At least at first, Mercedes seems to have it worse. Her headache, regardless of whether Manuel would believe it, is worse. Her skin is almost papery dry and rough, and it hurts to move. And indeed.... the changes hit her first.
Her skin gets worse, becoming rougher and bumpy... and splotches of a deep green spread over her like an infection. A striking pain hits her lower spine, and a hideous bony protrusion begins to push out from her tailbone... while simultaneously her right arm seems to stiffen and begin to shorten, almost as if her growing tail is pulling mass from elsewhere.
The pain becomes wracking as her body deforms and mutates. Her back swells, bones stiffening and thickening. All of her beautiful, rocking feminine curves bulge and thicken and become quite unshapely.
And then... her face. The skin begins to crawl, the muscles spasming and distorting..her eye swells and the color spreads across the entirity of the visual part of her eye, a staring, reptilian yellow eye.
And through this, Manuel is normal... until right at the end... the painful wracks hit HIS body. Unlike Mercedes... his mass seems to be traveling upwards. His legs atrophy before his eyes, his feet shortening while his torso widens, bones cracking and crunching. His arms and hands swell to monstrous proportions and his skin seems to leech all of its color, becoming a sickening grey, and thicker, harder. Then.... disgusting protrusions, spiked with bristly hairs. Two on each side.... Two behind him... and two small ones out of his forehead. It is maddenigly painful, and seemingly impossible as they roll over him, unabatingly. His face then cracks... a weird fissure spreading from the corners of his mouth all the way to his jawline. His eyes darken, becoming beady, and the final growths and expansions slow... before... finally... the changes stop with him as well.
