#wooooohoooooooooooooooooooo

-Cinder had managed to move herself away from the corner, and had gone nearer to the center, where she had curled in on herself. Breathing was hard. Moving was hard. She was too exhausted to move further. The floor was pretty comfortable, was it not?-

-She had taken extra energy to lock the door again. Cinder did NOT want anyone else seeing her like this. She’d given a key to Orchid so she could check on her at any time. However, it was now the middle of the fucking night, and she was likely asleep. Cinder, however, could not. The best she could do was rest as her shell literally began ripping from her body, the soft new shell beneath it much too sensitive for her opinion. She could feel every change, every shift of the shedding shell above as she moved, as she breathed. It was uncomfortable. It was even faintly painful.-

-Much more stinging than the pain of her shell was the pain beneath it. But it was different now. it was a prickle, jabbing at every part of her body. Every single inch of her body ached with pain from molt and change. Cinder's body felt not her own at all, but all the same, similar one she'd had all her life. The disappearance of the void inside was certainly something, one could say.-

-She heaves a sigh she wished she hadn’t. Her sides rising and falling hurt as much as everything else did. Which was really a lot for some exaggerated breathing.-

-The night dragged on so slowly.. especially when doing anything was painful, uncomfortable, or otherwise unpleasant.-

-Cinder could feel her soft shell below the old, dry one pushing against it. The weak, thin seams between plates of exoskeleton beginning to crack. Especially the ones along the base of the fur on her back. Every. Single. Second. Was. Agonizing.-

-This was about the point where Cinder truly realized how stressed she was, as breathing became ever more difficult, and the shell along her back continued to split open. She felt quite helpless in this state.. every movement as slow, tight, and agonizing as could be. Despite being in a perfectly safe environment, anxiety caused her panic to rise, her helplessness.. it felt too real.. too close..-

-‘Calm down, Cinder.. caalm down.. you’ve got this..’-

-Oh, how the calm voice helped.. Malaya’s calm, comforting voice.. even if it wasn’t real and just the reasonable part of her mind..-

-Cinder slowly, very carefully struggled against her own shell, trying her best to not recoil against every pinprick of pain as her shell continued to slowly rip away from itself. The fissure along her back opens further, pulling away, letting air flow inside, between new and old shells. The relief of tight pain from her back was short lived, for the prickling, constrictive tightness everywhere else was just as suffocating.-

-The mixture of agony and release she felt was.. quite off-putting to her. It confused her and made the sense of nearby freedom quite.. strange.-

-She writhed against her old shell, limbs stuck in their own casing. Ripping them free was a struggle of its own, especially without accidentally removing a chunk of her new shell with it, for it had not fully set yet. As new, freshly molted shells did.-

-It took ages upon ages for Cinder to be laying, soft-shelled and weak, on the cold floor of her room. She was shaking. Exhausted. Vulnerable.. She uses remaining energy to kick her shed shell away and stand, only to collapse onto her bed.-

-She, finally, could feel herself slipping into sleep. She.. She didn't hurt. Her head.. it didn't pound as it had. There was no stinging pain behind her eyes.. the churning pain of void and infection had calmed.. She felt.. okay again..-