Description
Part 13 of 21 (Path B)
Friendship is … 13 B
Luca moved forward almost entirely in a trance, while the world around him faded into a distant, meaningless blur. His awareness of time and space weakened with every meter he stumbled down the steep mountain path. His legs felt unbearably heavy, and sheer exhaustion pressed down upon his altered limbs like an invisible weight, forcing every last bit of strength out of him with each individual step.
Trapped in this state of dull numbness, the next radical reshaping of his body remained completely unnoticed by him. Luca failed to register how the tingling sensation in his arms wandered downward into his extremities. In his right hand, a merciless process of fusion began. The bone structure started to thicken massively, while the skin steadily hardened into a dark horn-like substance.
Along the outer side of his hand, a profound transformation unfolded: his little finger and ring finger slowly lost all mobility, pressing tightly together as they were millimeter by millimeter absorbed into the growing hoof. They practically melted into the expanding horn mass that relentlessly spread across his palm, transforming the human tool of grasping into a heavy, unforgiving instrument of movement.
Unaware of this creeping loss of his fingers, he continued trudging toward the valley while the mare within him gained more and more control over his body and mind.
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