Childhood’s End
The satellite of Sarnis always carries a cold, bitter chill that seems to seep into the bones and settle. But that morning, the air was sharper than usual, a biting wind howling down from the jagged mountains that surrounded the small Anthralian village. The mountains, ancient and foreboding, loomed like silent sentinels, their snow-capped peaks disappearing into the perpetual gray of the sky. It was the sky that rarely knew the warmth of a star, for Sarnis orbited a massive gas giant, whose vast bulk often cast the moon into long, frigid nights.
A world of extremes, Sarnis’ surface, scarred by ancient glaciers and pockmarked with craters, was a testament to the violence of its geology. Its satellite’s cryovolcanoes, though dormant for now, had once spewed forth plumes of icy water and methane, coating the land in thick layers of frost and snow. Surrounding the village was a frozen wasteland, a barren expanse where little grew and life clung to existence with tenacity born of necessity.
The village itself, Thryeach, was nestled in a shallow valley, one of the few places where the mountains offered some protection from the relentless winds that scoured the surface. The buildings were a mock up of metal and stone with its source initially being the class VIII colony surplanans the tribe of Anthrals had arrived in just a few generations ago. Smoke lazily curled from a chimney, the only sign of life in an otherwise desolate landscape.
The inhabitants of Sarnis adapted to their unforgiving environment long ago, their lives directed by the rhythm of the gas giant’s orbit. There were times when Sarnis would be pluged into darkness for days, sometimes weeks, the gas giant’s bulk blocking out the distant star’s feeble light. These eclipses were dreaded by the villagers, for they brought with them an even deeper cold. A darkness that would sap what little warmth from the air that the spuradically found villages were able to generate.
During these times, the village would become a place of hushed whispers and drawn curtains, as the Anthralians didn’t want the light of their presense to attract the attention of the things that lurked in the endless nights.
Even when the star’s light reached Sarnis, it was weak, barely more than a dim glow on the horizon, creating a twilight that
But even when the star’s light-