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It’s a warm day on the mountain.
All days on Flower Fruit Mountain had been warm and sunny for centuries.
The king of the mountain sat among the trees and shade, his subject surrounding him.
He smiles, they chitter in happy responses. They praise and bow to his leadership.
The shade is cold; familiar.
The peach in his left hand is soft, weighing comfortably in his hand.
He moves to take a bite, but the sweet fruit won’t reach his open maw. His hand feels like it gets further from his face, the more he moves it up.
He gives up after a bit. His stomach churns.
The king looks to his side. Is he expecting someone to be there? Just a breath away.
Someone is missing.
The trees surround him no longer.
The sun bakes upon his back. It’s hot. It’s too hot.
The king looks for shade, he looks for shelter.
His subjects continue to chitter, they grin and bare their teeth, they scream and flail.
They panic. Why? He looks around again.
The smoke. The smoke! THE SMOKE!
A fire? Where?
Where?
The mountain is burning. He wasn't there. Where is he?
He smells it. He feels his skin bubble. He feels his fur singe. His eyes burn.
Where are his subjects? Where are his people?
The king’s head flies to and fro, searching across the unending sands of his beach.
His strong, stone heart is beating fast. His lungs barely fill before the air is quickly pushed out from panic.
His eyes are burning. He wipes at them, looking down to his right hand there’s blood, smearing across his fingers and sticking under his claws.
He wipes again and again, the blood won’t stop. Crimson stains him,
Not again.
The king dives for the ocean. Plunging his hands in, he brings it up to his face to rid himself of the burning.
In his hands the saltwater and blood mixes, a washed out pink stains him now, running down his sleeves.
Looking up, in the horizon the sun is setting, bathing the cloudless sky in hues of purple and orange. Looking down the water is clear, his hands bearing no stains of blood.
The king blinks, his eyes have ceased the incessant burning.
Finally.
His heart starts to settle the tiniest amount.
His pants are soaked. He doesn't feel cold. He doesn't feel warm.
It’s too quiet for a moment, then, a familiar weight settles in his cupped hands by his chest.
Looking down once more, the peach lay in his hands with the seawater.
“Where are you?” He asks into the dark.
“Come find me.” The dark responds.
The king is in his living room, hands wet, dripping onto the floorboards. The peach is cold.
The voice is familiar. Deep and echoing from every little dark spot in the hut.
Moving to stand, he notices the lack of water clinging to his pants. He’s dry, the peach remains in his left hand; wet.
He moves to the kitchen, it’s empty. Beyond the windows is static nothingness, it’s dark; yet he knows if he were to walk outside he’d see nothing .
Moving to the bedroom he finds more emptiness, taking a breath there’s a scent though. The king moves further in, picking up a rumpled blanket from the bed, inhaling.
Plums and mangos. Peaches.
What is that?
You know.
Where had he smelled that before?
Why is it in his bed? Why does it feel… right?
There’s small tufts of obsidian-colored fur on the mattress. The sun picks it up with a shaky hand; it’s soft. Why is it there?
You KNOW why.
He grits his teeth, sharp fangs coming on display, glinting from the moonlight now streaming in from a window above the bed. Red and golden eyes flick up, there isn’t nothingness anymore.
The moon. It’s there. Right outside his window.
It’s so bright… Why is it so big? It’s so close.
The tuft of fur between his fingers turns coarse and rough. Like hair that hadn’t been taken care of in ages, left to mat and dry.
The sun throws the fur back onto the mattress, a feeling of rejection fills up in his chest.
He flees the confines of the bedroom, trying to ignore how it feels like the moon is staring into his back.
“Tell me where you are.” He demands of the darkness.
”I’m where I’ve always been, my king.” The dark sneers.
Wukong flares his fangs once more, it feels like the longer he stares into the shadows the more they stare back.
He can barely see the wall beside him because of the dark, the peach feels heavier; colder, too.
“And where is that?” He probes, feeling his hackles rise. His heart hammers faster and faster.
“Right by your side.” The darkness responds, smugly.
There’s a slight tug at his left sleeve, making Wukong look down. The peach is cold and ripe; he feels his stomach twist in hunger.
Despite all logistical thought, he raises the fruit once more, its skin dewy from the lingering drops of the seawater.
This time his arm doesn't fight him— or had it been his mind?
His sharp teeth sink into the skin of the peach. Where he expects sweet juice and tender meat, his senses are met by a revolting taste and foul smell.
He rips the offending fruit from his maw, staring down at it with a borderline sense of betrayal.
Wukong feels the echoes of a deep rumbling laughter, bouncing off every wall; mocking and bitter.
It’s so familiar.
Who is it? Who?
It’s clawing inside his head like a bad itch.
A pinching and
tightening
sort of pain is there.
Who who who who who is it?!
A chill runs up Wukong’s spine, like a cold blanket on a hot day.
“Did I sour the fruit we ate?”
Wukong looks down at the traitorous peach once more, clutched in his hand.
There is no peach.
His hand is covered in dark crimson blood, it seeps between his fingers and sticks to his fur like paint. It’s warm, it’s so warm.
He opens his hand, something is there.
There’s something in his hand.
His fingers stick together, the blood feels like glue that has not dried yet, pulling at his scarred skin.
In his palm an eye rests.
It looks up at him with a dead stare, the iris is a dark purple and the optic nerve and ripped, connecting flesh runs from the eyeball like a sick idea of a tail, across his palm; hanging down, dripping more blood on the floorboard.
“Do you taste me in its meat?”
His hackles rise even further, he wants to drop the organ from pure disgust, but there’s a bubbling sense of grief and betrayal that follows even the idea of tossing the eye.
It continues to stare its dead, accusatory stare. There’s a feeling in the back of his head that says he deserves it.
The blame.
The hatred.
Wukong feels the darkness creep closer.
Its claws dig into his shoulders from behind.
His knees nearly buckle from the tremors in them, his skin has a thin sheen of sweat and he feels so damn cold , yet his hand is so warm.
With a hesitant swallow, Wukong turns his head right.
His eyes meet nothing but darkness until he looks completely right, there, his crimson and gold eyes meet a face.
Macaque stares into Wukong’s eyes with his own singular one. Most of the right side of his face is a mangled mess of blood and brain and flesh.
Where his right eye socket would’ve been, a gaping hole now exists, making Wukong able to look through to the back of his head. Blood and brain-matter seeps from the gap there, the three lotus flower shaped ears on that side are ripped to shreds.
His working left eye is unflinching and unblinking, his claws dig deeper and deeper into Wukong’s shoulders.
He dares not speak.
Then, as Macaque opens his mouth, blood and the scent of death greets Wukong, he can’t find it in himself to lean away or avert his eyes from the other primate.
As slow as a sneaking snake, Macaque’s blood-stained teeth stretch into an uncomfortably wide grin. The upward movement makes the hole pinch a bit tighter, more blood seeps out and into the crease of Macaque’s lips.
Macaque speaks his last question.
“Am I rotten?”
Sun Wukong wakes up.