Sophie

Sophie checked her arm again, the numbers sitting a muted blue just under the skin. 10:52. She sighed and dulled the display. She had to stay awake for another hour before Santa came. The faint hum of vertibirds filtered through her window, the gravs on the underside pulsing rhythmically.

Sophie shifted in her bed, reaching up to adjust the light from the pale silver to a more festive green. Not happy with it, she frowned and moved the slider to another setting. The ceiling appeared to open up, showing the navy sky above filled with a brilliant display of stars. It was, of course, only a projection; there was too much light from the city to see this many stars and Sophie lived in the middle of an apartment block anyway, but the thousands of small, glistening beacons were a comfort anyway. She rolled over, pulling the silky blankets in closer. They smelled like skin and sleep and glitter and smiles, but Sophie could have been imagining some of that. The top blanket was a little bit scratchy but it reminded her of her dad’s beard so she didn’t mind.

 One of the nearby apartments was playing carols loud enough to be heard through the walls but not loud enough to be distracting and the tunes mixed with the ambient grey noise of the world outside in a way that made Sophie smile, but not know why. At some point the music stops but she doesn’t notice, too tightly wrapped in her warm sheets and sweet dreams.

A little over an hour later, the door slides open with a barely audible pneumatic hiss. A wide figure creeps through, holding two boxes. He sets them on the floor silently, with a fluidity that could only be achieved through experience, particularly given the girth of his body. Whether through childish intuition or some other sense, despite the stealth with which he moved, Sophie began to move restlessly, slowly rising through the layers of her sleep. The man took that as his cue to leave, moving to leave the room. The pneumatic hiss was just enough to completely break sleep’s hold on Sophie and she looked blearily towards the door. She had to blink a few times before her eyes focused properly, so she only caught glimpses of the shape leaving her room. The glimpses were enough to get her out of her bed though, stumbling toward the door just as it closed.

Sophie brushed the sensor impatiently, the door not opening quickly enough for her. She squeezed through the gap as soon as she could fit and looked down the hall, but there was no one there. She stepped forward and let out an ‘eep’ as her foot touched something cold – a sprinkling of snow. There was none anywhere in the rest of the hall, so she checked in her room: nothing. She ran over to the window and pulled the curtains aside, but the night sky was clear of any clouds. A shape moved up above, too far away to see properly, but Sophie didn’t think it looked like a vertibird. A grin slowly spreading across her face, she picked up the two presents that lay at the foot of her bed and ran to her parent’s room, squealing and whooping as she went.

Her door closed behind her with the near-silent pneumatic hiss. If one listened closely, it could almost sound like a jingling of bells.

I liked the idea of having a futuristic Christmas, and at some point between that idea occurring and me actually beginning to write, it had resolved into this. This is the main festive post for today, with Coal being my sort of warm up to writing a proper piece.

Hope everyone has or had a fantastic day, whether you celebrate the holiday or not.