Darkness. Total darkness and the constant ringing in her ears that never stopped since they sliced it off.
First, it was her tongue that was ruthlessly snipped off by shears, filling her throat with blood until she choked. Next, were her eyes that were gouged from their sockets with hot iron, searing her skin black. Her ears were the last to go.
She lays in a pigsty, the stench no longer overwhelming her nose. Her body feels both heavy and weightless, body tingling as numbness spread, her mind drifting in and out of the haze.
Good. It was the last thing her sane mind begged for—let me die.
The ache in her chest from her son's death slowly slipped away into nothing. Memories of their life together, ones that grounded her through the days of torture, faded into the same darkness.
Her mouth forms slight murmurs purely out of instinct, craving for water. They had stopped giving her food and liquid after forcing the bitter poison down her throat.
Mute, she was paraded as the true 'human swine' they had her destined to be. Her body was folded to crawl to where the rope around her neck pulled. A frantic mind; unable to speak, see, or hear, it scared itself into blankness. She was only a shell of a body, moving for their amusement.
Consort Qi, the favored concubine of Emperor Gaozu of Han and mother to Ruyi, the Prince of Zhao, spends her last hours wretched.
She doesn't know whether it's night or day, whether they stayed or left; she's waiting for everything to end so she can sleep forever.
The ringing stopped.
Still in darkness, but her mind feels clear again. She stayed still, relishing the warmth that crept through her. It's nice, it's peaceful… Can I stay here forever?
A string of light suddenly exposes itself, sharp against the black void. It prances across her face. She flinch at the harsh sight of the forgotten view, but her eyes follow its length until a bright light blasted at her, flooding her vision with white.