It's September and there's already snow on the ground. The coats they give us are barely enough for the current temperatures, and I shudder to think of what will happen in January.

Ten years of this.

Forget what the crazy religious nut says, I have to get out of this sooner rather than later. I'll be their stool pigeon. I say this even without Sacha in front of me manipulating my emotions.

But I won't turn in Luka. Besides, what are the odds that they don't know about Luka? He's insane, not dangerous.

Still. 77 Charisma. If he chose to use his Persuasion, that man could wreak havoc.

No one else comes to talk to me.

While we're walking I use my Inspect on them all and find nothing interesting. A bunch of mediocre men. Like myself, but with fewer brains.

I do notice a particular status effect: Underfed. It's a nasty effect, one I've seen on a couple of students, but here it is epidemic. It takes 50% off of your Strength and Constitution, and 20% off of your other attributes. It cripples your ability to function properly, to progress. There's another status effect I see as well, rarer but more worrying: Starving. 90% off of your Strength and Constitution, and 50% off of your other attributes.

I am thankful that I've been chosen to be an informant. That means I just might get out of this alive.

You gained 253 EXP Cold Resist, Constitution

Your Cold Resist skill level is now 17

This is not the last notification I'll get about Cold Resist. I've spent time out in the cold before — everyone in Russia has — and it triggers every hour that you're outside. Most of the zeks here have Cold Resist skill levels in the mid to high 40s. I'll be there soon enough, if I don't die from Starvation or a fist fight, or some other madness. Hopefully I get high enough before the winter really sets in and I lose a finger from Frostbite.

We finally get to the work site. It took an hour. But that hour doesn't count towards our day; we've got twelve hours of that and then another hour walk back.

The guards throw axes on the ground and hurriedly step away. The men with submachine guns are on alert.

I don't know how to swing an axe. I try to watch someone to figure it out, but the guards yell at me for slacking off.

I ask one of the zeks for instruction, but he curses at me and calls me a dirty stoolie under his breath. He's Underfed, and close enough to Starvation. I could get him put on half rations. He would go to Starvation and into a downward spiral, never to recover. He would die. He cursed me, and I can kill him in return.

I can't do it. I am almost as bad at being a stool pigeon as I am at swinging an axe.

I ask another, and another, and another, all with similar lack of success.

I pass one of the guards. "If you weren't Sacha's new little pet, I'd shoot you right where you stood for slacking off." I recognize that tone of voice. Half threat, have detached statement of facts. It's how I get recalcitrant students to study for a test. "You'd better hope he keeps liking you."

Finally I go to the last person on the team: Luka.

"Well, well, well," he says, a hint of satisfaction on his lips. "God works in mysterious ways."

He shows me how to swing the axe correctly.

You gained a skill: Axes.

We chop in silence.

Within an hour my skill is level 5.

I chop, and I chop, and I chop.

You have gained status Numb Fingers

-10 Dexterity

My Shoulders and Back are gaining skill levels as well. I've never thought about how weird some of the Strength skills were. Is "Shoulders" really a skill, in the proper sense of the word? Whatever. I'm gaining skill levels.

You have gained status Muscle Cramps (shoulders)

-10 Strength , Shoulders, Back and related skills take 50% more energy and cause pain

Within two hours my Axes skill is level 8 and I want to die. I'm meant for a chessboard or a classroom, not a work camp.

My Strength and Dexterity both gain a point. My physical attributes are some of the least impressive here, but soon I'll catch up with the others. My Constitution will get a point soon, due to all these Cold Resist checks.

The progress feels good — actual progress, the first in four years! — but it doesn't make the cold wet snow and the muscle pain go away.

I really don't think I'll make it. I'm going to die before my body can catch up. The Muscle Cramps status has intensified, temporarily cancelling out nearly all the gains that I've made today.

I notice Luka humming a song, a haunting song, but it somehow inspires me to keep going. It's his goddamn Raise Spirits skill. He's humming what seems like a funeral dirge, but it somehow makes life feel okay. Life will end, sometime, but this is not yet our time.

You have gained status Inspired

+10 to Strength, Constitution, Wisdom

Is it possible for a simple melody to say that much? Luka is not singing any words.

The guards send him dirty looks, but they don't mess with him. His Charisma is nearly as good of a shield as Sacha's protection.

As I chop, I idly wonder how long it takes blisters to form. Will they form even with these thin gloves we've been given to wear? I realize that I know nothing of hard work. I spent my childhood in front of a chess board, and when my skill wasn't sufficient to continue I ended up teaching mathematics and logic, with a brief stay running grain shipments.

I wish fervently that instead of studying Strategy I had spent just a little time upping my physical attributes. I would have had time to heal. I'll be working twelve hours today, and twelve hours tomorrow, and twelve hours the next day, and so on for the next ten years, with no time at all for my muscles to recover. What good is a higher skill level if you're afflicted with Crippling Muscle Soreness and Starving?

"God gives us the strengths that we need..." How delusional could Luka be? Maybe that was just something he said when using Raise Spirits. How could Chess and Strategy and Teaching and the skills I developed running the food distribution network be any good in a corrective labor camp? My ability to understand and guide students is equally useless, unless they decide to turn this into a corrective mathematics camp.

I put down my axe for a moment to rub my shoulders and back, at least as well as I can reach them. I do this for a couple of minutes until a guard yells at me. After that I pick up my axe and begin to chop again.

We chop, and chop, and chop.

Sometime, about eight hours in based on the the gains in Cold Resist I've received, a man falls on the ground. The guards yell at him.

I inspect.

Name: Roman Yablokov

Age: 52

Level: 24

Occupation: Teacher

Ideological Alignment: Communist, Trotskyite

Status Effects: Starving, Exhausted, Despairing

Stats

Strength: 40

Constitution: 39

Dexterity: 31

Intelligence: 61

Wisdom: 40

Charisma: 38

Top Skills

Instruction: 65

Foreign Languages (English): 57

Resist Cold: 55

Patience: 44

Axes: 41

His stats and occupation are a distinct echo of mine, although his are higher in nearly every way that matters for camp life.

And he's dying.

A guard shoots a flurry of rounds over his head, to encourage him. The guard kicks him, but Roman barely moves.

"That man..." I say.

"He's been a Last-Legger for a while," says Luka.

"How long has he been here?"

"A little over ten years."

"More than ten years? They do that?"

"He had a ten-year sentence, and then they gave him another. I think it was the grief that killed him."

"What did he do?"

"He was a fighter in the revolution. You know, the one which ended oppression for all time. Very loyal to Leon Trotsky, which was a good move for a while. But then Trotsky fell from favor. Most characters knew which ways the wind were blowing, but Roman... he refused to change. He still thought the righteous faction, or at least what he thought was the righteous faction, would win."

I raise my eyebrows. "That's different from you how?"

"Roman believed in characters. I believe in God. He believed in this little game that we play down here. I believe in the Designer behind the game, the one we'll all see once we hit the great Game Over screen in the sky."

Whatever gets him through the day. Maybe I'll be able to convince myself of it eventually. Anything to push through these ten years. "What I meant was, what did he do to get his sentence extended?"

Luka laughs. "You are like a baby in the womb! You still believe you have to do something to get punished around here. Do you think they would let a dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyite loose among polite society? Imagine the damage just one dissenting opinion could do to their perfect system! That is why they will never release me. Not with the mind viruses I've picked up in here."

Then it is decided. I will not take Luka's religion, not if it delays my release it any way. It was a stupid idea anyways. I will not stray. I will not become like Roman, dead in a September snow.

We chop, and chop, and chop.

As we walk back, even Luka doesn't talk to me.

I eat the gruel they give us hungrily, though I already know it's not enough to recover from the day's exertions.

I collapse in bed and sleep.