Meet the Anabaptists
East Pollen - March 10, 2593
The vodka is bitter, but it warms their throats as they drink. Detina only listens to the other’s story, and they all sit close. A year has passed since they stood before the Anabaptist Sublime Adriana. Tonight, in the cold embrace of memory, they return to the days that led them there. Yelena speaks first. “I remember Sofia’s hands,” she murmurs, “stitching Aaron’s jacket with red thread, as if sewing his fate into the seams.
“Our journey began in Kiev, the recruit band led by Isolde. A boat took us south, riding the veins of the old world. The river was sluggish, thick with winter’s grip, and soon the ice forced us ashore.
As we pressed onward, we passed a dying spore field, the rot giving way to something new—jagged fractal trees, their translucent limbs spiralling in unnatural perfection, reaching hungrily toward the grey sky.
After negotiating a dangerous surface crack, came the sign. Scattered dung. Gendos dung. They haunted the periphery, those creatures, their eyes glinting in the darkness. Men once, or so the old tales claimed. Now, they were spirits of hunger and exhaustion, hunting in silence, waiting for weakness.
Days bled into nights. Sleep came fitfully, the howls always too close. Morale withered. Hunger gnawed and cold harmed. Then we found a mammoth’s carcass. The meat was already rotten.
Crossing the frozen tributary was our trial by ice. Aaron stepped forward first, testing the frozen water. His mistake. The Gendos surged from the cold mist, shadows moving in an unholy rhythm. Aaron turned, barely avoiding the first lunge. Luckily, Isolde and Sasha went fast, the beasts scattering like nightmares in the morning sun.
By the time we reached the Anabaptist camp, our souls were worn thin, but we still had breath to sing. And so we did, voices lifting. Adriana greeted us with knowing eyes, offering warmth, food, and purpose. A week passed, and bonds were forged in the quiet between training and prayer. Even Adriana, severe in her wisdom, had a gentler hand for the children, a softness behind her flame.
:format(webp)/f/150329/3000x1953/409bceeced/stories-snowdrops.jpeg)
“We were happy then,” Yelena says finally.
Sacha lifts his glass. “And we are still here.”
They drink.