Girls with Needles and Frost
Novelette 8,265 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"We learn to live without sweet berry jam, cabbage cooked with apples, and wine. We train ourselves not to miss the flowers, and we toe the line. We always toe the line. When the soldiers ransack our homes, collecting any purple item of clothing, we hand it over. We also are wary, not stupid; our lives are worth more than a scrap of cloth. But our country is worth a great deal more than our lives."
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on BCS, where the author gets the click.