She desired to step out of her skin. The pain of her surface flesh crawled like a thousand insects that bit away at her to nip and tear little fragments of her to carry away. Kia would itch her flesh, arms, neck, legs, and no release.
In the darkness of her cell, she could only feel the heat of Tanya beside her.
Only able to taste the dust of herself, Kia peeled away from the stone wall to check the on their Half-God if only to distract her from the suffering.
She scraped the words like plaque from her throat and spat them a cell down to Rain, "idiot, you awake?"
"I'll sleep when I'm dead." He responded after a long pause.
"Why don't you just turn to water?" She prodded, "too weak?"
"They've got a magic barrier around us." Tanya answered.
Kia glanced back, as she hadn't thought of using the shadow to escape either.
Unlike Rain, she could reach out from the bars, but the darkness would not absorb her. She reached back in and slumped against the wall on her right. It scraped at her flesh for a big itch that burned across her entire being. She felt as though something begged to crawl out of her, but was being held back, caged within her.
"We need to drop this barrier." She scratched.
"Fujin will free us." Rain assured her.
"He hates you."
"He needs me."
"No one needs you." Tanya remarked. "We wasted all this time with you. I'll kill you if Kitana doesn't."
"Then why follow?" Rain pressed against the wall between them.
"Quan Chi told me you were the key to all of this. To armageddon." Tanya pulled herself up and stood to lean over and see Rain's hand behind the bars in the next cell.
"He's dead." Rain scoffed. "You call me the idiot."
"He's not truly gone." Kia chimed in, her breath skittish, her fingers scraped along her arms.
With all that flesh wrapped around her, she felt insects crawl within her heels and drag them against the stone floor.
She choked on her breath, her sweat, her own skin that bumped and pricked from tongue, teeth, to lips. Chewed and bit and ached.
"He's trying to come out." She panicked. "We need to break this barrier!"
"No use. Shao Kahn's magic lingers here, Kitana is not as goodie two-shoes as she wishes she were." Rain gave up. "It will torture you and bind you, everything to keep you in this cell."
Tanya brushed it off to kneel before Kia and hold her in place. She seemed a wreck and burst at the seams. Her eyes were blackened like the shadow itself and the tattoo of the brotherhood exposed after Tanya peeled through cloth to check burned and etched her flesh.
"Quan Chi?" Tanya called out, but the void only stared back. "There is a barrier, you will tear her apart if you get through, and you."
Shaken and stirred, Kia fought the urge to peel her flesh apart. To rip her own body from center out and dig the shadow out of her. Tanya dug her claws in until blood flowed like oil from her arms and her back scraped hard against the hewn stone wall of the cell. She would keep her still if it meant death, and moments later, stillness finally washed over Kia.
The void faded and the struggle within exhaled in a long, exhausted breath.
"It's over." Kia relaxed as best she could and reached for the bars to find something to grasp and pull her from the floor. "He's chosen the brother."
Perplexed, Tanya could only assure her and hold Kia until the excitement melted from her flesh.
"That time of the month then?" Rain peeled from the wall.
"We'll kill you when we're out." Kia responded in unison with Tanya.