Bloody tears were streaming down Natasha’s face. Piotr wasn’t sure if this was the Civ changing her appearance or if she had been wounded somehow.

“So, I hope you can understand why I snapped today, my love. I lost control when I saw him, years of anger releasing itself onto that man.” There were hints of guilt and confusion in her voice.

Who is she talking about? Cyrille?

“And the child—I couldn’t let her see me like this,” Natasha whispered solemnly as she sniffled and held up her acrylic fingernails to her face, examining them closely. There were chunks of white gunk and clear fluid on them—buried under them. From digging at something.

It was the remark about his child that ultimately snapped Piotr out of the shocked stupor he had been placed in by seeing his love like this. It was the only thing that could have ever motivated Piotr to attack Natasha.

Move the Headstones, Piotr thought, and a marble from his pocket flew towards Natasha, striking her in the left shoulder and contorting it violently, causing her to scream in pain. “WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY, NATASHA!? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY CHILD!?” Piotr screamed as his wife’s focus broke, allowing him the chance to articulate his terror and rage.

“I only did it to protect them, Piotr. I did it to keep them safe from what they would see.” Natasha was clutching her arm and bending herself in unnatural ways, a visually disturbing posture that looked like something a chiropractor’s training dummy would find itself in after a car accident. Piotr ignored her, instead choosing to sprint towards the stairs at the end of the main floor and make his way up to Nat’s bedroom. But before he could reach the top . . .

A powerful gust of wind sent him flying back, crashing down the mahogany stairs, cracking his skull on the wood as he landed in a heap at the bottom. “I can’t let you see either, Piotr,” Natasha whispered as Piotr slowly stood up, blood dripping down his face. He could see that an impenetrable wall of wind was circling at the top of the stairs, keeping Piotr out of the hallway that led into Nat’s room.

“I’m not going to fight you, Natasha. I just want to see our child.”

“You won’t be seeing much of anything soon. Talk to the Wind,” Natasha whispered as the wind from Piotr’s outburst, which had been circling him, suddenly transformed into a powerful updraft that sent his large figure flying twenty feet into the air, causing him to bash his head into the wooden ceiling, although no sound came from the impact. As Piotr flew into the air, he could see Natasha glide rapidly towards where he’d fallen, brandishing her acrylic nails. MOVE THE HEADSTONES! Piotr shouted internally as he began to fall, reaching his hand upwards and launching the fingernail from his index finger off of the skin and up into the ceiling, causing a wooden handle to appear—one that Piotr grabbed onto. How the fuck am I going to get through that wind barrier? I can’t kill Natasha to have it come down. I have to find a way into Nat’s room some other way . . . like their window. Which means I need to find a way out of the house without having her create a second barrier in front of the front door. God, I’ve never seen this kind of power from her!

“COME DOWN FROM THERE NOW, BABY!” Natasha shouted manically as a torrent of wind knocked dozens of glasses, plates, and other dishes from the kitchen counter onto the floor, creating even more wind from the sound of the impact. Soon dishes from the cabinets were shattered silently, and after a few moments of Piotr hanging from the ceiling, a tornado of porcelain had materialized in their large kitchen.

I have to distract her somehow! Break her focus. Piotr thought as he dropped to the ground. “All right, Natasha, listen to me! I know you won’t attack me. I know you can fight this!” Piotr exclaimed as he stood in front of Natasha’s bleeding figure.

She attacked him immediately.

Even before he’d finished talking, Natasha had silently charged forward on a gust of wind beneath her feet, colliding with Piotr and digging her sharp acrylic fingernails into his face. Even though she was far smaller than he was, she was able to knock him backwards and off balance, causing him to nearly stumble to the ground. He screamed in pain and horror as she dug into his face, his cheeks, and his temples, nearing his eyes. But there was no sound. It was as though he was in the vacuum of space, being accosted by a terrifying alien.

The moment Piotr regained his composure, bolts of what looked like bright-yellow electrical energy began to erupt from her acrylics, before they tore off of her fingers with violent and reckless speed. She’s forgotten how Move the Headstones works! Piotr chanted to himself, excited to regain the upper hand for just one moment. The acrylic nails tore through Natasha’s hands, filling them with energy as well, which led to them folding in on themselves, balling up like fists, before fusing the fingertips with the palms of her hands. They were permanently closed now.

She had stumbled backwards after that happened, creating a small gap of about ten feet between them. Piotr was still about fifty paces from the door. He might be fast enough to get to the front without her putting up a wind barrier, but there was no guarantee right now, and if he failed, there would be no trying again. Natasha made the motion of screaming, but again, nothing came out. Instead, the tornado of porcelain that had been maintaining itself grew far stronger and began to hurl even more projectiles at Piotr, zipping through the air like grenade shrapnel. For any Civ whose sole ability wasn’t filling small objects with kinetic energy, this would have been a slam dunk. They would have, no doubt, been pierced and torn to shreds by the hundreds of tiny metallic and clay particles, causing them to bleed out. But Move the Headstones’ only ability was to make sure that Piotr wouldn’t be eviscerated in this specific fashion.

That came later.

As the hundreds of sharp pieces of glass, porcelain, wood, etc. that had been launched by a screaming tornado touched Piotr’s skin, they were instantaneously covered in yellow electric sparks and deflected towards the wooden floor like beams of light off a mirror. A few seconds later, the wooden floor silently contorted itself, raising a large set of planks out of the ground as the massive amounts of kinetic energy flowed into them, forming a wooden wall in front of Piotr, blocking the line of sight between him and Natasha. And he was happy to not be staring at his blood-soaked wife any longer. He was only into that when it was done safely and with red food colouring.

But as Piotr turned on his heels and sprinted for the front door, he suddenly felt red food colouring drip out of his ears as a sonic burst tore through his ear drums, sending him to the floor in crumpled agony. Then, the same ethereal voice brushed past him, swirling around his hair and into his canal directly with the tickle of a spring breeze.

“Please don’t leave me, Piotr. I’m so sorry for all of this, just don’t leave me alone with IT!”

I forgot how loud it would be to tear up a bunch of wooden planks and construct a ten-foot-high wall a few feet in front of me, huh? God that’s like lesson one in KGB training. How did I forget that? Piotr lamented to himself. After spending a moment in self-pity, he actually came to consider the possibility of just never getting up off the ground. Natasha . . . He remembered what it was like, watching Lana Krokodil transform into that . . . thing. It had felt so conclusive that she couldn’t be saved, but now that it was someone close to him who was in the same situation, he found his soul imbued with a kind of hope. Psychologists would call it “denial.” “O . . . okay, Natasha. I-I’ll . . . I’ll stay here with you,” Piotr whimpered as he slowly rose to his feet, turning his head away from escape and watching as Natasha hovered over the wooden wall. Her laugh lines were still visible, as they always were. Decades of love were imprinted on her face. Every smile they’d shared had left a physical imprint on her body—like tree rings. Even if her mind was different, which Piotr wasn’t sold on, it was still “her.”

Then, she fell behind it. As a bright bullet pierced the door behind Piotr and tore through her abdomen with blinding speed. Piotr screamed as she limply fell back. Most people would be horrified to hear their screams go silent, but as someone who knew his wife’s Civ . . . Piotr was more terrified that they were just as audible as ever. Before he could rise to his feet to chase her down—heal her wounds—a strong hand grabbed his collar and yanked him back. But despite the young husband thrashing and calling away from the figure’s grip, he stopped and fell limp as a blue and pink liquid dripped into his mouth.