Chapter Text
Falling.
That was what was happening to him.
An abyss, he figured.
He didn't know if the void was plain or colorful. He seemed to blind to colors, and anything in that regard.
His vision wasn't dark like when he used to close his eyes, it was just... nothing. Something he was unable to describe or even comprehend.
He couldn't feel the whoosh of the wind against his skin. One clear thing that was supposed to happen whenever he was falling. If he ever even expierienced that before. He wouldn't know.
He didn't even know which direction he was falling. Up or down. On his chest or on his back. Huh.
Maybe, he wasn't falling at all. He was just... there. He didn't know if he was sitting or standing. He was somehow very grateful that he could carry thoughts in his mind. Was he even thinking, though?
He couldn't move his body, if that was even a normal thing to do. He couldn't see himself either. He wondered what he looked like. Whoever he was.
He couldn't do anything like this. He couldn't feel, couldn't see, couldn't move.
Couldn't think straight without every thought repetitively hitting the wall.
Like a small picture box that turns off whenever its not not needed. Wait, wait, wait. What picture box? He wanted to know what that was.
He wanted to grasp at the thought, before it slipped away.
Keep it as a lead to remember something.
...
..
What was he doing again? Oh Satan, he forgot something important didn't he? He wondered if it really was that important that he forgot it though.
He shrugged to nobody in particular. Or, at least he thought he did. There was no way of really knowing. He'd lost all of his senses in this void that oddly didn't seem dangerous and rather comforting.
After what felt like forever and no time at all...
Grounded.
Warm.
Safe.
Soft.
Calm.
Exhaustion, pain, and distance.
But also...
Clearer thoughts that stayed.
Muffled voices.
Tingling and caring touches.
Numb and fuzzy taste of liquid.
One sense he didn't have right now though, was sight. Or, maybe he did have vision, but he couldn't really digest the fact. He wouldn't know.
One other thing he didn't possess control over, was emotions. Sure, he did feel warmth, but not mentally. It just chased away the cold in literal sense. Physically.
He curled on himself and actually felt the duration of the action.
For the first time in so long, he could actually think. Recall the past, though not in details, but the events. His mind wasn't flooded in thoughts like he thought it would after a long time of hollow fatigue.
His head did hurt a bit from thinking though. As if the action felt new and uncomfortable as his consciousness turned it over in his mind. Like you were holding a pencil with your left hand. Unfamiliar. Odd. Like that part of the organ wasn't designed for such a thing.
The first thing that came to mind was, unfortunately, the acknowledgement of being touched at the moment. He was being touched. He tried to understand the contact and failed momentarily in doing so.
Hah, it was very weird that it felt like he was born anew and foreign to the base of normal functioning for a vessel.
The feeling of being touched. Not in a cruel and hurtful way, just present.
Not the feeling of being explored all over. He didn't like feeling overly exposed, not physically anyway. The burn of touch lingers a little too long sometimes, too long for his liking. Mostly because it reminded him of [his mother] hugging him.
Nausea climbed up his throat and it closed up all too painfully in response. He vaguely recognized the familiar feeling as being at the verge of tears and trying not to cry. It wasn't that, though. He wasn't about to cry, he was feeling sick.
Physical contact always did that to him.
He first realized his very being was lethal early on. His purpose was to hurt people and be hurt, always has and always will be. A weapon fine-tuned for destruction, a venom laying dormant underneath his skin, ready to lash out at whoever dared to come close.
He tried not to think about it, as he’s subject to crumble completely if he dwells on the fact for too long. Though, he wondered why he bothered thinking about it at all, since it’s all he’s known.
He couldn’t remember a single time in his life that someone had put forth an effort to touch him sincerely. It was all stiff shoulders and clammy hands that hovered over his back. They’d pull away, quick as a rabbit if he so much as turned his head, as if they were afraid he’d bite. [Overlords of Hell] who all wore the same weak smile that read; “I’m only pretending to be nice because I’m afraid of you.”
It wasn't fair. He wanted genuine company, one that would hug him and squeeze him so tight he’d be lifted off the ground momentarily. A hand that would run through his hair, gentle and caring. He thinks he nearly had it at some point in life.
Back when his mother would pat his shoulder before they continued on with their day, sending electricity running up and down his spine. But before he could ever work up the nerve to chase that contact, she died.
Even now, when [his shadows] would try to comfort him, crowding his being with their tiny bodies. But they’re too small for body heat, hands too delicate, limbs too thin. Even being cocooned in his subjects wasn't enough for [The Radio Demon] to pretend that there’s another person there, embracing him.
With nowhere else to turn, [The Deer] found the contact he desperately craved through violence.
A punch to the face, a threatening grip on his arm, being picked up by the scalp and bashed into a wall. These fleeting moments where Wukong could feel skin again on his own, aflame with passion, he felt alive. Even if that passion was raw hatred aimed directly at him.
He allowed himself to be sloppy sometimes. There were kicks thrown he decided not to dodge, even if it would have been simple to. He would pretend to be startled by a sneak attack, or let the demon pin him for longer than it would take for Wukong to regain his strength.
It’s strategic, he reasoned with himself. It makes the enemy think he’s weaker than
he truly is. The happy side effect is Wukong gets to experience something beyond the illusion of touch.
Because, Satan, the warmth of skin is better than any sunrise. Wukong can feel it burn his skin, when he’s grabbed by the arm or struck on the neck. It burnt brighter and hotter than hellfire. It seared his skin, and it left him to wonder if his skin might actually burst into flames if he was given the contact he craves. Maybe it was for the best that the touches were fleeting and hidden under the smoke of aggression, he reasoned.
So, of course the sensory deprivation of imprisonment was worse than any hell.
No fighting. No aggression. No passion directed his way, not even the illusion of touch from his shadows. He nearly drowned in his own venom in those seven agonizing years, clawing at the rock and dirt and begging for anything to prove to him that he was still alive.
He couldn't actually feel anything.
Just the excruciating emptiness and the blaring silence that dragged itself across his skin.
Oh, how familiar the emotion was. Yet, how complicated it really was.
He tried to understand the emotion by sheer thought. He did recall trying it many times, but failing everytime as he wasted the hours trying to make sense of it.
It was a heavy feeling.
It started in your chest, a tiny little squeeze, so small you hardly even notice it. It would clench around your heart for a brief moment, then flee, leaving you to wonder if you truly felt it. Then you would feel it in your fingers, feel it in the way you couldn't stop them from tapping, in the way they seemed cold no matter what you did. Traveling up your arms, it would then settle on your shoulders. If you were lucky, it would stay there, becoming a painful knot that you could never seem to relieve, making your head hang low.
Other times, it would get into your head.
It wasn't a noisy feeling. In fact, it seemed to blanket all your senses. Your hearing would falter, somehow dampening and becoming sensitive at the same time, the voices of your friends becoming hard to understand, yet a door closed too harshly would make you jump. Your sense of taste would be dulled, making even the most delicious of foods taste no better than a glass of water. And your vision would become fuzzy, blurring at the edges like an analog video.
At that point, your body didn't seem to be your own. Reaching a hand out and flexing your fingers felt like lifting a rock with a string, like a poorly made puppet. Time would become meaningless, hours passing like seconds, seconds dragging for hours. You would be tired but wouldn't have the energy to sleep, and your stomach would growl, yet you couldn't eat more than a bite. The empty cavity of your chest would ache with the echoes of your heartbeat, your sighs falling heavy from your mouth.
You couldn't do anything. You would feel pathetic. No matter what you did, so long as this strange feeling weighed you down, there was no breaking free. It was a heavy coat that chilled you to the core; it was heavy weights laid on every limb; it was a suffocating air that wrapped tight around your lungs and rattled your ribs as it squeezed impossibly tighter.
And sometimes, the home you consider yours would become a prison. The place that was supposed to bring comfort transformed into a spiderweb that trapped you in the confines of those tauntingly familiar walls. Your bed would become your final resting spot, the floor would be slowly filled with the things you'd carelessly drop off the side of your casket- if you remembered to eat, that is.
Eventually, you'd flee, stepping out of your home and starting to walk. There was no place you wanted to go, but you needed to do something. You'd force the tears out of your eyes, trying to invoke some sort of feeling, something other than this fuzzy nothingness that gripped you, yet they were fleeting, and your hands were numb. Your feet would crunch against the leaves, sore and tired, but never stopping, not until it went away. Not until you could breathe again. The wind would whip by, and you let the chill consume you until your ears would hurt and pinch at your temples.
A cliff. Overlooking the ocean. You can't recognize beauty. You never did. Many would call this sight one to die for. That was stupid. To do something so serious for a fleeting memory. You sat anyway, legs dangling, feeling that same nothingness beneath them as inside yourself.
You hate this feeling. You want it gone.
Frustration pricks your eyes, and for a moment, there's release. You cling to it, try to use it as a rope to drag yourself out of this pit. Anything is better than this. Pain at least has a cause, this is nothing, oppressive and quiet and cold, everything you fear. The thing you've been running from since that very first time.
He was momentarily stopped by a blaring headache. He gripped his head. It was very unreasonable. He wasn't trying to comprehend the existence of the universe, he was trying to understand what was actually wrong with him.
The migraine didn't stop though. In fact, it only seemed to get louder. As if it was punishing him for a sin. Ironic, but not any less painful. He flinched when he felt hands grabbing on to his shoulders and hauling him upwards into a sitting position.
Those foggy feelings of contact was contact none the less.
He shuddered repeatively as he found that he couldn't move away from it. The
He burned the feeling before it even got there.
It was easier with a punch, a stab wound, a kick, anything but kindness. His chest tightened painfully, slowly. Why? Because feeling wanted leads to physical starvation, and physical contact leads to a rabbit hole of want and neediness, craving leads to violent actions such as seeking much more of it, then even if the person that got hurt didn't matter much, he would be left with the loud buzzing of the contract on his skin, that made him feel nauseous.
He collided harshly with someoneand he flinched back violently as the contract ignited his skin more. He scratched harshly at the area of the contact, as two set of hands brushed against his hands. He winced and shied away as if the touch burned. To be fair, it did burn, but in the wrong way.
He could feel the intense warmth leaving his body, in the form of ruby-colored liquid from his wrists. He didn't need vision for that. His breath stuttered, before stopping completely as his focus zeroed on the mental wound curiously.
He... he did it? He stopped it. Huh.
A muffled wave of voices was to be caught on his ears. He couldn't be bothered to try to listen on what they were saying. Whoever they were. The realization that somebody had seen that hit him like a ton of bricks. A cold sweat washed over him, but exhaustion was faster.
Exhaustion got a vice grip on his head, causing his senses to momentarily dull.
He was grateful that he returned back to the silence and nothing this time.