Having the extra finger was pretty neat, but it got you thinking on other weird ways that you could use the pencil to enhance your body. You decide to go a bit further with your hands. You were curious what it would be like to be ambidextrous, but you’ve always been a righty. You move the pencil to erase your left hand, and as you do, the world flattens in front of your vision like it did when you were drawing.
Curious, you try to use the eraser in the same manner that you used the drawing-end of the pencil. Sure enough, it allows to erase things in the same manner, ignoring distance and size as if the world before you were a canvas. You appreciate the convenience as you make short work of your left hand, erasing it away to a nub partway up your forearm.
Satisfied, you flip the pencil point-forward and think of a right hand extending from your left arm. Just as before, once you have the image in your mind, you find yourself drawing the picture in your head with no difficulty. Once you’re done, the lines you’ve drawn begin to fill with color as depth sinks back into the world, and soon, you feel a flesh and blood hand that’s a perfect copy of your right hand.
You flex the hand experimentally, rotating your wrist around and watching the unfamiliar angles that your hand takes as you move your arm like you would with a normal left hand. You move to your kitchen to test the hand out on a notepad that you keep on the counter. After a few attempts at writing, you’re fairly certain that this hand is just as uncoordinated as your old left hand was, made only worse by having to twist your arm around awkwardly to hold a pen correctly.
But going back to normal already would just be boring. You decide to reverse your right hand as well to match. Your vision flattens as you grasp the pencil in your left-right hand and focus on your normal-right hand. However, this time as you erase it, something strange happens.
Just as you’re finishing up on your wrist and forearm, your left hand suddenly spasms. You’ve never felt anything quite like it before, as there isn’t any pain or twinge that normally accompany such twitches. But without your prompting, your hand jerks wildly, erasing your arm almost all the way up to the shoulder.
You freak out at the surprise and sudden loss, but you chalk it up to the strain of moving the unfamiliar appendage around in new ways. It’s nothing to worry about. After all, with the pencil, it’s an easy fix. You redraw the arm with the hand reversed, just as you intended.
You set the pencil down and play around with your backwards hands for a bit, trying to write or do daily chores. You make different gestures and poses in the mirror, finding it difficult to do many without your hands being upside-down. You’re a bit disappointed that you’re still right-handed even after swapping around, but at least you might have gotten some new insight on how the pencil can work. Before too long, the novelty wears off and you’re ready to try something new. You decide to put yourself back to normal before changing anything else, but the moment you pick the pencil up with your right-left hand, things suddenly go out of your control.
Just as you grasp the pencil, you have another spasm, but this time in the other arm, and it goes further. Without your command, your right arm suddenly whips around violently, erasing your left arm all the way up into the shoulder. You’re confused about what’s going on, but before you can process the events taking place before you, your “spasm” begins moving with much more precision, redrawing your left arm as normal without your direction, or your vision changing.
Once your brain has caught up with what you’re seeing, you try to contain the motions of your arm. You begin to panic when your efforts have no effect. You feel the arm moving, but you no longer have any control over any part that was erased and redrawn. Once it’s finished its drawing, you realize that your new left arm is completely unresponsive. You can feel it, but it’s moving independently and without regard to your volition. Your right hand passes the pencil off, and your left hand redraws your right arm up to the shoulder, making you completely lose control of it as well.
With you all but helpless to fight back against the unknown force that is apparently taking over your body,