VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

[bloomingdespite]

[Before the ICP flickers on, every passenger hears a resounding, deep voice thunder through every car in the train, carrying with it a deathly—if odd—proclamation:]

PENALTY GAME: HELL REVERSE!

[Moments later, every ICP turns on to reveal a figure shrouded in shadows, holding the unconscious body of Xue Yang with one hand as the Eye of Wdjat blazes on both of their foreheads. It's clear they're in the gaming car, but if anybody tries to enter from either end, they'll find the doors are impossibly locked.]

Passengers of the Voidtrecker Express, I hold in my hands an unrepentant murderer who slaughtered one of your very own: the victim being A-Qing, and the criminal being Xue Yang. While she has returned, this crime cannot go unpunished, and I have taken it upon myself to try and burn out the stain on his soul—or, at the very least, provide adequate agony for all of his victims, both on the train and off.

If you need to see proof of my justice...

Avert your eyes if you do not wish to see memories of the brutal death of a young woman in her prime.

[The screen flickers once again, this time showing A-Qing's murder, although it doesn't have any audio. ((OOC: Additional CW for graphic depictions of murder.))

When it returns to the interior of the Games Car, the shadowy figure is gone, but their voice and Xue Yang remain.]

I leave it to the council to dispense their own punishment, as meager as it may be.

Remember, passengers:

I am watching.

[The ICP clicks off, and the train is deadly quiet.]

Comments

action, dining car

[spikelet]

[ what the fuck just happened. How did they... Why did...



Okay, wow, right. First step, finding somewhere to hide. 1-E? That means having to go past whatever that was. Somewhere this side of Games. She ransacks her memory, and comes up with... Medical? Yeah. That'll work. There's usually an empty room in there.

Second step, get out of Dining. It's a straight line; she just makes a break for it. ]

action

[theturksway]

[Shit. That was some messed up shit. Who the hell would do that on a train full of innocents? As a Turk Reno got it. People got what they deserved. He didn't care about that.

But seriously showing that to the public? That was something better left to the darkness where all secrets should be kept. There was a reason why Turks did their business where no one could see it. And he hated it whenever some idiot (Heidegger) took over and made things extra difficult for the Turks.

All right, all that aside, Reno was on the move. He didn't really know where or to do what yet but there was some shit going down and he wasn't going to sit it out.

He didn't get very far though before he ran into a familiar face. And by familiar he meant 'oh, I just saw that person get murdered in a televised broadcast just thirty seconds ago'. He hesitated. Nope, no time for that now.]

Hey.

[It came out way more casually than even Reno thought possible. He sidled up next to her and started to keep pace as she made a beeline for her hideout.

Damn, she was even younger than he'd realized. What fucking monster... wait, no, never mind.]

You okay? [Obviously she wasn't but what else was he supposed to say?]

action

[spikelet]

No! [ Her voice is shrill and thin with panic. Fuck, did everyone see--? She stopped, chest heaving, even if she didn't bother turning towards him. ]

Just now, was there a message on the ICPs?

[ If he saw it, then she needed to run. If he didn't, she could stop for now. ]

action

[theturksway]

[Whoa! Okay, fair enough reaction. Reno held his arms up like he was surrendering, palms facing towards her to show they were empty.]

Hey, it's okay. [No, it wasn't. And he wasn't good at this kind of approach anyway. So he dropped the act. His posture relaxed back to normal as he dropped his arms and told her the bare truth.]

Yeah, there was a pretty questionable video on the ICPs a second ago. It was bullshit if you ask me. No one deserves that.

[No one deserved to die like that or no one deserved to have their face plastered on a public broadcasting service like that? He let A-Qing decide. But honestly he felt it was a bit of both.]

[spikelet]

[ She slumped and tensed near simultaneously. His swearing opened the dam on hers, and she turned away from him for a moment so she could kick the wall as savagely as she could. Luckily her boots were sturdy. ]

Fuck! That shameless-- that filth-- [ Could she lie? Say it was all some evil trick? No, they already knew from the roster. ] I'm glad! I'm glad he got punished. He, what he did... But...

[ But showing everyone? She stilled again, biting her lip hard enough to turn it white. ]

[theturksway]

[Not quite the reaction Reno was expecting but it was one well deserved and he stood there casually and let it play out.]

Hey, I get it, yo. I don't like it when my shit gets plastered all over the news either.

[Not that he had a shameful bone in his body but it was the work ethic. The dirty little secrets that the Turks fostered and protected. That was the reason he didn't like it when their shit went public.]

He may have gotten what he deserved but it seems like someone else got burned who shouldn't have. It's not fair, yo.

[spikelet]

[ She should be smarter than this, play dumb - she couldn't have seen it, after all, but the reactions...

She doesn't kick the wall again, but from the stamp of her foot, it comes close. ]

It's not fair! None of that helps me! I'm still dead!

[theturksway]

[Reno pursed his lips at that. He didn't know her full story but what he did know is she didn't look all that dead now. And it wasn't entirely impossible for a person to die and be brought back to life where he was from so maybe the train just had a better version of that spell.]

You look pretty alive to me, kiddo. [He gestured idly with one hand.] Which means it's pretty obvious that whole thing's had an effect on you. Not a good one. Mental trauma...isn't easy. It doesn't just...go away, ya know.

[This was so out of his league and yet--and yet he didn't know how to walk away.]

[spikelet]

Not here. On our 'homeworld'. [ But she's got to calm down. She takes several deep breaths--

No, it fizzles back into fear. ]

Can you take me to the doctor's carriage? [ Fuck, wait. ] No, he'll be taken there...

[ She has no idea what to do. ]

(gonna cw slight ableism in here though it is all internal and not outwardly directed at a-qing)

[knifewithnoname]

[Well that...

She had told Xue Yang to be careful and the fact that he clearly hadn't been was his own stupid fault so she doesn't feel anything about that. And even if she does she at least isn't stupid. She knows what the price of being found out is.

Apparently people don't stay dead on this train and that's stupid and annoying. She wrinkles her nose at the screen as the silent shadows play across showing Xue Yang killing... the blind girl?

Wow he can't even pick a decent victim. A girl who can't even see, who would be helpless against him. Or perhaps that had been the point. Kill someone who couldn't rat him out when she returned.

Because apparently people came back from the dead. Her mind kept springing back to that because it was so weird. But then again... it seemed he had spoken to her before hand, their lips moved even if they were silent.

So. Xue Yang was an idiot. Back to her first thought.

And whoever that shadow was? They were dangerous.

She is full of thoughts but acting casually, planning to go and check on some of the other kids, just to get stock of their reactions. So she can copy them, make sure she gets it right.

But the first person she sees is...

It really is disorientating to see someone walking around that you just saw die.]

Do you be needing a place to be hiding from the eyes?

[The words were out of her mouth before she thought about them.]

[spikelet]

[ She's gotten caught behind a group of people, and keeping her head down as not to get noticed has taken enough of her attention that she legitimately startles when the girl asks her a question.

She responds immediately, because this kid gets it. Even if a part of her wonders, remembers a knife, and a series of expressions. ]

Yes! I- yeah.

[knifewithnoname]

[She nodded and reached out to grab the girls hand.] Be keeping up. [She darted off through the crowd of adults. There were plenty of scrunch faces, leaky eyes and other facial expressions she didn't even have names for.

The girl, Qing, she had learned on the roster. Couldn't see them, but she had to be aware of the scrutiny.

Sometimes kids just had to get out of the sight of adults. Especially in times like this.

The luggage car was too far away even if it was the better place for hiding. But she led her into stores and then up the stairs. No one was in the laundry room, good. She knew a space, between two machines that could be an easy place to hide. That was where she pulled her, into a small space, just big enough for the two of them.

It's probably hard for her navigate the space whilst blind but she can figure it out, she is sure. She has no idea how blind people learn their space.

She does snag a sheet that is folded ontop of the dryer and flings it over the top in a way that hopefully just looks like someone had been lazy and not that it concealed two girls.]

[spikelet]

[ She keeps up with no small amount of agility, familiar with the same duck-and-weave motions that the younger girl is using to get through the groups. With muscle memory and the girl's hand tugging her this way and that, she probably could do it blind.

When they reach the machines - which she still doesn't know to use, now she thinks about it - she has the presence of mind to jar her shoulder against one of them as she scrambles in after her. It smarts, but it makes her feel as secure as watching the sheet fall across the gap.

She gulps a breath, and flops against one side of the machine. ]

What was that?

[knifewithnoname]

[She does seem to run very well for a blind girl but that might be explained by the fact she has had to learn to be that good, she might have spent days learning the train to try and know her routes for getting around quick.

She has more suspicions based on the video she had just seen but for now she shrugged.] You do be having ears, you did be hearing what they did be saying.

But they did be being in the game carriage, they did be being a glowing figure. I did no be recognising them, they do no be being a face on the roster. They did be having Xue Yang, he do probably be being dead. They did be getting justice they did be saying and then they did be showing his crime.

[Which she should know, as she was the victim.]

[spikelet]

I heard a lot of noise. [ Seriously, everyone had to start yelling at once? She was going to stop going to Dining at this rate, with two days interrupted by weird announcements that caused chaos to erupt.

But she's explaining, at least. ]

Dead? [ Good. Wait, no, not good, because he'll just come back, won't he? ] They showed-- [ Ha, like she's going to admit to that! She'd have no way of knowing, because it hadn't made any sounds. Instead, she screws up her face, as if confused. ] Which one did they show?

[knifewithnoname]

[Noise was correct. It seemed like the whole train had started yelling at once and she supposed it would be easy to get lost in all that noise, if sound was all you had.]

Which one? [She wrinkled her nose.] He did be killing you more than once?

[Or wait. Does she mean crimes? It's true. Xue Yang probably has committed many crimes in the eyes of those that cared about such things.]

[spikelet]

[She leaned back properly against the machine, thinking lightly.]

He said he killed me back home, too, so maybe they showed that. There are a lot of things they could've shown. That guy is so petty and had so many grudges, who knows how many people he killed because he thought they'd done him wrong?

[She does, she knows.]

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin is between the Gaming Carriage and the Medical Coach when he decides to use the ICP in the Medical Coach. And then he looks up and spots Qing arriving. ]

Can I help? [ His heart goes out to her in a surge. Curufin already knows that she was dead, since he was one of the people who saw the bloody clothing in the laundry and guessed it was hers, and the heart beside her name on the passenger roster. Obviously she is now returned. But if she was watching on an ICP, she just saw herself horribly murdered. ]

[spikelet]

[ why are there so many people on this train!!! She pulls up when he addresses her. ]

No, I-- [ With a lack of any better ideas, she automatically drops into her normal act, looking past him with blank, panicked eyes. ] Everyone's saying they saw something, but I don't know--

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Damn, there's a person everywhere you step! What a crowd! That's the Voidtrecker for ya. ]

We did see something. It was what you experienced when Xue Yang caught up with you. I know that you were the one who was killed, and he was the killer. You don't have to talk to me, but I am asking you to. [ He makes that same bow that the other Chinese passengers use when making a request, arms circled, fingers overlapping each other, upper body curved over and head lowered with respect. ] Please?

[spikelet]

[ Her irritation makes good fuel for fake fear, as she bites her lip in what is fast becoming a new habit. Who'd asked that weird spirit to show all that? She wants to react to his bow, but she's also too wary by this point to let anyone know she can see. Instead, she keeps her eyes flickering vaguely here and there until he says please. ]

Talk about what? ... I don't know anything about what that person did just now.

[so_dark_a_road]

Are you afraid of becoming a target again if the whole train knows you were a target once?

[spikelet]

[ Urgh. Not knowing who he is or what he wants makes it very difficult to think of a convincing lie. ]

What do you mean? He came after me because of... some things that happened on our homeworld. Why would anyone else target me?

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin wishes he had met her at the platform when she first arrived. That way, she'd know him, and know that he had no ill intentions. ]

Can you tell me what things happened on your home world?

I actually didn't mean that someone else might target you for death. I wondered if your fear is a social fear. Once a community knows that one of its members has been a victim, there is the possibility that they may abandon that person, leaving them ill-defended against another attack by the original attacker. Not all communities function that way, but I have known some that did.

[spikelet]

[ Externally, she squints, apparently confused.

Internally, she's doubtful. From her experience, once someone's been a victim of something like that, they're either dead or they might as well be. She's never heard of an incident where it's turned out okay... but she's never heard of someone resurrecting, either. In a purely practical sense, she has no complaints. She can't stay dead, there's food whether people want her to eat or not, she's warm and has somewhere to sleep. If people ostracise her... well, she can work around it. It's not up to them if she's sent back into death.

She elects to ignore that part with nothing more than a nod. ]

What for? To decide if he deserved it?