User: Sauro Beaudoin

Civ: Umbrella

The user is able to stop, slow, or divert the flow of liquids away from them. If any liquid, such as water, blood, etc. is moving towards them the user can divert it in a different direction. For example, if somebody attempts to punch the user, the user can divert the blood in their arm up to their shoulder, causing it to swell and burst. Or if there is a body of water in between the user and somewhere they’d like to get to, the user can continuously divert and slow the flow of water beneath them, creating a path on which to walk.

Piotr could see him: Sauro Beaudoin, walking around the train platform wearing the uniform of a police officer. A uniform of terror. He recognized his long greasy hair, catching the light of the dull overhead lighting as he stared down at the ground. He was staring at a man lying back against the wall, wearing ratty clothes, and sporting a long beard that reminded Piotr of his own. He was homeless, and Sauro was staring down at him, hand on his gun, no doubt trying to intimidate the poor man. Piotr couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he didn’t need to guess either. He wasn’t going to be a bystander.

“Filth like you disgusts me. The nerve of someone like you crowding the walkways. What the hell is wrong with you!? ANSWER ME!” Sauro raised his foot behind him, preparing to strike the cowering man with his black boot. Then, he felt something strike his temple, and his skin morphed and shifted to create a gaping hole in the side of his head, blood bursting out at high pressure like someone had just taken their foot off a hose. Sauro didn’t seem to mind, however, simply holding his hand near the side of his head. “Umbrella.” and the blood stopped in midair. Sauro slowly moved his hand towards the gaping wound, the blood gliding slowly through the air back into his temple, before Sauro covered the wound with his hand, completely unaffected by what had just happened. “So, he’s finally out, huh?”

Piotr had sprinted away from the train platform, retracing his steps to get away from Sauro. Piotr might’ve finished him off, but he couldn’t be sure. He needed to get somewhere safe, quickly. Blair’s apartment was decently far away. If Sauro was still alive then that wouldn’t be an option, but again he wasn’t sure. He heard the sound of heavy boots running up the metal stairs of the train platform. Now he was sure.

Sauro knew Piotr was around somewhere. He was holding his hand towards the hole in his head, which had taken on the shape of a whirlpool of skin leading into his head. He had been running in the direction he heard footsteps, to the right of the entryway to the train platform. But he didn’t see anybody. He passed apartment buildings and supermarkets, and a building called “Edith Matria’s Home for the Wayward.” But no sign of the escapee he had been chasing.

Piotr knew attacking Sauro was a tactically stupid idea. He had made his presence known not just to a sadistic police officer with a powerful Civ but to the entire police force. While they had known about his escape, they didn’t know about him still being both violent and in Neonight. He couldn’t keep walking around the city anymore. He needed somewhere to lay low for a while, and the cosy bed-and-breakfast was just outside of where Piotr attacked his tormentor.

The inside of the building carried a homeliness that wasn’t common in a future of metal and glass. The living room that Piotr immediately found himself in was lined with couches draped in fanciful quilts. There was a fireplace burning in the hearth, and books lining the small night tables around the various soft-looking couches. Through a wooden doorway at the end of the living room, an elderly woman opened the door, carrying out a tray of freshly-baked cookies whose warm smell floated through the air—a tray the tiny old woman almost dropped upon seeing Piotr. “Oh my goodness!” she shouted. “Somebody came!” the woman, who Piotr assumed was Edith Matria, ran forward and began waving at Piotr. “Hello there, young man!” she shouted. She looked like everybody’s grandma, complete with short white hair tied back in a tidy bun and an apron decorated with floral embroideries. For whatever reason, Piotr liked being called “young man.” “Are you tired? Do you need a place to stay?”

Piotr nodded his head as he looked through the window on the front of the door. Edith smiled as she handed him a freshly baked cookie. Piotr bit into it and smiled. He wiped the crumbs off of his beard as Edith led him upstairs to one of the bedrooms and gave him a place to spend the night. Edith only asked for his name, not why he was there, and she didn’t pass judgement on his pregnancy clothes. She was simply a kind presence in a lonely time. And Piotr slept well for the first time in years.

Piotr woke up the next morning and found breakfast on the living room table. There were chocolate chip pancakes, fresh fruit, bacon, and a tall glass of coffee for Piotr to enjoy, free of charge. The hospitality was somewhat confusing to Piotr, a stranger who had turned up in clothes that didn’t fit to a house that wasn’t his. Why was he being welcomed with open arms? It amounted to culture shock to him, having spent the past five years in a place that didn’t welcome him and wouldn’t let him leave. It was a strange contradiction to him, that somebody like Sauro would purposefully spend his days surrounded by people he hated. That he could be so hostile and uncaring to somebody forced to stay there . . . then choose to hunt that person down when they left.

“Edith, if you don’t mind me calling you Edith, why are you helping me?” Piotr asked in between mouthfuls of scrumptious pancakes, which he’d been scarfing down ravenously. It almost made him feel guilty. But Edith just kept making them.

“Edith is fine, Piotr. And to answer your question, I’m an old woman now. My grandkids are off beyond Neonight, and they never call or visit, so I’ve turned the people of my home city into my grandchildren.” Edith sighed. “Although in your case, you’d be a bit closer to one of my actual children.” With that, she chuckled, and Piotr couldn’t help but let out a hearty laugh at her jest. Normally, jokes at his expense were something he didn’t tolerate, but he was in such an amicable mood for the first time in a while that he wanted to enjoy himself. “Do you have any children, Piotr?”

“Yes. I have a child, but we’re . . . estranged. I’ve been away for too long, and I worry that they resent me. They live here, and I don’t know if I have the strength to see them.”

“I’m sorry Piotr. Losing a child can be an extremely painful experience, even if they’re still alive. It changes people, doesn’t it?”

“For the better, I hope,” Piotr responded, standing up as he downed his coffee. “I appreciate your hospitality, Edith, but I’m afraid I have business to attend to. I worry that people are looking for me.”

“So soon, Piotr? You can stay as long as you want, you know.” Edith answered, a slight panic in her eyes.

“That’s very kind Edith, but—”

“I have books! And board games! How about another cup of coffee?” Edith was walking towards Piotr now, and he was backing up towards the door.

“That’s, um . . . a very generous offer but I do need to get going. It was a pleasure meeting you!” Piotr said, before turning and running out the door and out into the street.

“Piotr! You forgot your shoes!” Edith shouted at him, waving his shoes in the air as she stood inside the house that was awkwardly stuffed between two skyscrapers. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

Piotr wasn’t sure why he had darted out of there so fast. He felt uneasy as he had left the bed and breakfast, although he couldn’t figure out why. He had often thought that through his years of gang experience, he had learned to recognize bad situations, and he was starting to feel that now, but how could this humble B-n-B be a danger to him? If she was an enemy Civ user, she would have just killed him. Piotr walked back inside. “I’m sorry, Edith. I panicked. That wasn’t right of me,” Piotr said, taking his shoes and putting them on inside the house, before waving to the old woman as he stepped outside.