They were in some small town. The town strobed, periodically, into visibility around them, in massive flashes of sky-tearing lightning. Because everything was utterly noisy, everything beneath her headphones was silent. The town was a silent ghost town, under silent artillery bombardment. The town was simply being blown down, blown apart. Walls were being twisted apart, and roofs methodically caved in. But the bare wind was not alone in its work. The wind had brought its friends. Things—projectiles, shrapnel—were randomly smashing the town, smashing anything that stood up, smashing anything that resisted, flying and smashing and crushing and bursting. Flying, wrecking things. Ancient telephone poles from before the wireless days—they were being snapped up clean and picked up and thrust through the sides of multistory buildings. With a weird kind of ease, like someone piercing big blocks of tofu with a breadstick.