“Heyy. Chlo. Iss Jack callin’.” I cleared my throat, nearly not quite coughing into the phone, no, don’t slur, professional, my mouth tasted like varnished petrol. “Hey. Chlo. I hope you an’ the girls has a nice time together. I jus- jus called to say... Sorry this isn’t how I wanted. Ugh.” Ugh. I sighed, squeezed my eyes shut so hard my head thumped with the pressure, I swayed lightly on my perch of greasy bedsheets, and ran a hand down my face, breezing through my stubble and resting my chin in my palm, ugh I was so gross.

I opened my eyes, thin slivers of light wriggled past battered blinds, drawing silvery lines across a pile of pizza boxes, glinting off an empty glass bottle leaning in the corner. “I’m sorry, so sorry, frrerrything, I just can’t Chlo, I can’t- I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like there’s jus nothing left to give. Just. Tell Anna n’ Babs I love em okay? I’ll do better, okay? I promise. I’ll do better. Sorry. Talk you soon Chlo.”

I hung up the call feeling my cheeks flush. I wasn’t sure why I’d even made it. I just. Had to let her know I still cared. Somehow. Limply my hands flopped over the ends of my knees, I gazed as the phone slowly slid through my fingers, leaving oily snail trails on the screen. It took a minute or so before it disappeared from view with a faint thud. I stared at my hands. Slowly flexing my fingers as they hung there in the dark. A roiling cloud of black spitting coiled emotion, writhed snakelike and low, in my stomach.

Violently I clenched my head hard in my hands digging fingernails into my scalp, hunching my head down to my knees as a lightning burst of energy coursed through me. I screwed my eyes shut tight. Against it all, against the world. I shook. Muscles in my back spasmed softly in silence. Before it faded.

Slowly I breathed out emptying my lungs, unfolding from my clenched ball, gently releasing emotion into the air. Let my hands drop, straightened my back, opened my eyes. Darkness. Clothes. Boxes. Wrappers. Everything strewn across the floor. I rubbed my fingers and thumbs together absently. Greasy, where I’d clutched through my hair. I wobbled as I reached out of sight, plucked a nearly empty bottle from the floor beside the bed with my fingertips, threw back my head, tried not gag as the last dregs of gin slithered past my gullet, and flopped backwards onto the bed, feet still touching the floor. The dark room span in mocking circles around my head.

For sleep of course, always for sleep. Just, shut it all out. Best sleep you’ll ever have. I dropped the bottle with a clink on the floor. I lay in silence. What was I thinking? I don’t know. I knew I wasn’t helping, never enough, never enough! You need to help man! Help. Jesus, she can’t raise kids alone. It’s not fair. She does so much. Pull. Your. Weight. I sighed, and considered raising my arms up above me, to raise them shakily to the ceiling, it felt important, I didn’t know why it felt important, maybe for no reason at all, just to prove I still could, that I was still in control. Not that it mattered anyway, my arms seemed to be far too heavy to ever move again.

I could do better. I would, do better. I had to. It was really dark. Oh, my eyes where closed. Yeah, that made sense. I’d do better. I had to. Vaguely voices cheered from through the wall. Outside fireworks started to split inky night skies, creeping through gaps in the blind, scattering reds and greens across the backs of my eyelids.

“Happy new year…” I murmured softly in the dark.

---

Blaring klaxons shattered any illusions of peaceful dreams I might have had. I sat bolt upright, tossing off coarse sheets, my heart hammered, blood thundered through my limbs, chest and head like thousands of tiny trains on tracks. I gasped over, and over, and over, huge ragged breaths unable to stop. Something was wrong. Incredibly wrong. My entire body felt like it was on fire, fresh electricity coursing through my nerves, itching inside my brain. And I’d only felt this sheer juddering need for air once before in my life, as a child, when an older friend had thought it, oh so incredibly funny, to hold my head underwater.

The klaxons stopped. I was met with tall curved corrugated iron ceilings. Like a scaled up family bomb shelter, found in the garden of an old fashioned home. Opposite me, a grubby woman in filthy green coveralls, gasped, ragged heaving breaths, like me, perched bolt upright in a rusty metal framed single bed, her eyes a rabbits, alive with skittish panic. I glanced around, row upon row of metal cots, lined opposite walls, about twenty beds in all, each with a… person? I looked at the woman again, her face. Looked at the people all around me, men, women, faces sharp and angular, eyes a deep emerald sparkling green… ears all… pointed… Like an elf.

“REPORT TO THE SNOW GLOBE FOR NEW YEARS ORIENTATION IMMEDIATELY.” An even robotic voice thundered through clusters of red and white striped intercom cones, planted in the ceiling, like little candy canes “THANK YOU, FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

I glanced around again, most of the… elves… wore slack jawed masks of bewilderment, hair matted, faces streaked with grime. Except three, who where markedly cleaner, faces set hard, swiftly tearing off nightclothes and pulling on shiny forest green jumpsuits from worn wooden chests at the foot of their bunks. They crossed the room almost in unison, and marched through a thick metal door, with one of those… spinney wheel handle, lock things, like on a boat, at one end of the room.

The last one paused in the doorway, glanced over her shoulder, locking eyes with me, face impassive. Before she frowned and whisked round the doorway with a swish of her long brown braid.

Gradually my breathing came back under control. Take stock. What? How? Where? I felt strange. And dirty. Not just oily unwashed dirty, but dirty dirty. I looked down at my. What the fuck?

I held my hands out before me. They where… slender. My fingers, my palms… thin, dainty but also bony and calloused. My forearms where smaller than they should have been too, sinewy, with taut muscle I’d done no exercise to warrant. They where also filthy with grime, I flipped my palms to face me. Blots of crusted dried blood flecked my left forearm. Large block number tattoos stamped 43 across each wrist. I looked down, I was wearing a dark green jumpsuit just like the others, marred with dirt and burns. I realised I already had brown leather lace up boots on my feet beneath the sheets. Patches of dried blood dotted my entire left leg, congregating with a huge bloody stain around my middle. I cautiously poked at my stomach, my belly was… softer than expected, though I could feel toned muscle just beneath the fat. Also nothing hurt. I let loose a breath I hadn’t quite noticed taking. I glanced back to the elf in the bed opposite, who was now inspecting her hands with slow, dawning horror on her face. I drew a shaky breath in, and reached up to my ears. Pointed. I snatched my fingers away.

“REPORT TO THE SNOW GLOBE FOR NEW YEARS ORIENTATION IMMEDIATELY.” The robotic voice from before clattered over the intercom. “THANK YOU, FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

“Oh for fucks sake.” My head snapped towards the sound. A skinny, lightly stubbled male elf stood in the doorway. His face clear of grime, and green jumpsuit meticulously kept, and unlike anyone else’s in the room, a bright red stripe ran vertically up his sides, from the cuffs at his boots right up to his collar. “Up and at em’ new blood.” He barked authoritatively, tapping a boot heel as he spoke. “Claus will be waiting. Now trust me.” He paused waving both hands in unison at us, “you do not leave Claus waiting, hup!” With that, he wheeled out the door, I noticed large yellow block numbers firmly stamped 36 between his shoulder blades as he turned. I blinked. For several seconds I stared blankly at the now empty door frame while synapses misfired between my ears. And nearly fell off the bed when his head popped suddenly back into view. “Out. Now.”

Slowly, those closest to the door glanced warily at one another and shuffled out of bed and through the door, they also had numbers on their backs. 44, 47, 48 and more. All stamped in white, I presumed we all did, but I couldn’t easily check myself or those facing me.

I took a breath and kicked the sheets off onto the floor, they where already ruined from my boots anyway, and got up-Woah! I pitched as I tried to stand, nearly sending myself teeth first into the concrete floor. My legs where much longer than I’d expected them to be, proportionately, I’d always been all torso. And… and… no.

People walked past me, filing out the room as I clutched the wall beside my little bunk looking down. I had… I slid my hands down my sides, down my hips, feminine hips like… hips, hips. What the actual fuck?!

“FortyThree… FortyThree. Forty. Three.” I looked up, I was alone in the room and the elf from before was in the doorway again. His face softened slightly when I met his eyes. “Come on. Time to go.” My stomach felt like an uneasy well of strange unnatural creatures, but I just nodded, as he led me from the room.

Outside was a grey, domed tunnel, identical to the room with the beds really, if much, much longer. Copper pipes and red cables stood stark against dark metal walls running either direction until the bends in the corridor hid them from sight. My breath pooled before me in the air as I joined the group, bracing my stomach against the cold. The man, ThirtySix- Was that even a name? He called me by my… number… I felt a shudder slink up my back and promptly aborted that thought, It must be a name I supposed. Anyway, ThirtySix, turned and stalked down the corridor, boots clacking off the concrete floor. I exchanged a few glances at my shivering compatriots, no-one spoke, no-one seemed to know what to say. What do you say?

So I followed him before he could disappear round a corner, he at least seemed to know more about what was going on than the rest of the group. Behind me I felt others setting off as well, footsteps falling in time behind mine. As I walked I swayed slightly left to right, not quite sure what to do with my new found hips.

“THANK YOU, FOR YOUR COOPERATION.” Echoed from the ceiling.

---

The ‘snow globe’ turned out to be a huge concrete dome, and stepping into it as we emerged from the tunnel was nearly blinding. The whole thing, was slathered with stark white paint, walls formed from giant concrete bricks, each one bigger than me, giving the effect of a massive igloo. Tunnel entrances, like the one we’d followed ThirtySix through, studded the circumference. While a huge rickety rusted catwalk stairs spiralled the walls of the dome, ending in a straight section, running for the centre of the roof, before it disappeared through a large circular hole in the ceiling.

It was even colder here than the tunnels, despite being absolutely packed with people. Well. Elves. Most elves where split off whispering in little protective huddles, about the size of our group, caked in grime, with wild eyes, and panicked breath swirling in the air before their faces. That’s probably how we looked too. Others, cleaner, stood in casual gatherings, talking just as quietly but far more calmly amongst themselves. ThirtySix picked his way over to a small gathering of elves, who all had yellow numbers on their backs, and red stripes up their sides. Leaving us gawping closer to the entrance.

At the far end of the dome a huge 10 by 10 grid of bronze placards starting halfway up the wall, proudly proclaimed 'Elf 00' at the bottom, all the way to 'Elf 99' at the top in cursive silver lettering. By each number was a set of two independently rolling wooden panels, with painted text on each.

I looked down at the tattoos on my wrists, and searched the ceiling; ‘Elf 43.’ Besides it was ‘Naughty’ in white, and, besides that… ‘Deceased.’ in dark carmine red letters. Fuck. Anxiety gnawed savagely at the walls of my stomach like a starved dog. I wasn’t sure what naughty meant, I mean, not good obviously, but… deceased? Dead? Is that what this is? Some sort of wintery purgatory? I glanced around the boards, deceased, deceased, deceased. Most where labelled ‘Nice’ also in white, though a few other elves bore ‘Naughty’ as well. Judgement for a life of sin? I wrung my hands, my palms where rough, calloused from work I hadn’t done, none of this made any sense, pain tinged behind my eyes, good god man are you about to cry? Pull yourself together! I took a shaky breath in, and an even breath out. Looked down at the floor. More concrete. Also white. I glanced back up at the boards, wait, one was different!

‘Elf 49 | Nice | 1^st Year.’

First year? Wait, there was more, the rest of row 40 where all ‘Deceased.’ but higher and lower, dotted about the board where different entries, lovingly marked in soft mint green paint. ‘1^st Year.’ ‘2^nd Year.’ ‘3^rd Year.’ That’s the highest I could find. Row 80 had nobody labelled ‘Deceased’. So, maybe not a purgatory after all.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”

Deep thunderous laugher rumbled the Snowglobe from behind me, vibrating through the floor, up my legs. Absolutely nothing I’d ever heard before had done that laugh justice. Each coughing howl was an ice pick, splitting the very air, sending cold energy prickling through the hairs up the back of my neck, and nervously shooting back down my spine.

I turned, feeling others doing the same and there, emerging from the same tunnel we’d come from, was. Well. Was Santa Clause, and he was huge, so tall his head nearly scraped the tunnel ceiling. Or perhaps it was us that where short, either way the cavernous tunnels had started to make more sense. I scarcely came up to his thighs. He wore a ruddy burgundy suit, streaked with soot, fluffy white trim charred and patchy, black leather belt stretched wide and low about his gut. A full grimy white beard obscured most of his face and chest, save for his icy blue glare beaming through half moon glasses from under his hat, which snaked down the back of his head. The ground quaked as he swaggered towards us, and I took several involuntary steps backwards, the sea of elves parting when he passed. I swallowed. Santa Clause. Father Christmas. I wouldn’t have believed it, but I was currently torn between actually having woken up an elf, having lost any semblance of marbles I had left under the bed somewhere, or, that I’d gone and died of Alcohol poisoning. Santa being real seemed like the best option of the three.

“And a HAPPY NEW YEAR!” I flinched as he bellowed when he reached the far wall, beneath the giant grid of elf number placards. His voice crashed up above our heads, ran around the curved ceiling and back down to earth again as he spun around, planting his massive black leather boots shoulder width apart with a sturdy thunk!thunk! He stood motionless for a moment, licked his lower lip, working his mouth, and swayed softly in place. God, was he drunk?

“First!” He suddenly barked “I wish to congratulate everyone for your hard work and dedication this past year, as always! Let’s let bygones, be bygones, a clean slate! A fresh start.” His voice made me feel small and insignificant like a dry leaf floating on a sea of rumbling gravel, as he finished talking he gently tapped a finger to his ruddy nose peeking out above his beard, and the air about his head seemed to shimmer, a faint ethereal green, it reminded me of heat haze and my eyes refused to focus on it.

Suddenly boards above his head began, one by one, whirling like spinning tops, snatching my attention and sending gusts of frigid air down into our faces, before slamming back to a standstill. I searched about the boards, at a glance, all the ‘Naughty’ entries now seemed to read ‘Nice.’

“But!” He continued. “No good deed goes unpunished! Ho Ho Ho!” It was hard not to quiver under his laugh, like some deep intrinsic animal part of me was screaming for me to run. “I want to specially congratulate, each and every one of you, those special few, who stuck it out this year, stayed by my side, through thick. And. Thin.” He slapped one great blocky fist into his, open palm, marking each word as he spoke. “Well Done!” He threw his arms wide. The green shimmering appeared again, now at his hands, it reminded me a little of the northern lights, and I caught it this time as it shot, barely visible, up into the air behind him. Fewer boards twirled than before, all of row 80 did though, and when they thudded back into place, I realised that the numbers had gone up. ‘1^st year’ to ‘2^nd year,’ ‘3^rd year’ to ‘4^th year.’

Santa chuckled. Which frankly, seemed much more genuine than his classic hollering. Then a dark smile took over his lips.

“Ahhh, but our new friends, new friends behind old faces, what welcome is this?” He spread his arms wide again, and I felt a quivering sliver of dread slip down my throat. “Yes, you must be confused. So confused.” He said solemnly. “Welcome!” Every instance of ‘Deceased’ suddenly twirled and whirled without warning, before crashing back into place one by one. I couldn’t rip my eyes from my number up on the wall.

‘Elf 43 | Nice | 1^st Year.’ I read, heart palpitating like a dying butterfly, drowning behind my ribs.

“Welcome, to the family!” He laughed again. But I’d started to feel hollow to it. “Fresh new ideas! Fresh soul! Truly, we’ll have such a wonderful year together! Do try to do better this time around though, so many disappointments last year. I’ll have my eye on you! All of you. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

I felt cold sweat start to swarm my neck, and sick swirling grimly from the back of my throat, sinking down my sternum, like a lead cannonball settling deep into my chest, below my lungs. The world seemed almost to swim in front of me. This time? Wonderful year? This happened before? A whole year? Could I leave? The numbers went up. First year. Second year. Goosebumps prickled up my forearms beneath my sleeves. And when they hadn’t they’d been dead. I looked down at my stomach, at the great crusty pool of blood marring my clothes. Old friends. Dead. No. This wasn’t me. I was- My name was- was-

“Oh god.” I murmured, slackjaw elves next to me turned their heads, “I can’t-” A low wail gurgled in the back of my alien throat, in my alien voice. “I can’t remember my name.” I glanced around, searching their faces for help, elves where looking from me to each other, one man to my left had started to shake slightly and he shouted something by brain refused to parse what it was. Voices rose in answer across the room. Like horses trapped in a slowly burning stable, the crowd of people began to thrash and kick around me, gaining speed and intensity. Panic bubbled over my head like water over the edge of a saucepan. Snippets of conversation flashed past, more voices, frantic, a man sobbing. Someone was shouting, maybe multiple someones, I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t breathe. My lungs just kept hitching, hitching and hitching. No air was coming in.

“Ho Ho Ho! Always a sight! And a Happy New Year!” That voice, that infernal voice drummed itself deep, deep into my ears wrapping clammy fingers round my brainstem, too loud, but too quiet, sound didn’t make sense. My hands where cold, my knees, cold. Concrete and white paint flecks beneath my fingers. My eyes stung. All I could see before me was floor. Legs. Boots. Movement. Santa said something else, but I couldn’t tell anyone what it was. His voice had turned to thrashing, terrified worms in my brain biting, writhing and screaming incomprehensible sounds into my psyche. Vaguely I felt someone grab my arm pulling me up off the floor, when had I got there? They pushed me into a huddle of elves. A few faces from when I woke up flashed past me in a blur. I couldn’t see. Oh. I thought, I might be crying. Lights overhead. Speakers. Pipes. Valves. Back in the tunnels. My fingers came away wet from my face. I rubbed my sleeves into my eyes, coarse, rough. I felt myself swept along, a canoe in rapids, round corners, along straights, twisting, turning, twisting and turning.

Bang!

A door slammed loudly behind me, ratcheting click!click!click!click! Shut. Then silence. The air felt warm, thick, heavy and humid. The first warmth since I’d woken up.

I stood stock still in the centre of a small room tasting the air, focusing on breathing, one of four in a tiny huddle, all clumped together in our filthy jumpsuits. Yellow lamps hung on wires, cast anaemic light over stained porcelain tiles. A small row of shower cubicles to the left. A small row of toilet cubicles to the right. A small row of sinks, with little mirrors, opposite the door.

The man, ThirtySix, leant lazily against one of the sinks, legs crossed, one boot propped up on top of the other. Another elf walked round from behind us, making me jump, crossed the room, leaning against another sink, leaving ThirtySix on the left, one sink between them, and the woman with the braid, from the doorway, back when I’d woken up, on the right. Absently she rubbed at the tattoo on her wrist with a thumb. 49.

“Well that went about as well as you’d expect.” The woman was sneering, but at what I didn’t know, she was looking at her wrist still. ThirtySix shrugged, absently dusting his sleeves.

“I think he enjoys it.” He replied. He looked more tired than I’d realised before, short hair neatly combed, jumpsuit buttoned all the way up to his neck, but with dark circles running rings beneath each eye. Slowly I worked my fingers open and closed, as the warmth of the room started to make them sting.

“Tch.” She clicked her tongue, her face was roundish, by elf standards, jumpsuit sleeves rolled up to the elbows, top button undone leaving a tiny triangle of skin at the base of her neck, long brown braid snaking round her front, drooping to her stomach.

Several seconds inched by, before I swallowed, tensed my jaw, hard, and stepped forward, putting myself in the middle of the room, between the pair by the sinks and the three elves behind me. Both their gazes locked in on me.

“What?” My voice faltered and died, it was so weird, so light, so foreign to me. I closed my eyes, breathed out, stretched my hands down to my sides, before clasping them up in front of my chest. I opened my eyes again. “What. What happened to me?” I could feel tears building pressure in my skull again. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually managed to cry past early teen-hood, but now they seemed to tumble out. Given the circumstances though, that seemed warranted.

FortyNine stopped thumbing her wrist, with a sharp intake of breath, and stared me in the eye. Her lips pursed into a tense thin line for several seconds, before she opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“I need a minute.” She finally said, stood and stalked out the room, arms ramrod straight at her sides, slamming the door behind her. The man, ThirtySix, sighed.

“She just.” He paused and rubbed his eyes with an index and thumb, as he waved his other hand in vague circles besides his head, before he sighed, spreading his hands, palms up, before himself with a faint shrug. “Pretty close to the last FortyThree. Y’know?”

I was about to inform him that no, I did not in fact know, in a fit of building exasperation, when something caught my eye.He may even have gone on to say something else, but I’d stopped listening. I stepped past him, fell forward and caught myself, clutching at the sink with both hands, swaying precariously, unable to wrench my gaze from the mirror.

My eyes where a deep almost mesmerising emerald green, this close to the mirror I could see glittery sparkling flecks drifting there, thousands of twinkling lights in my Irises. My hair was a murky, dirty blond. Pulled back, hard and up into a short pony tail I’d not even noticed this entire time, just cresting the base of my neck whenever I moved my head. My face was angular, sharp, but… soft. I looked like I’d run through a burning building, save where tears had run clean tracks through my grimy cheeks. A thin, vertical scar ran a light groove several inches through my skin from my left cheek up to my left temple. I gasped, still in slight disbelief as the figure mimicked me, and slowly brought a hand up to my throat at the sound I made. I looked myself up and down in the reflection, through the dirt, and the grime and the dishevelled jumpsuit, leaning on the sink for support. I stared into the mirror. And a wide eyed, female elf, stared me back.

Penelope-Namesley

Ahah! So that's how you do author notes, you lil sneakerish you.

Ahem. Anyway, you managed to stumble through the ramblings my brain produces when I accidentally encounter the genre that is "EPIC CHRISTMAS MUSIC!"

Congratulations, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

- Pen.