"Sister, let's go to the lake!"
"Sister! Sister!"
"Let's run!"
"Sister, are you listening to us?"
A group of two boys and a girl kept nudging a petite, yellow-eyed teenager. Their voices were bright, insistent, the particular brightness of children who had not yet learned that the world would eventually grind it out of them.
"You little shits." Helma yawned, cursing under her breath.
"Stop slacking, sister!"
Her siblings erupted into chorus laughter and ran ahead, their bare feet slapping against the packed earth. Helma watched them go, already tired.
I hate their overwhelming cheerful energy.
They walked past the disgust—the stench-filled alleys of the slums, where waste pooled in corners and bodies lay too still. Surrounding people shuffled through their days, hollow expressions carved into their faces like something permanent. Only the youngest children still had energy, still had laughter. Even a few teenagers wore happy expressions, though they were the exceptions.
Beside them, everyone else wore dread—a coming-of-age mask, signaling that they had entered the cruel reality of their living world.
"Sister Helma, walk fast."
"Yeah, fast. Fast!"
"The way you're walking will take us the whole day to reach the lake!"
Helma yawned again. Cursed again. She wore the same mask as the others, but for a different reason.
I just want to sleep.
Why does that woman have to keep having more children when we can barely survive? From which man did she let herself get taken down this time?
Still cursing, still complaining, still yawning, she walked with her half-siblings until they reached the lake.
"Yeah! Water!"
The children rushed toward the water, splashing, laughing, their voices carrying across the small stretch of shore. Other people came and went, doing their business—washing clothes, filling jugs, pretending not to see the children who had no one watching them.
This should be a nice place to sleep.
Helma lay down on the soft grass. The hot rays of the sun were blocked by the shade of the trees and the dark grey clouds gathering overhead.
Sleeping is the best thing in the world.
She rolled onto her side, tucked her hands beneath her cheek, and let the dreams take her.
Loud cries woke her mid-sleep.
"What happened?"
She blinked, drowsy, her mind slow to surface. A group of people were lifting small bodies out of the lake. Dark hair. Small limbs. Limp.
Hmm. Whatever.
She yawned. "Back to sleep."
She closed her eyes. The only thing good about her mother was the lullaby—soft, warm, something that had once made her feel safe. She hummed a few bars as sleep pulled her back under.
Yawn.
"That was a nice sleep—"
Her eyes snapped open.
Her gaze fixed on three small bodies lying bare on the ground. Her siblings. Still. Pale. The water still dripping from their hair.
"No. No." Her voice cracked. "It can't be."
She ran to them.
"Hey, wake up! Neg! Slegir! Gleir!" Their names tore out of her. "Open your eyes!"
She stroked their faces, their arms, their cold hands. The warmth had ceased. Only cold remains.
The night currents jolted her—cold, sharp, real.
This isn't a dream.
But the tears didn't come.
Instead, a faint sigh of relaxation escaped her lips.
I might relax more now.
She hated herself for it. But the thought was there, and she couldn't take it back.
"What do you mean they died while playing in the lake?" Her mother's voice was shrill, cracking at the edges.
"I mean… I was sleeping for a moment, and then—"
"You were sleeping while your siblings were drowning?" Her mother's voice rose further. "Get out of my house!"
"But Mother—"
Slap. Slap.
Two sharp sounds. Flesh meeting flesh. Her cheeks stung.
"Get out. Now."
Helma's lips moved, forming something—a fragment of a lullaby, a goodbye, a curse—she didn't know which. Then she ran.
No tears fell.
Exhaustion hit her, and she collapsed in an alley, unconscious before she hit the ground.
Am I dreaming? I see myself. And this strange cave.
"Do you accept your sins?" The voice was flat, monotonous. Her own voice.
If I can sleep without anyone bothering me…
"Yeah," she said. "I accept them."
She was very wrong.
Trials.
Training.
A war in a strange space they called a pocket dimension.
She went through so much that she could sleep for days straight now—but she had become something that didn't need sleep.
"Don't fall asleep. Control it."
The voice was slow, dry, endless—the instructor of the House of Sloth, droning on about the discipline of rest.
Helma's eyelids grew heavy. Her head nodded.
I just want to sleep.
What have I signed up for?
I wanted to laze around.
But her eyes stayed open. Barely. And she kept going.