She could feel the warming feeling of the men's pain and suffering in her and her mother's stomachs. 

She wasn't yet experienced enough to know how much Life Force she needed to shrink each person. She would just have to follow her mother's lead, who was clearly the most experienced out of all of the people in the house right now, including the soldiers. 

The stair floorboards continued to creak as the soldiers reached the quarter landing. It sounded like one of them was kneeling there and the other one slowly stepped down to him. 

There was another creak of the staircase at the top step again. 

There were at least three of them, if not more. Their guns were all loaded and ready.

Martyna's heart was thumping in her chest, the thumping was also audible in her ears. It felt like her brain was going to explode. 

She just focused on her Life Force and building it up. She found that helped. If she focused on individuals that she felt she realised she seemed to absorb more from them. She wondered if this meant it was draining them of their own Life Force… She wondered if they could feel it. 

"Ernst?" The soldier called again. Martyna nearly jumped out of her skin. He sounded like he was right next to her face. He was just next to them just a few feet above on the landing of the stairs. 

"Wolfgang?" He called out. 

No reply. Martyna covered her mouth with her hand. She dared not breathe. She couldn't let them hear anything. 

He paused and then she could hear him standing up and starting to walk down the stairs again. The stairs creaked ominously. 

The other soldier closely followed him. 

She slowly looked to her left and then she froze, and her eyes widened in fear, as she saw the muzzle of a rifle hovering in the edge of her vision as it descended down the staircase. 

More and more of the rifle and then the soldier materialised in her vision. 

She kept herself pressed as tightly as she could to the timber panelling, breathing as gently as she could, but without physically pressing against it. She didn't want the timber creaking and giving them away.  

She wanted to swallow but she didn't dare. Then she felt an urge to scratch an itch and cough. She fought all of those irritations. She knew any slip up meant death for them. 

She waited for her mother to tell her what to do. She knew what was best. 

Both soldiers reached the bottom of the staircase, both in front of Martyna, her mother was just by her shoulder. 

Suddenly her mother's hand pointed to the soldier on the left and then she tapped on Martyna's shoulder hard. 

She knew what that meant. 

Martyna slowly raised her hands and pointed them with outstretched fingers at the soldier on the left of the two of them. 

Her fingers were shaking, visibly shaking, from the terror and anticipation of it all. Her hands looked sheet white, almost starting to turn blue. She wondered if it was her terror or her powers. 

Her mother reached her own hands out, just visible in her right peripheral vision. 

The soldier on the right suddenly started to turn and look over his shoulder. He spotted them and his eyes went wide with shock. His rifle started to spin round. 

"Kurczyć," her mother whispered. Just loud enough for Martyna to hear it. 

"Kurczyć," Martyna repeated at the same volume. She felt her Life Force Well empty. 

'Poof!'

'Poof!' 

They both went and then the loud clattering of their rifles on the floor and a very loud and deafening gunshot, one of the rifles misfired and the bullet shot through the hearth.