My hands shook against the porcelain, as I gazed into the mirror. I was a girl? Why? Santa’s sick amusement? Where all the others swapped about like this too? I tilted my head and traced my vertical scar idly with a fingertip. My face was smoother, and finger rougher than expected.

I tore my gaze away from my swirling elven eyes as a woman spoke, and sound crept back into my consciousness, like all the water had slowly drained from my ears.

“Is this… Me?” The elf who’d awoken in the bunk opposite me leant, a few inches shorter, on the sink beside me quivering. “Why is…” Warily, she extended a hand in disbelief, reaching for her reflection.

45, hung in the air, just visible, past the cuff of her sleeve.

Her index darted, a coiled snake, and bounced off the mirror with a light bmp!

She snatched her hand back from the wobbling reflection, a naive child dared to touch a stinging nettle. A single black fingerprint lingered on the glass.

“Why is. It can’t.” She shook her head, tousling short, grimy hair. “I. I-It.” She caught me looking at her. “It can’t.” Tears mingled with the flecks of light sparkling in her irises, as she desperately searched my face for answers.

But I couldn’t quite work any thoughts into coherent words for her. Fragments, ideas, whizzed round my head, broken and splintered. I briefly considered ‘Well it seems it can actually. Say, are you meant to be a man too?’ But that may well have shoved her nerves off a cliff. I shrugged, but found myself rooted in place.

Looking down, my arms where cold beams, fingers numb and knuckles white, locked, one with the sink.

My breath hitched, shuddering up my back as I forced myself to relax, fingers shuddered, twitching in the air, revealing grubby handprints abandoned on the porcelain.

I stared at each filthy palm, rising fog swirled like the start of a hurricane inside my head, rushing behind my ears.

I swallowed and turned on the water, my limbs shaky, almost overshooting the hot tap.

Slowly I scrubbed circles, hand over hand, palm under palm beneath freezing, stinging water, my thundering heart dropped down from between my ears, back into my chest.

I blinked evenly. Manually. Counting my fingers.

By the time the water ran clear, the tap was nearly lukewarm. I shut it off, with the short sharp squeal of protesting metal.

This wasn’t… me, these hand weren’t mine, my limbs felt… alien. Wrong. But, panicking wasn’t helping. I needed to be calm. I shuddered subconsciously.

The male elf, 36, reflected in reverse across his back in the mirror, still leant propped against the sink to my left. He gave me a weak smile, that didn’t quite reach up to his eyes and a little nod, before he clapped his hands. I flinched, a shockwave tittering down the back of my neck.

“Right!” he bounced up, onto his feet. “There’s not really a subtle way I can put this. So, as I’m sure you all probably noticed,” he motioned towards me and the three other bewildered elves in turn “you are all now one of Father Christmas’s elves. One of one hundred.” He spread his arms, not quite wide enough to be considered confident, hands splayed, an awkward smile pained his face. “Welcome to the North Pole.”

I looked around the group who’d been bundled and dragged into the bathroom with me.

The shorter woman beside me crossed her arms, shrinking even smaller. A stocky man with broad shoulders and grey flecks poking through the dirt in his hair, stood by the door frowning. And a tall, skinny, elf almost vibrated in place, intent on squirming himself as deep into the corner opposite the sinks as he could. All of us looked like we’d spent the previous five days in a bar fight, save no wounds. Except my scar. No recent wounds I corrected.

“Ahem, well,” the elf continued, coughing into his fist, “if you haven’t already, you should find your numbers on your arms.” He held up his hand, tugging down his sleeve for emphasis, 36, emblazoned into his skin, I rubbed a thumb idly across my own tattoo, 43. “My name, or at least what you can call me, is ThirtySix.” He held his other hand out flat, beneath his wrist, as if showing off an artefact on display. “It never quite becomes normal. But it does… become more mundane, I suppose. With time.”

“Hm.” The stocky elf grunted and frowned pensively, ThirtySix raised his eyebrows at him, but the other elf simply folded burly forearms before his stomach, hands on elbows, mouth pursed.

“This, er, probably seems a bit slapdash, not usually quite so many new arrivals all in one team, but last year saw rather, ahem,” he cleared his throat again, juggling his hands, miming an imaginary set of counterweight scales. “Unprecedented. Losses. Leaving just Miss FortyNine-” The door swung open with a clunk, and he leaned sideways towards it, motioning with a flat hand “-nice, of you to join us.”

The woman with the braid, gave a fake, mirthless smile as she kicked the door gently closed behind her with a heel, a black drawstring bag slung over one shoulder.

“Anyway. I’ll be helping FortyNine,” he jabbed his thumb towards the newcomer “oversee Fourth Squadron now and then. At least until you all settle in.” He frowned to himself. “That’s um,” he pointed vaguely about the room, “that’s you. Half of you. There should be ten, but the big guy will be wanting… Some words… With any new arrivals kicking up a fuss in the Snowglobe.”

He clapped his hands twice, and beamed cheerily. “Right! Any questions?”

My head swirled in a haze of half finished thoughts and ideas as I tried to formulate words. Elves, the North Pole, what the fuck.

I took a breath to say something, but the short mousy woman with 45 on her wrist beat me to it.

“I am- I am not a number.” She shook beside me, paused, and brushed her hands down her jumpsuit. “That’s not me.” She pointed vehemently at the mirror behind her. “I can’t- You took my name, I can’t- My heads all messed up.” She trailed off, voice wavery.

“None of us can remember our names from before.” ThirtySix shrugged softly, his brows crinkled gently.

The broad, stocky elf broke the silence, raising his hand like a pupil in school. 40 branded across his massive wrist.

“Why numbers though?” His voice was gruff, I could nearly feel the deep vibration of his chest half a room away. “And you two’ve obviously been here a while.” He pointed between FortyNine and ThirtySix with his other hand. “If you can’t remember. Why not just… Choose a new one?” He shrugged.

“You wanna pick a nice new name, be my guest.” FortyNine leant back on the door, and gently knocked her head back against the steel. “If you, or anyone else, can remember what in hell you picked after an hour or so, come holler.” She pursed her mouth, and chewed the inside of her cheek. “Would love to hear how you did it.”

“You should remember most things though.” ThirtySix cut across her with a hand. “Memories of who you where, people you knew, aheh, If you don’t, or if you experience any sudden nosebleeds in the next day or so though, do, come let us know.” He chuckled. I felt uneasy worming in my stomach that he wasn’t quite joking.

“What do you want from us?” The skinny elf from the corner burst out morosely. “Please, just let me go.” He trailed off when he noticed people had turned to look at him, and studied the floor tiles between his boots, “I just wanna go home…”

“I’m with him.” I pointed. FortyNine flinched, the barest of movement, in the corner of my eye. “I’ve people depending on me, hell I’ve got kids.” I tapped my chest for emphasis. Ugh, let’s not do that again. “I get the weekend with them next week, that’s my chance to make it up to them! I can’t be here.” I looked down at myself, the unfamiliar way the grimy fabric of the Jumpsuit lay.

I tried pitching my voice lower. “I can’t be here.”

“Yeah well, tough shit. If I could I wouldn’t be here right now either.” FortyNine spat, shaking as she spoke. She looked away. “You think you’re the only one with family you can never go back to?” ThirtySix shot her a glare, and very gently shook his head, she threw her hands out into the air front of her. “We don’t have time for this Thirty! January raids are probably going to start in like, a week.”

“Are you done?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

She crossed her arms.

ThirtySix turned back to me. “I’m afraid you can’t just leave.” He looked back to the tall terrified lump of elf in the corner. “None of us can.” He shrugged with a gentle smile. The skinny elf whimpered.

“Couldn’t have that.” FortyNine sighed and flicked her braid over one shoulder while she glared at the floor. “Gotta’ have fodder for his endless Krampus, pissing match doesn’t he?” She lolled her head against the door, like someone had deflated all the air from her.

“Like… evil Santa Krampus?” The lanky elf in the corner stuttered after a moment, crossing and uncrossing his arm repeatedly, 48, laying them by his sides, then crossing them again, like he’d just been handed a new set of limbs. Which, actually. All of us had. FortyNine snorted.

“Kinda. They look pretty similar. More like a family feud thing.”

“So, what. We’re stuck here forever?” FortyFive chimed in next to me.

“Stuck, yes, forever no.” ThirtySix jumped in again. “Impress Santa enough over the course of the year, and he may well return one of you home.”

“Allegedly.” FortyNine quipped.

“Oh for- Last year nearly everyone died FortyNine.” ThirtySix snapped, whirling his head towards her. “Not exactly stellar performance.” FortyNine narrowed her eyes, and continued to gently rock her head against the door.

“I can’t. I can’t be here for a whole year.” FortyFive whimpered, her throat slowly strangling her voice.

“Hey. This’ll be my second.” FortyNine gave her a half-hearted smile.

ThirtySix closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his tense, probably supposed to be reassuring, demeanour was back.

“And my third.” He gave her a tiny two finger wave.

I fell back against the sink and looked at the floor between wobbly knees. It felt like someone had deliberately crashed a runaway train into my abdomen, and was sat cross legged at the site of the derailment, casually tallying up the casualties, monitoring my reaction. There was almost an entire minute before anyone spoke again.

“You said dead.” FortyFive murmured. She looked up with more intensity. “What do you mean, dead.” She clutched her shoulder.

Beneath her hand, was a small brown circle, dried and bloody, like the patch plastered across my stomach. There where more. Spaced evenly every few inches, little bloody stains tracing a horizontal dot-the-dot line just beneath her collarbones. Something clenched in my throat.

The two clean elves looked at each other, then glanced around the bathroom avoiding anyone’s gaze. ThirtySix ran a hand through his neatly combed hair and sighed.

“There are one hundred elves at Santa’s disposal.” He clasped his hands together in front of his chest, fingers grinding together audibly. “And it’s always the same one hundred elves.”

“Dead means dead. Very. Does what it says on the tin.” FortyNine drew a line across her neck with her thumb. I felt myself almost unconsciously touching my stomach, the fabric was crusty and rigid.

“When someone- When one of us- Dies. Santa makes you bring back them back, dunno where he keeps the corpses.” She stood stock still and stared up at the ceiling. “Gets to the end of the year, he brings them out again, lays everyone out in bed, tucks em’ in.” She closed her eyes, breathing in slow and deep. “Come the first of January everyone jumps up alive again. Just. It’s not the same.”

She tapped an index to her temple, still staring up at the ceiling, eyes closed. “Not the people you knew. Someone else at the wheel.”

She opened her eyes and I found her looking right at me. She looked away.

Water tapped against the floor methodically in one of the shower cubicles, marking time as it dragged by.

I stared at my boots, at their worn brown leather. Ratty laces. Grime, soot, burns, blood. Shoes someone died in. I shuddered. A mixture of disgust and guilt intertwined as queasy, sickly, cake batter, thick and oozing, stirred with a wooden spoon in my gut. I spread my hands, palms up and looked at them.

43.

Me.

Arrived to take their place.

“Why so many?” The stocky elf, Forty, finally broke the silence. Raising his hand again. “Elves? Santa Claus? ‘Unprecedented losses?’” He motioned air quotes with his index fingers. “And those boards back there in the big igloo thing. What’s so dangerous about making toys?”

The two more experienced elves looked at one another for a moment.

“We don’t make toys. He doesn’t deliver toys.” FortyNine finally replied. “Maybe he did once, I don’t know.” She shrugged and glanced over to ThirtySix who shrugged back. “We maintain the Pole. Defend it. Prepare for his great big assault on the South Pole at the end of the year.” She frowned after a pause, clicking her thumbnails together. “Be careful not to get on his bad side.” She added.

My mouth felt dry, as I felt the last vestiges of Santa’s hacking laugh, echo about my skull.

“S-so you’re all soldiers then, is that it?” FortyEight pawed at sweat beading the sides of his neck.

“No. We’re his elves.” FortyNine answered him simply. Like that answered more questions than any endless explanation ever could.

“We should probably change the subject.” ThirtySix said quietly, glancing around the ceiling as he stepped closer to FortyNine. “Come on!” He continued louder, and held his hand out to her.

She swung the drawstring bag off her shoulder and passed it into his open hand. “Everyone get cleaned up, and we’ll give you the tour. Probably be easier to just show you the Pole anyway.” He pulled fresh green jumpsuits out the bag one by one, checked the numbers on their backs and chucked one to each of us. “There’s hooks on the inside of each shower door.” I caught a jumpsuit with both hands with a thwp! Against my stomach.

 

---

 

Okay.

It’s just a shower. I squashed all lingering thoughts of Krampus, Father Christmas, the previous dead occupant of my body and whatever fresh hell a January Raid might be, as far into the back of my brain as I could.

A hand-pumped bottle of unmarked liquid soap balanced on a short horizontal section of pipe, running between two taps. One hot, one cold, stabbed through the wall through two orange splotches of rust.

A long vertical pipe shot up between them to the top of the cubicle, before craning back down towards me, the shower head itself a permanent fixture of crusty limescale.

Raised yellowed plastic cut the cubicle horizontally in half before my feet, slicing grimy floor tiles into a tiny square for showering, blotted by a black mouldy plughole, and the even tinier rectangle I was standing in, to prevent water flowing out under the door.

Okay.

It’s just a shower. The hiss of spitting water sounded from another cubicle, along with a small yelp.

Slowly steam began to swirl over head, flowing through the gaps between the not-quite-ceiling-height wall panels. I kicked off my boots, slid them close to the door with a foot and tucked my socks them into my shoes. I swung my arms, and rocked on my heels, my collar felt hot. Dank.

Just a shower. I could do this.

“FortyThree! Get on with it, we haven’t got all day!” I jumped when rusty hinges rattled their plastic frames as ThirtySix thumped outside on the door.

“R-Right!”

I spun both taps, the shower head fizzled, spat, and lurched. Before dumping a heavy plume of rainfall to the floor, spattered about my ankles.

Tentatively, I raised quivering hands below my neck, and started undoing buttons.

It was slow going, manually trying to judge distances with my new fingers, especially where I couldn’t easily see them, and the buttons round my middle where significantly harder. Dried blood made the fabric stiff, like being clothed in tough cardboard. I craned my head, trying to see underneath the mound of my chest, which I’d rather not have been addressing at all.

Frustration burned, smarting behind blurred eyes. Eventually I huffed and gave up instead, shuffled my way free, and kicked the jumpsuit ungracefully over my discarded boots.

I swallowed, left wearing a well worn black t-shirt, with a dim smear round my stomach just barely visible against the dark cloth, and black cloth cycling shorts. I felt a bead of sweat run down my neck.

My entire shape was… Curvy. Not that curvy but still… Curvy.

Uneasy swirling overtook my belly. I squinted my eyes, and partially peeled up the t-shirt with a forefinger and thumb. Blood flaked off in coppery leaves from a rough semicircular stain dominating my abdomen, at it’s centre, a jagged patch of clean skin about four inches long, one inch tall, the ghostly imprint of a missing wound.

I brushed my fingers against the clean patch. My skin was cushiony soft, belying hard core muscle underneath. Unblemished. Not a trace of any scar.

I stared at the falling water dead ahead and took a deep, steadying, breath.

Okay.

Wincing, I cupped my boobs in my hands, and lifted.

My entire body suddenly crawled, skin a loose burlap sack, sliding and baggy, out of place, dragging roughly over muscle, bone and tendons with an itchy scrawling. Queasily I eased my hands away. I stared at the water like it might take a swing at me.

Fuckit.

T-shirt. Off. Black sports bra… over my head. Off. Okay. Shorts, wriggled down my legs, and kicked off to the side. My chest moved again, a queasy shudder ran up the inside of my spine into my ribs, bizarre, and squishy.

Motionless, I stopped, and stared up at the ceiling. Condensation formed droplets barely clung to the smooth surface.

Fuckit-Fuckit-Fuckit-Fuckit.

I looped my thumbs into either side of the elastic waistband of my underwear, which may or may not have been knickers. I wasn’t in a good mood to check. Dropped into a little crouch, still staring firmly upwards, and whipped off my underwear, down, up, over my knees, onto the floor and hopped forward in one smooth motion.

Where I caught a downpour of utterly freezing, arctic water, right to the face.

“H-Hoh! Fufu-fuck!”

My lungs revolted, my entire torso shook and complained like I’d fielded a brick with my sternum in an especially violent, especially stupid, game, of cricket or rounders or baseball or- or something, anything, where you had to run around and catch a stupid bloody ball. Fuck was it cold.

Blindly, I groped for the taps swearing and gasping whenever I could manage to draw breath, like a T-Rex, forearms crossed in an ‘x’ across my chest, pulling hard and up to prevent anything else moving again.

I breathed deeper, slower, as the water that pelted my face rose in temperature, and leant my head back, still squarely staring to the ceiling. Muscles I hadn’t even realised carried tension, expanded, as they relaxed in my back.

It was… nice.

I sighed into the warmth, as a layer of oil slivered out my hair, down my back, and water ate at latherings of filth. A wispy smile graced my lips.

It had been weeks since I’d last showered. But that was my old body. My old self. A lifetime ago.

Chloe was probably in the, swear to never drink again and ignore the moron who left an ungodly number of drunk voicemails, stage of the hangover. Come to think of it, I had no idea what time-zone the north pole even was, relative to her. Maybe my abandoned mobile was already patiently waiting with a text. Maybe she’d given me a few days to dry out instead.

The cubicle swam around me in circles with the water. I leant heavy and light-headed against the wall on one splayed palm, hell, maybe she’d just turn up in a week to drop off the girls. Find out then. If we where even still on for that after my behaviour.

A burbled sob wracked my ribs and shot past my lips, I nearly collapsed in surprise, leant harder against the wall, and slapped my other hand over my mouth in shock. Tension shook my increasingly heavy limbs in waves, cascading up my back. Again, and again, I tensed every muscle I had against it, to absorb it. My legs revolted.

I fell into a little crouch, throat hic’ing. I tucked my head between my knees and screwed my eyes tight shut, arms wrapped about my back, nails dug firm into my shoulder blades, and shook, violently, in a ball as raw, ragged emotion, welled in my chest in endless waves, over and over. I squeezed myself tighter and tighter, but it wouldn’t stop. It refused to be boxed up. Packaged.

A sob hiccuped it’s way out my throat. I bit my tongue. Another one came, and I bit down hard on my fingers. I tasted copper. When a third came, I was gone.

I cried.

Properly cried.

I cried so much it was hard to tell where tears became water or water became tears. The tears themselves couldn’t have cared less. Wracked by painful, wordless sobs, I was a dam, shattered under a deluge of emotion, pouring out of me and disappearing down the drain until there was nothing left. Bare. Small. Empty. Tired.

So tired.

I opened my eyes, ruddy brown water slipped lazily through the drain between my toes. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been there.

I sniffed, and nearly laughed at the absurdity, breathing a heavy steady sigh. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually cried like that. Let something out.

Shakily I stood and pulled at my hairband, tugging a few hairs out with it. I’d always braced against emotions when they came, knowing eventually they’d dissipate into the ever present, swirling mist staining my soul. That no longer seemed to work. My ponytail collapsed about my face, just millimetres past my shoulders.

Despite everything, I felt… lighter.

I looked about, holding the hairband awkwardly, for a few seconds, before I slipped it over my wrist and squirted pump after pump of soap into my hand.

I hoped it was two in one, not that there was any alternative. Gradually I worked my hands in spongy circles over my head, until my hair turned light, fluffy, and free under my fingers.

 

---

 

Cold air prickled my spine when I finally shut off the taps. The shower helped. As I stood, shivering, undoing the buttons of the new jumpsuit hanging on it’s hook, I felt more me. More human. Than I think I’d felt in a long time. Which was ironic, I touched a fingertip to one of my pointed ears.

I found fresh socks, underwear, shorts, sports bra and a t-shirt bundled inside the replacement jumpsuit, identical to the set I’d taken off, sans blood.

When I finally shouldered open the cubicle, old clothes packed inside the filthy jumpsuit under my arm, FortyFive was towelling her hair dry over the sink, a beige, oval hair dryer in the other hand. FortyNine looked up, tapping her foot steadily as she leant against the wall. The male elves nowhere to be seen.

I hadn’t noticed the hairdryers earlier, like old landlines, one was stamped between each mirror, camouflaged against the tiles, curly beige cables disappearing into the wall. “And she returns.” FortyNine drawled.

FortyFive smiled at me, her eyes tinged slightly red. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who’d found themselves slightly emotional.

FortyNine frowned as I approached. “Three, wring out your hair.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s the North Pole. You’ll…” she trailed off as if remembering something important “… freeze.”

“O-Oh.”

I suddenly became painfully aware of water, soaking out my hair and down my back, inside the fresh jumpsuit. My cheeks burned hot as I turned my face away from her and squeezed clumps of my hair, warm water running out like a sponge, onto the floor.

If I’d been a real girl I’d probably have considered that. She passed me a towel and I threw the rough starchy fabric over my head, and retreated sheepishly towards the mirrors.

 

---

 

I trailed FortyNine, side by side with FortyFive our boots echoed in clattered unison, through the dim, cavernous tunnels, our breath misting the air.

As we finally rounded a turn, I saw FortyEight nervously bounced his leg, leaning against the tunnel wall. Forty, much more confidently, stood arms crossed, saying something I couldn’t hear to ThirtySix.

All three waited outside yet another steel door, like several we’d passed already, studded into the tunnel walls. Bulging drawstring bags slung across their backs.

“Took your time.” ThirtySix raised his eyebrows as we approached, but his tone was light. “I should probably be getting back to the third.” FortyNine nodded as he passed her, and he shot her a short sideways wave. “Leave you to it.”

His figure shrank stark against the soaring ceilings until he disappeared, consumed around a bend.

It wasn’t until FortyNine opened the door and spread the tunnel with light, that I recognised the barracks from the morning. I picked past the raised threshold and followed last, after FortyFive.

Forty and FortyEight stood awkwardly, milling about, just outside the doorway.

Two depressing rows of uniform rusty bed frames, ten to a side, lined the semi-cylindrical room, separated by a gangway down the centre. Wooden trunks nearly half the size of each bed bore our respective numbers carved into them in tiny elegant script, to mark the foot of each bed. I couldn’t discern any particular order to which bed went where, lain out neat, but shuffled randomly.

A bronze plaque, similar to the ones in the Snowglobe, only, without the spinning wooden backing board on the far wall read ‘40 ~ 59.’

A sad Christmas tree, bare, save a single looping band of burgundy tinsel, drooped in the corner.

“Well. Home sweet home,” FortyNine sauntered to the end of the room, “you’ll want those.” She pointed to the grimy sheets on the floor by my bed, as she passed, still laying where I’d left them.

She kicked open a chest at the foot one of the end beds, by the Christmas tree. “Should be a laundry bag in your trunk.” She called, as she rummaged inside the box.

FortyFive exchanged a glance up at me, and shrugged before she opened the chest of the bed opposite mine, and pulled out a large black canvas bag, identical to the one FortyNine had brought to the bathroom, and the ones boys outside wore.

I knelt and opened my chest, with the grate of rusty iron hinges, I propped the wooden lid against the end of the bed.

I grabbed another, identical bag, lain neatly over the bulk of the chest’s contents like a tarp.

The underside of the lid had a little storage tin clipped to it, and a netted pouch compartment, stuffed with pairs of knickers, sports bras and socks, all black. The left side of the main compartment had three green jumpsuits like the one I wore, and the dirty one, bundled with clothes under my arm, sporting 43, in white across their backs, neatly folded into squares. Sets of black t-shirts and cloth cycling shorts placed carefully atop each. An empty rectangular space, for two more sets of clothes. The right side of the chest was dominated by spare folded bedding, and a clean pair of brown leather boots.

I stuffed the filthy bloodstained clothes into my drawstring bag, and snatched a look over my shoulder. The two women had already started to strip their own beds of old linen, FortyFive had nearly finished, operating with assured efficiency.

As I stood up to do the same, something small and wooden slipped free of folded linen between my hands, and landed with a soft clonk!

I frowned, propping the sheets on one knee and dropped my other to the cold concrete floor. Gently, I plucked a small wooden statue from the ground.

It had the smooth head of a penguin, with a sharp distinguished beak. I ran my thumb down his front, the little penguin body became more roughshod the further down I went, splinters bristled my calloused skin, until eventually melding into a standard square block of wood around his tummy.

FortyFive, finished fluffing her pillow with a fresh case behind me with a pwff.

I tucked the little unfinished penguin under one of the sets of clothes. Dropped the lid of the chest shut, and latched it closed.

 

--- 

 

By the time I walked into what could have passed itself off as any dingy, school canteen; I was utterly, physically and emotionally, exhausted.

Elves crowded about circular tables with metal backed chairs, anaemic beneath harsh florescent lamp poles, that swung from the ceiling. Conversation buzzed nervous and light. A mixture of casual resignation and weary tiredness on various faces.

The back of my neck prickled with clammy sweat beneath the taut hair of my ponytail as the four of us followed FortyNine in single file across the room. I’d finally managed to redo my hair, albeit lopsidedly, after several hours of it getting in my eyes.

After a whistle-stop tour of the tunnels, through various bathrooms, laundry rooms, maintenance rooms and supply cupboards, the Pole was much like an anthill from what I could tell, FortyNine had brought us back to the Snowglobe. Armed with splintered wooden handled mops. The echoing concrete igloo had been completely devoid of life. Bootprints and black smudges criss crossed across the floor, like a giant toddler had been let loose for hours with a lump of charcoal.

ThirtySix waved from a table as we entered the room, surrounded by elves, various numbers in the thirties in white, unlike his yellow, stamped across their backs. But he didn’t get up. Third squad, presumably.

My neck burned, and my entire spine throbbed from stooping over the wooden mop.

I'd scrubbed the rough, concrete, snowglobe floor with sudsy water for hours, the rough, unvarnished wood had bit deep into my palms, chewing deeper with every push of the mop. I had no doubts, if I’d still been in my old body, my hands would have long become ruined and bloody, collapsed long before the klaxons from the morning had wailed again, and an indifferent robotic voice had clattered;

“WORK QUOTA SUCCEEDED. THANK YOU, FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

Over the intercom.

I’d been too exhuasted, swaying to and fro with, knackered, lightheaded relief to think much of it at the time… But later unnerved prickling had pittered up my neck. I’d not seen a window all day and the lights never changed, it was exceptionally hard to tell what time it was in the pole. That felt intentional. There was likely only one man who knew how long we’d be working each day the coming year.

I glanced at other tables as we neared a counter top with steel buffet style serving bowls. Each table seemed to be grouped by squad. Only a maximum of one elf to a table ever had yellow numbers across their back, and red pinstripes up their sides.

The four of us pooled to a stop behind FortyNine, collecting in a puddle.

I watched over the top of FortyFive’s head in disbelief while my stomach cried. FortyNine grabbed a grey moulded plastic tray, with multiple inbuilt bowls, as both Forty and FortyEight peered over my shoulders.

“What?” Forty rumbled, his low mutter vibrated, permeating, through my back.

FortyNine smirked, as she picked out undecorated gingerbread men from one of two large bowls, stacked like playing cards. The second largest bowl was bursting with candy canes, while several smaller bowls dotted about the counter, all picked bare, with at most a few cracked smarties, in little puddles of their own smeared chocolate and shell crumbs.

My stomach creaked and twisted into a rather, irked, hungry, knot. The idea of sweets made me feel ever so slightly sick. “Where’s the food food?” Forty nearly sputtered sputtered behind me.

“Is what it is.” FortyNine sang, casually picking out candy canes, and snapping off their hooks, putting the curved parts back. I wasn’t sure how hygienic that was. “Might not seem it, but it’ll give you energy.” She sauntered off with her tray, and found a space at an empty table in the centre of the room.

FortyEight grinned at the three of us. Swooping up a tray, he grabbed massive handfuls of gingerbread men, and piled them high into a mound on his tray, before stabbing it with candy canes, like a rather demented hedgehog, dumped the last few dregs of smarties over his creation, and almost skipped off, after FortyNine.

Forty looked disparaging back and forth from FortyFive to me, before he shrugged, with both his shoulders and his eyes. I gave him a concerned smile, glossed over the trays, and swiped a single gingerbread man. My gut rolled, as I followed an unusually chipper FortyEight.

“Is it always just sweets?” I swung my legs round one of the small metal backed chairs, integrated into the table.

“More or less. Hope you have a sweet tooth.” FortyNine drizzled icing from a little sachet from a pot at the centre of the table, which in any regular establishment, might have contained ketchup. I looked down at my gingerbread man in dismay.

“Won’t we all need fillings?” I asked, eyeing FortyEight as he almost bounced in his chair like a child, shovelling crumbled gingerbread handfuls into his mouth.

“Hmm. Never thought of that.” FortyNine said, laying straight sections of candycane across the gingerbread man, before placing another gingerbread man on top, a sort of sugary sausage sarnie. “Apparently’ not.” She shrugged. “Elf thing I guess.” She took a bite of her concoction with an unnerving Cccrack!!

I nibbled the head off my gingerbread man. It melded into flat, bland, cardboard between my teeth. Far more bread than ginger.

I glanced around at other tables as FortyFive took her seat next to me. Newcomers sat awkwardly on the edges of old friendships, failing to quite assimilate. Most tables bore full squads, one or two also had empty seats.

None quite as barren as ours though…

“What actually happened to the other er… Forties elves?” I asked and waved a hand over the five empty seats. FortyNine snorted.

“When you hit Santa in the face with your boot, you don’t get to go on the nice welcome tour.” Her voice was sarcastic, but her smirk was the most genuine I’d seen her look the entire day.

“Ohhhh. Miss Niiinnee~.”

A deep voice rumbled into the room like a coasting miasma, crawling deep, with tendrils, into my ears. FortyNine looked quite suddenly ill.

My eyes burst wide, almost involuntarily, as I spun my head towards the door.

“Tut, tut. My ears. Are. Burning.” Santa Claus, squeezed into the room. A cross between a parent coming to visit his children in the wendyhouse, and the slow thundering, inevitable, approach that marked the start of a landslide. His voice, rolled, deep in the back of his throat, several elves whose numbers ended in Nine, had dropped their heads, almost onto the tables.

FortyNine swallowed, still gripping her ‘sandwich,’ a single crack splintered across the gingerbread beneath her fingers as the thrum of conversation all but died. Entire tables fell silent.

Vibrations rattled through the floor into my seat as he walked towards us, his burgundy coat flowed behind him, far fresher than before, no trace of soot or burns, the white trim, probably real fur of some kind, as fluffy as his beard. Trays clattered against polished steel surfaces, juddering and clinking, with every step.

Twinkly icy blue eyes burned with intensity behind his glasses, momentarily, his gaze locked with mine. He smiled. Warm, grandfatherly, almost.

I snapped my head away, my stomach tumbled into a pit like someone had pulled my chair out from under me.

Four elves bobbed behind him, like baby ducks beholden to their mother, tiny in comparison. “Please.” He spoke slowly, injecting syllables one by one into my skull as he loomed above our table.

My stomach sank lower and lower, hairs prickling cold up my back as he spread his left hand wide, casting a shadow over our heads, each arm easily thicker than my entire torso. “Sit.”

The agonising stares of other tables burned silently into us as the four, filthy, new arrivals skittered into seats without a word, heads down, hands in laps. Only one space was left spare, silhouetted against the open door across the room.

Santa Claus gradually circled the table, a giant finger, dragged, across the back of each chair he passed with sandpaper’s rasp. He passed over the empty space, digits floating in the air, until he came to a stop and turned, directly behind FortyNine.

He grinned and clamped heavy fingers down over each of her shoulders, dwarfing her head.

She hunkered down even further under the weight, and put her food down, face blank. “To think, instigators again, Miss Nine?” He, softly clicked his tongue with a shake of his head.

He wet his lips, and slowly leaned in close, mouth hovering, inches above her ear. “Your squad,” his breath skittered loose strands of her hair across her impassive face. “Are we not happy to see them back again? Hmm?” He cooed.

FortyNine took on an even clammier, sicklier, pallor as he spoke. She swallowed. His eyes darted between us, over her shoulder.

“Oh! Ecstatic, sir!” She turned to face him, not quite meeting his gaze, her head bent back as far as it could away from his face, with his hands firmly planted either side of her neck. “It’s good to meet you all.” Her eyes darted round the table at the newcomers, and back to not quite looking at Santa. “So, so nice, to have them back.” After a few seconds she beamed a massive smile. “Thank you, Santa.”

I snatched glances at the four new arrivals, three men, one woman, all stock still, arms by their sides. Filthy. They clearly hadn’t been given the chance to wash.

“Why, you’re most, most, welcome little one.” Santa continued. The new elf closest to me, a ginger, sharp faced man, hair cropped short, with slender rectangular glasses, glanced up, and back down to the table.

A tiny, almost invisible, dusting of wet red speckles, caught the light and glittered across his cheek and down his neck as he moved. “Do try keep a better handle on them this year, hmm?” Santa rumbled.

“Yes, sir.”

Santa Claus glanced my direction for a millisecond with the ghost of a smirk, before throwing back his head.

“Ho Ho Ho!”

If some deep animalistic part inside me hadn’t screamed for me to freeze, I might have bolted before his breath could even have had the chance to wash over me, the hacking rasp of a serial smoker permeated my senses, laced with a musky sweet smell I couldn’t identify.

FortyNine only barely flinched as he lifted his hands, and bounced in place, like she was the worn suspension of an old car, heavy passengers suddenly removed.

“Optimism.” Santa tapped his nose, and winked at no one in particular. “Ahh, It’s such a wonderful trait.” He sighed down at us, before he continued to circle the rest of the table.

FortyNine visibly breathed again when he finally moved back into her line of sight.

Santa stopped again, a heavy palm rested on the back of the final empty chair. He looked pointedly to each of the new comers at the table. “I do trust we won’t have any more troubles.”

His fingers dragged agonisingly on the unoccupied metal as he turned, leaving a dark red smear several inches across.

Santa Claus waved to other tables as he walked towards the door, his retreating figure framed by the elves sitting either side of the empty chair. Halfway across the room he turned and tapped two fingers off his nose, looking back at us. His entire body shimmered. Morphing and twisting into a swirling tornado of thousands of magical green flecks held together with heat haze.

The stream of glittery light rushed up and around the ceiling, like a hornets swarm, creating huge gusts of wind and sending napkins fluttering and lights flickering, before it finally thundered out through the door like a train barrelling through a tunnel. As it disappeared, the door slammed shut, with enough force to jump the table.

Lights swung from their cables for several moments, plinking audibly on and off. Only silence and rattled elves in his wake.

I let loose a shaky breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. Nobody moved for a several seconds, before gradually conversation started to stutter, back into the cold air.

FortyNine pushed her tray towards the centre of the table and stood. A faint bloody handprint ghosted her shoulder. Her boots tapped almost too quiet to be heard as she crossed the room. The door closed behind her with a quiet clunk,click-click! The eight of us, left alone at the table.

FortyFive lightly shivered next to me. FortyEight seemed to be attempting not to retrieve portions of his gingerbread creation from his stomach. The four newcomers sat in silence, the ginger man took off his glasses, cleaning them against his cuffs. Forty leant his head into his hands, eyes buried in his palms.

I couldn’t tear my gaze from the bloody smear left behind by Santa’s hand. Fluttery barbedwire butterflies swirled, writhed, and angrily chiselled at the undersides of my ribs.

A napkin fell and blocked the stain from view.

I looked up, and half expected Father Christmas to be back. Looming there.

“It’s ah, early start tomorrow.” ThirtySix smiled meekly.

He swiped the napkin across the chair, revealing clean bare metal. “Try to get some sleep, yeah?”

He daintily folded the napkin, between his fingertips, and tucked it softly into his jumpsuits top pocket. He opened his mouth to say something else, but no words came out. He shrugged, and picked up FortyNine’s discarded tray.

I stared at the back of the empty chair, the metal glistened, sparkling under the harsh overhead lights. All sins wiped clean.