Part one of the SANTA Triptych.

The snow crunches be­neath your boots. It glit­ters as it waves through the yel­low lights of the street­lamps.

You glance left. Right. You try to catch your breath.

Peek around the cor­ner—

You jerk your head back. Your heart jolts. The flash of red echoes around your mind.

What if it was her, you can’t help but think, but you know it was­n’t. It could­n’t have been her.

It was them.

You try to quiet your breath­ing. The al­ley ahead… hide there?

You try to move qui­etly, but these boots, these aw­ful, bulky boots crunch so loudly in the snow. You know they must have heard you; you know every­one for miles must have heard you…

You’re sure you’d re­move the boots if you could. You’d rather brave the snow in bare feet. You can’t. The boots are as stuck on you as the white beard upon your face. You never wanted the boots, just as you never wanted the the beard, but there they are, and there it is.

You never got a choice. No con­script does.

Any­one’s son, any­one’s daugh­ter, it does­n’t mat­ter. If they are Cho­sen, they be­come like you. They get the boots. The beard. The cloak. The hat.

They are con­scripted.

You peek into the al­ley­way. Empty. Duck in­side. Tall, dark stone build­ings tower above.

“Santa?”

You gasp. Flat­ten your­self against a wall.

A crack of light shines throw a barely-opened door. A child’s eyes gaze through the crack, search­ing.

“Santa?” the child calls again.

“Ryan? Ryan, close the door!” hisses a ter­ri­fied voice from in­side. A man peeks out. He spots you. His hand darts to his mouth.

“I’m ter­ri­bly sorry, Santa, he’s just a kid, he did­n’t mean any­thing, please for­give, please… Please no coal… He’s just a kid…”

“Don’t call me Santa,” you re­ply, au­to­mat­i­cally.

Then, you re­mem­ber where you are. Who you are run­ning from.

You dart into the shad­ows.

“Dad, I want to talk to Santa,” whines the kid.

“Shh!” His fa­ther closes the door. The blinds. The lights.

You run.

You can’t run home. You can’t run to fam­ily.

They think you should ac­cept your fate. You were con­scripted. It’s your duty. It’s what they raised you for.

You never even got a name. Just “Santa.”

You were made to start watch­ing your sib­lings by the time you were five. They made you start watch­ing your par­ents when you were seven.

You knew when they slept. You know when they woke. You knew when they were good… Or…

At first, it was just the way it was. You were a Santa. One of SAN­TA’s foot­sol­diers. It’s how you were raised. No sooner were you out than they had plopped on the red hat, red cloak, and the tini­est pair of boots.

But then…

Per­haps it was the beard that started it. Only San­tas grew beards. Only San­tas…

Your eyes drop.

You can’t sleep. They’ll know. They al­ways know.

This won’t work. You need to get out. Away. Some­where where even they can­not reach you. Some­where be­yond the wall.

They al­ways know. You know that, now. You know that, af­ter Annabelle…

You liked Annabelle. You re­ally did. You were sure she could­n’t have liked you; not the way you liked her.

But she had a name. She had thrown off the name of Santa, and had made one for her­self, a name she only en­trusted with you.

Annabelle. Anna. Belle. Anna-bella Annabelle.

And you knew… You knew you wanted a name, too.

“Fol­low me,” she whis­pered, beck­on­ing for you to leave the dorm with her, care­ful not to wake the other San­tas.

No­body would know, you had thought.

It was easy. You would spend all day learn­ing how to watch; how to know; how to mon­i­tor cam­eras. You and Annabelle knew ex­actly how to dodge them. You had as­sumed that the cam­eras were all there was.

“My un­cle’s house is near,” she told you as she pulled you out the im­pos­ing front gates of the Acad­emy.

You ran through the streets, barely both­er­ing to dodge out of sight from the San­tas on every cor­ner, stand­ing watch in their red suits and hats.

What you were do­ing had­n’t sunk in yet. You were far too giddy for that.

“He’s just down the road,” she told you. You looked where she was point­ing, and then—

“Ooph!”

You fell as she tack­led you into the snow. Your red coats shone in stark con­trast to the white.

She strad­dled you, and whis­pered into your ear…

“You need a name, not-a-Santa.”

You looked up into her eyes. You bit your lip ner­vously, and smiled. “And what,” you ask, “should my name be?”

She stroked her long, white beard.

She leaned in to­wards you, her hand brush­ing away the fluffy white ball of her red hat. Her lips were inches from yours…

Crunch! Booted feet ap­proached from an al­ley nearby!

She rolled off you and pulled you to your feet, then down the street.

She knocked on her un­cle’s door, and when he did­n’t an­swer, she took out a hair­pin, and was through the door in sec­onds, in full light of the street­lamps.

You thought you saw a flash of red around the cor­ner… but she pulled you in­side and closed the door.

She gig­gled at your clumsy at­tempts, but hers were no bet­ter. Nei­ther of you had ever had the op­por­tu­nity. Nei­ther had ever been al­lowed.

You raised the ra­zor to try again. Slowly, her beard comes off.

She had never wanted it any more than you had yours.

“Your turn,” she said.

“This first,” you re­turned, and leaned in…

CRASH!

You fell off your perch on the bath­room counter, right into their arms.

Black boots. White beards. Red coats.

“You show great promise, Santa,” rum­bled the Santa in front of you. He was quite old.

His eyes twin­kled be­hind his glasses. He felt warm, even within the harsh cold of the stone room, even across the hard metal table.

“There are sev­eral,” he con­tin­ued, “who think you should get coal.”

Your eyes widened in fear.

“But I think dif­fer­ent.”

“Any­thing,” you say, “Any­thing!”

He smiled. “Ho-ho-ho, very good. I know you can be a good Santa. But…”

He shuf­fles through the files on the table. “But you must rid your­self of temp­ta­tion, Santa.”

You of­fered a promise you weren’t even sure you could keep: “I’ll never speak with Annabelle again!”

Santa frowned. “I can see the cor­rup­tion of Santa, whom you il­le­gally ac­com­pa­nied out of this com­pound, taints you still, my dear Santa.”

He sighed heav­ily. “Not to worry. We know ex­actly what to do.”

He stood. He beck­oned. You fol­lowed.

He led you to the Cham­ber.

You shiv­ered in spite of the heat em­a­nat­ing from the coals. The pit be­low glowed hot red, and the air dis­torted as the heat and smoke wafted up through a too-small hole in the roof above.

Sev­eral San­tas were rak­ing the coals.

The Santa guid­ing you handed you a rope.

For a mo­ment, it did­n’t sink in. For a mo­ment, you for­got what the rope was.

You looked at it. Your eyes fol­lowed it up, up to the plat­form above the pit, up to where she stood.

Annabelle.

“You must re­move temp­ta­tion,” re­peated the Santa be­side you.

He put his hand on your shoul­der. He no longer felt warm. His hand was a brick of ice.

“Pull,” he com­manded. “It’s not dif­fi­cult. Just a tug. Just pull.”

You looked up into Annabelle’s pan­icked eyes.

You dropped the rope.

Santa shook his head in dis­ap­point­ment. Lazily—neg­li­gently—his large, old hands grasped the rope, and pulled.

The bot­tom of the plat­form swung open.

Annabelle dropped…

Your heart stopped. Your eyes fol­lowed. She fell. Fell into the pit. Fell into the hot coals.

She gasped, then…

All you can re­mem­ber is screams.

Her ter­ri­ble screams as she burnt upon the coals.

The San­ta’s screams as you brought a coal-rake down upon his head.

Your own screams as you fled, out of the Cham­ber, out of the Acad­emy, out into the night.

You’re al­most there!

The Wall lies ahead. All the good lit­tle kids know never to ap­proach the wall. Out­side the wall, it is dan­ger­ous. Out­side the wall, the San­tas can­not pro­tect you. Out­side that wall, the San­tas can­not watch over you.

It was coal to the hand for any who neared it. The scars on those few fool­ish enough to try de­terred the rest. Any who ac­tu­ally reached it…

You near The Wall…

It must be your imag­i­na­tion. Is it brighter? Are the clouds less dark? Is it not snow­ing?

The wall stretches up in front of you.

San­tas run at you from all di­rec­tions.

You’re sure you can make it! You’ve got to!

You jump.

You fall.

You hit the ground.

It’s warm here.

Your face is bathed in the heat from the sun as it shines with a bright or­ange fire through the dark woods all around.

There’s not a flake of snow to be seen. Not a cloud to be found.

You won­der how Annabelle would have found it. You can al­most feel her with you now…

You can al­most hear her whis­per a new name into your ear, a new name of your very own, just for you.

You can al­most feel her lips against yours…

It’s so warm here… It’s so bright here…

You close your eyes, and smile.