that couldn't exist—and yet she felt every agonizing inch of their becoming.
Skin stretching.
Veins elongating.
Joints popping.
Bones reshaping with sounds like cracking ice.
