The Memory Thief of Tunguska

The stag's blood dried on Nikolai's hands. Copper scent clung to his skin.

Seven days in the taiga. Seven days away from her weeping.

He approached the yurt slowly. Felt the weight of his knife at his hip.

Anna stood at the forest's edge. She was smiling.

Nikolai stopped. The smile froze him in place.

He hadn't seen that smile since before the children died. Three years of grief gone.

"The pain is gone," she said.

Her voice sounded wrong. Flat. Melody stripped away.

Nikolai's thumb found his knife blade. Tested the edge.

"What pain?"

Anna looked past him. Into the yurt.

Nikolai followed her gaze.

Two wooden crosses hung above their bed. Small. Hand-carved. Mikhail's. Elena's.

Anna stared at them. Her face showed nothing.

No recognition. No grief. No memory of what they meant.

"The crosses," Nikolai said. "Our children."

"The children died," she said.

The words were correct. The tone was empty.

She remembered the fact. Not the feeling.

Nikolai rubbed his silver crucifix. Metal against his sweating palm.

He walked to where she stood. Looked past her shoulder.

The trees were gone.

Millions of birches flattened. Not fallen. Pushed down.

Like something heavy had settled. Gently. Deliberately.

The bog stretched before them. Stagnant water. No reflections.

Luminous fungi pulsed along the water's edge. Pale light in the twilight.

Moss glowed where the alien craft had embedded itself. A black wound in the earth.

Something moved in the water. No ripple. No sound.

Nikolai scanned the tree line. Nothing moved. No birds sang.

The unnatural stillness pressed against his skin.

He turned back to the yurt. Anna's prayer shawl lay on the bed.

Untouched where she'd dropped it that morning. Stiff with salt from three years of tears.

She had prayed every night. Begged every saint. Asked for the pain to end.

Something had come to answer.

Not heaven.

The realization gripped him. Cold fingers around his throat.

The thing in the bog hadn't exploded. It hadn't fallen from the sky.

It had arrived. Settled. Made itself at home.

And now it was consuming her. Memory by memory. Feeling by feeling.

Anna touched her own face. Traced her jawline. As if confirming it still belonged to her.

She smiled again. That terrible, griefless smile.

"Peace," she said.

The word sent shivers down Nikolai's spine.

He gripped his knife tighter. The silver crucifix burned against his neck.

The visitor had come. And it was hungry.