Everything was a lie.

Every last thing that you knew about yourself was a lie. Each cubic inch of skin and every last follicle of hair was a lie. The smooth skin of your face and the dexterity of your fingers. The make of your blood. The eyes in your skull.

All of it. All of it. It was all a lie.

Tears bead in your reddened eyes, threatening to spill over on already puffy cheeks. Every inch of you is painfully sore, the overwhelming agony of newly-sprouted fur now a mild but ever-present throb.

You had long ago stripped your clothing and personal effects, instead preserving your modesty with only a thin sheet of silk- everything else was too painful, too rough, too overstimulating. Too much.

This was all too much.

How many times had you cried yourself to sleep in just one day? How many times had exhaustion claimed you halfway through a fit of tears? In your own skin, how many scratches did you scrape and bruises did you beat?

“Bud?” Calls the voice of a monkey you know well- Sun Wukong. In some ways it had come to be that you acted as the child he never had, sitting with him through his beloved firework festivals and falling asleep in his arms. “Bud, come on out!”

“Don’t be so loud,” returns the Six-Eared Macaque, his voice low with a tinge of worry. If Wukong was your “reluctant dad”, then Macaque was best to suit the role of “brooding stepfather”. Not that he loved you any less than the Great Sage- the former villain adored you. “They don’t wanna hear your blabbering right now, I’m sure.”

Leather scraping against stone- the sharp turn of a boot against the cavern floor. You’ve seen this before- the two are prone to fighting.

“Bud, say that again, and I swear-“

“GUYS! OVER THERE!” Finally chimes in MK, the youngest and kindest of the three. He’d gone through something like this himself, though perhaps in a less painful way- and remained entirely sympathetic to this plight of yours. He calls out, happily:

“I found {{user}}!”