SPECTATOR LOG: The Fate of Little Xici.

[agogemod]

WHO? Anyone interested in witnessing the end of Little Xici, the Regency spy.
WHAT? Little Xici's story concludes.
WHEN? Midnight; September 22ed, 1972.
ANYTHING ELSE? Contains body horror and death.

At some point, late at night, Little Xici is interrogated. The Commander drags the spy into a private tent, closed off from the rest, and the sound of blows and swearing can be heard. An hour later, Xici is dragged back to her previous place, tied up once more, blindfolded, and left to stew.

An hour after that, the screaming begins.

It's late at night, after the battle itself is long finished. Many dismiss it as a condition that will one day come to be known as shellshock, and go back to sleep. Anyone in the tent with Little Xici, though, will know the source of the sound: Xici herself, screaming and screaming, though no one and nothing is touching her.

"I don't deserve it!" She pleads to no one, and tears begin to prickle through her blindfold, "only traitors are- I am not-!"

Her arms slip their bindings, because her hands no longer rest at the end of them. The wounds are old, looking like her hands were severed years ago, even though anyone who saw her even minutes back saw perfectly formed working hands. Now only with stumps, she claws at her blindfold. In an act of mercy, another operative in the tent, one Angela Zeigler, removes the blindfold for her. Little Xici barely notices the woman, too consumed with the fact that, within her boots, her feet have also disappeared.

Next go her ears, and then her nose. Her eyes disappear as well. Each time, there is no blood. There is no gore, beyond the organs themselves simply slipping out of existence, leaving scars that look years old and long healed.

Little Xici screams the entire time, screaming that she doesn't deserve this, that the tribunal only does this to traitors, and she has told them nothing. "I have always been loyal!" She yells, "I have never betrayed-! This is for betrayers! I was loyal!" She cries, and struggles, and moans. The screams pitch, high, pathetic and desperate, they build and build in the night air.

As suddenly as the sounds begun, they end. Little Xici is gone, as though she never existed at all.

The tent wasn't empty when Xici's death-- when her slow erasure from existence-- began, and certainly many more have come to see the source of the screaming. There is nothing to do but talk amongst yourselves of what you just saw-- that is, if you feel it needs discussion. Some may wish only to return to sleep, or leave immediately for other reasons.

What's done is done. Xici is gone, however slowly she went. The spy has been dealt with.

Comments

[alsohawkeye]

Kate arrives after a minute or two of screaming, after hands and feet have gone but in time to shoulder her way through the gathering crowd of onlookers to a spot near the front with a clear view as the prisoner's eyes suddenly just-- aren't. She watches in growing horror as she realizes what must be happening, flinches at the sudden relief of silence. Time travel is, truly, the absolute fucking worst.

"Hey!" she spots the commander, recognizes her more by presence and reputation than sight, and is jolted into action, jogging a few steps to catch up with Grothia before she can make an exit. Arms cross as she plants herself before the other woman. She's dressed similarly, though she's doing a poor job at passing for a man at the moment, no hat and clean-faced but for a smear of mud on her jaw she's missed. "Can COST do that, too?"

[byfist]

Grothia pauses, by contrast she is neat. Clean. Her clothing, however civilian she might be trying to pass as is a little too carefully lain. Sits stiffly on her like it knew it had to behave. Her gaze breaks away from her briefly to slide back to the empty space that had once been where Little Xici had occupied. The one visible eye fixed on it before she looks back at Kate as she stands in front of her. The answer is simple, at least. Holding without looking away, and slow to blink.

"Yes."