The Year is 2132 Ch. 04

Zhanet sobs, "Sicut aqua effusus sum et dispersa sunt universa ossa mea factum est cor meum tamquam cera liquescens in medio ventris mei." - "Like water I am poured out, and all my bones are scattered about, my heart has been made like wax melting in my midriff."

"Only seconds to go, and she could have lived. Seconds." As Cherl looks back at the gibbet, the executioner pulls Sylvi up off the deck and plunges the knife into her belly. Again, Cherl sees the horrifying scene in slow motion: the stab; spraying blood; Sylvi's wind knocked out of her; her shocked expression as she stares into the executioner's face. Seconds later, he lets go of her hair, and she falls across her mother's body. He holds the bloody knife in the air again and the crowd roars.

Cherl stuffs her fingers into her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She feels herself grow cold, and she collapses into her seat. "Seconds! Seconds!" She keeps repeating. "Seconds!"

The sun is setting below the horizon.

****

From the Arena. **********

Readers: Research found many sites pertaining to death and physical torment in the Roman Coliseum and many other minor arenas. As Sylvi and Cordele must face those aspects, I had planned on using several scenes from them as they pertained to women. It was evident that the Roman populace had a raging bloodlust to witness the sexual mutilation of female prisoners: slaves, captives, criminals, and even free female citizens. This went on for years, decades, and centuries. It was a ruse to redirect the populace's attention from its own misery to that of the tormented souls in the arena; sex played a major part in those spectacles.

Women were especially subjected to horrible deaths. They were forced to copulate with animals; subjected to being impaled vaginally and anally; having their breasts and genitals mutilated; etc. Their shrieks and screams were like music to the ears of the bloodthirsty onlookers.

Originally, in setting up what would be a crescendo leading to the executions of Sylvi and Cordele, I told of individual cases of the mutilation of women in this minor arena on the outskirts of the Roman capitol. I deleted them. I will rely on your fertile imaginations to fill in the deletions.