voidtreckernet | VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

[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.]

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[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.]

[ 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.

[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.]

[ 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?

[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.]

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?

[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.]

[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.]

He did be killing you twice? [That was pretty bad luck on her part. Or just weakness. It can't be easy having such an enemy when you can't see. She should get better at hiding.]

He did be killing a whole bunch of people. He did be telling me. But it did be being him killing you that the spirit did be being so mad about.

He told you? [That startled her.] Are you friends, or something? You should be careful. Don't make him mad.

No [She shook her head quickly. It's true, they aren't friends. She only has one friend. But also she knows she needs to distance herself, at least in peoples minds. He's been compromised, caught.

He's on his own.]

I do no be being stupid, I will no be making him mad.

Good. He doesn't... he's good at scaring you, making it hurt. [She didn't really care about sparing kids from talk of that sort of thing. Why bother?

She curled her legs up closer.]

Hey, what's your name?

[She wrinkled her nose at that, she's not scared of him. Wary, of course. But not scared.

She pulls a bigger face at the question.] Buttercup. You do be being Qing, right?

[She tried not to scowl at that expression. Maybe the fear took more than a few months to set in, then. Or maybe her gut was right, and she needed to be careful.]

Yeah. Hey, I don't wanna think about that guy any more. Let's talk about something else.

[She wrinkled her nose again but nodded.]

Yes, we can be talking about whatever you do be wanting to. [She's pretty certain no one will find them here, it's not somewhere they will think to look, at least for a while.]

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VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

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

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