The Clause

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The Clause

“I don’t know what haunts me more—the silence of the children, or the fact that we all heard it and sang along.”

— Kara Ellison, journalist, weeks before her disappearance.

Note: This quote was recovered from an unpublished exposé titled “The Claus Protocol,” now sealed by federal order.

Act I - Shine

Nina didn’t cry when her parents signed her away.

Nobody really did anymore.

At the depot, they handed her the envelope with her name in gold foil. A smiley elf stamped her boarding pass and thanked her mother for her “generous seasonal contribution.”

Her mom just nodded and scratched the side of her cheek like she had a mosquito bite that never healed.

One child.

One premium present every year.

She didn’t say goodbye.

She hadn’t said anything meaningful in weeks.

“Congratulations,” the elf said, affixing a gold badge to her coat. “Creative track. A real honor.”

Nina didn’t feel anything. Not pride. Not sadness. Just cold. The gloves they gave her didn’t fit. She watched them slip off her fingers and thought about how she never liked Christmas songs, not even the weird ones.

The Dreamline Destiny screeched in from the dark with light trailing behind it like a comet. Its horn wasn’t a whistle—it was a chime, too perfect, too clean, echoing like it was playing inside her bones.

Children lined the platform, color-coded by badge tier: blue for giftmakers, gold for storywriters, silver for maintenance.

No crying. No questions.

“Tonight,” said the voice on the loudspeaker, “we depart for the heart of tradition, where magic is made and good children go.”

They all boarded.

Nina sat by the window, hands in her lap. The world outside shifted from dirt to white, from white to nothing. Forests blurred. The windows went foggy from condensation—or was it something on the outside?

Somewhere, faint music played. Children sang:

He sees you when you’re sleeping.

He takes you when you shine.

The woman came out of nowhere.

She was running alongside the tracks, her breath clouding the air. She held something. A cardboard sign. Nina pressed her face to the window, squinting.

Then the woman disappeared beneath the train with a soft, sickening thump. Like a bag of meat hitting pavement.

The train didn’t slow.

One child screamed.

An elf came down the aisle with cocoa and crackers.

“Just a frost fox on the tracks,” he said calmly. “Nothing to worry about. Everyone stay buckled!”

Nina didn’t eat the crackers.

She watched snow fall outside and wondered why it didn’t melt.

The North Pole wasn’t north. And it wasn’t a pole.

It was a dome—clear and curved like the inside of a snow globe, rimmed with steel girders and projection towers. Beyond it, Nina caught a glimpse of waves crashing against black ice and rusted antennas jutting from frozen water.

Inside the dome, though, was pure holiday magic. Candy-cane lamp posts. Cobblestone streets. Gingerbread facades too symmetrical to be real.

And snow.

So much snow.

But when she reached down and touched it, it didn’t melt in her palm. It just crumbled. Like powdered chalk.

Inside the dome, everything was perfectly controlled. There were no clouds. No stars. The sky was filtered aurora.

An elf guided her through the plaza past animatronic carolers, past a fountain shaped like a globe wrapped in a ribbon.

“Welcome to the Workshop. You’re one of the lucky ones.”

She was taken to Story Hall, where children with Gold Badges wrote stories all day.

Screenplays. Ad slogans. Holiday myths. She saw one girl get a candy bar for a story titled The Grinch’s Redemption Arc.

“Stories are gifts,” said a woman with white gloves and a clipboard. She looked about forty, but something in her posture felt older.

Mrs. Claus, they said. She didn’t smile. She didn’t blink much either.

Mrs. Claus read Nina’s first piece in silence. It was a simple fairy tale. Sad. Honest.

“Too sharp,” she said, crossing it out. “Your shine is misdirected. We prefer simpler. Brighter. Kinder.”

Nina nodded. She learned to nod.

But something began to turn inside her. A thought. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature-controlled air.

That night, she couldn't sleep. The air smelled like peppermint and printer toner. The snow outside the window fell in looping patterns.

Like code.

She reached under her bunk and found a loose panel. Behind it: a torn piece of notebook paper.

It was a child’s drawing. Scribbled stick figures.

A train.

A girl with red gloves.

Below it:

“They said I was the first.

—Margaret”

Nina stared at the name. The same name she’d seen on a plaque near Mrs. Claus’s office.

Her fingers curled around the paper like it might disappear.

She knew something was wrong. She just didn’t know how deep it went.

Act II - Crack

The next morning, Nina wrote what she was told.

The story was about a gingerbread dog who learned to share. It got a gold sticker and a cup of warm syrup. But when Mrs. Claus handed it back, she didn’t even look at Nina.

She never did.

Only the story.

That afternoon, Nina slipped the drawing of “Margaret” into her coat. She waited until lights-out, then crept down the hallway using the rhythmic jingles as her cover.

Security was light—almost nonexistent.

Why would they guard the kids they believed were creative yet couldn't think?

She passed the gift-wrapping division, the idea incubation pods, and finally a steel-plated door with a flickering peppermint-shaped camera.

RECORDS ROOM — AUTHORIZED ELVES ONLY

Nina tried the handle. Locked.

She knelt beside the frame. The paper-thin gloves they gave her weren’t warm, but they were good for grip. She used a peppermint lollipop from her welcome pack to wedge into the keypad. The screen glitched and clicked open.

Apparently, security didn’t expect candy to be used against them.

Inside, it was colder than outside.

Not the cheerful cold of snowflakes, but the blank chill of server rooms and quiet secrets.

The Records Room stretched on in all directions: endless shelves of red folders, blinking monitors, gold-trimmed hard drives that hummed like they were dreaming. The scent was metallic and mint, like blood on a candy cane.

Nina shut the door behind her, heart pounding. She had no clearance. But the system didn’t care. No one expected the kids to come here.

She tapped a screen.

DREAMLINE DESTINY — MANIFEST INDEX

A search bar.

She typed: Margaret.

One result blinked:

Margaret Anne Yule.

Gold Badge.

Age 6.

Recruited: 2025.

Creative potential: High.

Narrative imagination: Unstable.

Rebranded as: MRS. CLAUS. (After years of service)

Public Identity: Re-scripted.

Language Adjustment: British Accent, Temperate Tone.

Emotional Yield: High.

Designated Role: Keeper of Mythos. First acquisition.

Status: Contained.

The girl in the photo looked half-gone already. Eyes flat. Skin washed pale. Behind her smile was something frayed. It was noted that she was the origin of the creative division.

Nina’s fingers hesitated over the screen, before going deeper.

"Badge Classification: Cognitive-Evaluative Index."

The entry broke children into three core tiers:

Blue (Giftmakers),

Silver (Maintenance),

and Gold (Creative).

Each badge was assigned after neural and emotional profiling during initial intake.

Blue badges showed moderate-to-low IQ but high obedience and fine motor control, ideal for toy assembly and repetitive design.

Silver badges had above-average IQ but low EQ, making them efficient but emotionally detached—perfect for systems upkeep and logistics.

Gold badges, like Nina, ranked highest in narrative intuition and emotional projection, flagged early for story generation and myth reinforcement.

A footnote read: "EQ spikes are monitored via biometric stress and sentiment response to nostalgic stimuli. IQ is reevaluated quarterly to prevent dissociation or revolt." Beneath that: “Creative instability tolerated only when ROI remains high.”

Then, she saw a tab of someone she forgot entirely.

Santa.

No bio.

Just:

SANTA CLAUS – Entity Type: Myth Parasite.

Source: Belief (Harvested).

Anchor Ritual: Annual Gift Economy.

Controlled by: State-backed Media Infrastructure.

Function: Narrative Weaponization / Sentiment Control.

Beneath it, a world map.

She tapped it.

Different countries lit up — Japan, Peru, South Africa, Norway, Turkey. Each with a “holiday conversion index.”

Overlaid on top were tags:

"Solstice: Neutralized.”

“Odinic Lore: Absorbed.”

“Saint Nicholas: Rebranded.”

“Zwarte Piet: Sanitized.”

“Sinterklaas → Claus Protocol (Phase 2).”

“Shichi-Go-San: Reframed as ‘Mini Claus Day.’”

Nina scrolled faster.

Whole holidays erased. Cultures overwritten with jingles and reruns. Ancient traditions folded into corporate branding. Anything left behind was either mocked, sanitized, or repackaged in red and green.

One entry blinked yellow:

“Hanukkah — Partial Integration (Awaiting Rebrand 2090).”

Another: “Diwali — Acquisition Failed. Replace with Sparkle Season branding initiative.”

At the bottom of the screen, she found a tab titled:

“PRESENTS = TAX.”

It showed a rotating graph: emotional spending, regional happiness scores, gift fulfillment rates. In America and its colonies, December joy spikes matched federal bonus incentives. Nations that “opted out” had media embargoes or sanctions marked by snowflake symbols.

A footnote read:

“Presents distributed to compliant populations based on child-for-gift exchange system. Creative Track contributions ranked highest in emotional ROI.”

She backed away from the screen.

The snow.

The stories.

The silence of the kids.

It was all connected.

Nina walked back like she hadn’t seen anything.

The snow outside still fell in loops. Kids still hummed their lines:

He takes you when you shine…

That night, Nina began writing again.

But not for Mrs. Claus.

For the kids.

A story about a dome that wasn’t real. A queen who forgot her name. A train that fed on the brightest souls.

A bedtime tale whispered bunk to bunk. A myth wrapped in rhyme. Not even the elves noticed.

But the kids did.

One by one, they started to remember.

By the end of the week, a plan had formed.

They hid tools inside toys. Candy canes sharpened into picks. Wires twisted into slingshots.

The older kids began guarding the younger ones.

Nina wrote more stories. Coded messages wrapped in cheer.

“The ribbon binds. The bell breaks. When the dome cracks, run.”

Mrs. Claus read one and frowned.

But she didn’t say anything.

Somewhere inside her, Margaret was still listening.

Act III - Fall

They called it Red Bell Day.

A celebration of “peace, productivity, and perseverance.”

Every year, the North Pole held a massive pageant where the best child-made stories were read aloud on global television.

Nina’s story — the one no adult seemed to understand — had made the shortlist.

She stood on stage beside other Gold Badges, lights stinging her eyes, her voice shaking.

But as she read, the room grew still. Children leaned forward. Elves stood quiet.

Her tale — about a dome that fed on hope, a queen with no name, and a train run on dreams — wasn’t explicit. But it didn’t have to be. The kids understood.

The applause at the end was weak. The broadcast cut early.

Chaos began exactly one minute later.

The younger kids, the ones Nina had spent weeks preparing, pulled hidden wires and released compressed air slingshots into the rafters.

Sparks fell.

Snowflake lights shattered.

Toy soldiers exploded with hidden smoke bombs.

“NOW!” someone screamed.

Elves reached for tasers. Older kids tackled them. Shields made from sled parts and candy cane armor deflected some of the first shots.

But not all.

One of the girls from her dorm — Lexi, with the dimples and the broken tooth — was hit center mass.

She dropped her sharpened ornament and fell beside the story-stage, red staining the snow beneath her.

Nina didn’t stop, she grabbed a kid's arm. She didn’t even know who's.

What was tears, sweat, or blood, she did not know.

They were almost at the train.

The kids had cleared the last checkpoint. The hangar doors groaned open.

Just beyond, the Dreamline Destiny steamed softly on its tracks, waiting like a held breath.

And then something shifted.

The air changed — not the temperature, the pressure.

As if the dome itself had started watching.

From the far end of the station, a bridge emerged. It wasn't there before. It shouldn’t be there. But it grew across the chamber anyway, from wall to wall, cutting off the train like a toy behind glass.

At its center stood him.

Santa.

Not monstrous.

Not a beast.

That would’ve made it easier.

He was just wrong.

Tall, yes. Round, but not jolly. His coat was stained with sweat. The velvet sagged. His boots split at the seams. He reeked of old cinnamon and wet polyester.

His face was pale. Not white — transparent, like wax too close to heat. Cheeks that had been pinched red so long they’d gone purple. A beard matted into clumps.

And his eyes—They were small.

Too small for his face. They barely moved.

He stood on the bridge like a blockade made of meat and memory. Steam hissed from the floor beneath him. Lights buzzed and died.

His voice came low, hoarse, heavy:

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?”

Nina froze.

She felt every child behind her do the same.

He didn’t raise his arms. He didn’t shout. He just existed there — like a law that had never been questioned.

“There are rules,” he said, breathing hard. “One present per child. One soul per story. You shine, you stay.”

His belly shifted as he inhaled. Slowly, unstably. His weight pressed cracks into the bridge. The dome lights flickered above.

"This world needs me. I keep them warm. I give them meaning. Without me, they get cold. Without me, they get loud.”

He took a step.

The bridge groaned.

His boot stuck slightly to the metal, peeling away with a wet, sticky sound.

And then—A woman stepped forward.

Mrs. Claus. Margaret.

She looked worse than anyone had seen her: hunched, pale, eyes bruised with years of lost names.

But her voice was steady:

“Get off the tracks, Charles.”

He chuckled, wheezing. “You think they’ll let you leave?”

“No,” she said. “But they’ll get away. That’s enough.”

She moved toward him.

He reached for her — slow, clumsy — but she sidestepped, grabbed the edge of his coat, and pulled.

He tried to catch himself.

But he was too heavy.

The years of taking and taking, of consumption disguised as kindness, of letting others carry the weight — it had hollowed him.

His own power couldn’t lift him anymore.

As she dragged him to the edge of the bridge, the dome floor cracked.

Below: the Core of Creation — a swirling furnace of light and memory, the power source of the North Pole. It pulsed like a wound that never healed.

“I never wanted to be your wife,” she whispered. “I was a teenager—a kid. You gave me a name and called it love.”

He said nothing.

He just let gravity pull him, his face straining, using all his power.

She held onto him, but not out of love, and they fell together.

Into the Core.

The entire dome shuddered. Snow turned to ash. Screens glitched. The lights inside the fake stars went dark.

And the bridge collapsed.

Nina didn’t turn.

“Run.”

They raced to the train as the dome peeled back from the sky.

Above them: no stars. Just the real world.

Cold, wet, free.

A high-pitched whine filled the dome — not mechanical, but musical, as if the lie itself was unraveling.

Nina and the remaining kids made it to the train.

Inside, the console flickered alive. The Dreamline Destiny recognized her.

“Destination?” it asked.

“Out,” she whispered.

They sat in silence as the dome fell behind them. Outside the windows: ice, smoke, and freedom.

Then Nina opened the engine chamber.

Inside: glass tubes filled with pulsing light — names whispering from within.

The missing kids.

The “exceptional ones.”

Souls that had powered stories, holidays, belief.

One by one, she pulled the release lever. The light fled upward, like fireflies screaming back to the stars.

Epilogue - He Will Always Remember You

The train made it out.

The children who survived huddled in the dark, eating emergency rations from crates marked “Property of the North Pole Logistics Division.”

Some wept. Some stared.

Nina sat by the engine door, hands red with static, the soul chamber now silent.

There was no cheer. No singing.

Only the low rumble of tracks and the distant memory of bells.

They didn’t make it far before the world found them.

Drones caught the train’s signal.

News feeds exploded.

Politicians blamed terrorists.

North Pole security blamed “a creative malfunction.”

Santa’s image was quietly removed from all holiday campaigns.

Nina was found unconscious in the dining car, clutching a notepad soaked in condensation.

They called her a hero.

Then they called her a liar.

They said her story caused mass hysteria among the children. That it had “dangerous implications” and “distorted the values of the season.”

Parents protested.

But not for the truth — for their presents.

“I gave up my son for a luxury coffee machine and now you’re telling me it was fake?”

The government stepped in.

“She’s too unstable,” they said.

“She made it all up.”

“She endangered national joy metrics.”

They institutionalized her in a clean white facility with candy-cane curtains and a reindeer logo on the nurse’s lapel.

Her story, once viral on secret channels, was repackaged.

Rewritten.

Published as a deluxe edition for teens, titled: “The Girl Who Saved Christmas.”

Mrs. Claus was now a misunderstood mentor.

Santa a flawed father figure.

The dome? A test of character.

The kids who died? Erased.

A new company took over the ruins.

North Star Media.

They launched Dreamline Destiny 2.0 — now fully automated. Safer. Smarter.

More diverse in branding.

Parents still signed their kids away. They got new presents. New jingles. New stories, now generated by “verified child authors.”

Somewhere in a snowy district, a new boy stepped onto the train platform.

He wore gloves that didn’t fit.

A badge he didn’t understand.

His parents waved once, then turned away.

He hummed a song, half-remembered from school:

“He remembers you when you’re shining, he helps you find your place. ”

The train pulled into the dark.

The snow didn’t melt.

And the wheels turned like they always had.