Her uncle told her there was much snow in Obristan this time of year. "The ground is hardly flat there," he explained patiently. "So snow gathers in all the nooks and crannies of the hills, and splays itself over the tips too."
She could not understand how that explanation worked, but she nodded happily and accepted it nonetheless. She liked the uncle she had hardly met before last week, anyway, and she liked the snow, too. Snow in Arstotzka usually melted as soon as it settled on the ground. She could only recall one time it had stuck, when she was much smaller. Her mother called in sick so they could play the whole day, chasing each other around the pure white street and building a little man out of the snow.
That evening, a government official visited to inquire about her mother's 'illness'. He called the snowman 'transgressional' and fined them. He even knocked the head off its body with the butt of his gun as he left their apartment building, and she bawled so hard it took her mother an hour to console her.
Her uncle also told her that Obristan was different from Arstotska in other ways. "It is better place," he said, and nothing more.
She could not bring herself to mind all the uncertainty. It was good to leave everything behind. Her mother's pending execution. The social workers with their empty faces. The man who'd approached her the day before her adoption with a 'proposition' and a business card. She wanted the money he offered, but she showed her aunt the card when she came to her new home for the first time, and she threw it away in an instant, clearly rattled.
The day passed in one long blur. She found that all the images burned into one: the train, with so many empty seats she could lie down on them and nap. The long line of people, rocking on their heels and trying not to look back. The passport that spelled her name wrong. The inspector with hard eyes like her uncle's.
But there was one scene she saw clearly, one that she could envision even years later as she remembered her plight. As she and her family finally crossed the border and stepped onto the paved roads of Obristan, all they could look at was the horizon. Hills as far as the eye could see, all freshly white and new against the sunrise.
Post-note:
Thanks very much for the read, I'm happy to be writing for an underrated game that doesn't have a lot of fan material already. 3
I've written some personal notes on each chapter on my tumblr about my headcanons and writing process (I thought saving them until the end would be nice since the story is made to be read all in one go). post/172760422843/some-personal-notes-about-my-papers-please