THE SANDMAN X READERS

LOST DREAMS [DREAM]

Summary: Your ancestor was cursed by Morpheus long ago so the women in your family would be plagued with eternal wakefulness, but you don't believe in the curse or that some ancient Greek god was the cause of it, like your grandmother always told you about. Doctors have told you that the only reason they can think of is most likely a severe case of ADHD in the family and that's why you never feel sleepy. But then you get a job at a Burgess mansion and find something in the basement that makes your grandmother's stories sounding not so crazy after all...

Even on her deathbed, your grandma had talked about the "curse" she claimed the whole family suffered from. You could see how it can be seen as a curse, never feeling sleepy and how you always had energy for everything - because of that, you had had plenty of boring moments every day and it did suck. Not to mention, your friends talking about how funny and good dreams they have had always sparked jealousy within you. It was something you had never experienced.

Doctors had researched you since you were a baby, but they couldn't pinpoint a reason for being unable to fall asleep either. They had you running from test to test, even sent you to another country for more tests with a world top sleep disorder clinic, but nothing worked. Some doctors were afraid that your condition is a type of fatal insomnia, and that you were slowly dying. But those were knocked down too with brain scans, and after your grandma and mother could testify that they had been exactly the same since birth, doctors were facing yet another puzzle. The condition was absolutely unheard of. You heard stories that someone in your family had been burned as a witch for not sleeping, which ultimately made you believe it's something running in the family.

And after some debating between doctors, they too decided that it's an extremely rare type of ADHD, the most severe there is, and your family are the first ones it's been detected to have. They also believed that something in your brains had aligned so perfectly that you not sleeping doesn't affect the brains negatively and expressed their will to be able to take your brains for medical research.

Your grandmother, however, wasn't keen on that thought. She had made up her mind that it's the ancient Greek god Morpheus who had cursed you with it, and nothing would be found from her brains.

"Mother, Morpheus is an ancient Greek god. He's not real," you remember your mother saying as you were visiting your grandma in the hospital. "There's also no thing as curses or magic."

Your grandma had pursed her lips and shook her head. "Oh my dear foolish girl, you just don't understand it. Our ancestor, many centuries ago, was Morpheus' lover, and-"

"She rejected him, we all remember," you interrupted. "He cursed her and everyone in her family to never feel tired."

Your grandma had let out a long breath through her nose. "No, he cursed the women with it. Not men. It is said that he became enraged when his lover refused his kingdom, and when she passed away, he took revenge by striking down all of us with this curse, preventing us from getting proper rest. And now, you're the newest one of our family to carrying the curse. Your future daughters will carry it too, and it will be passed on to their daughters in turn."

You had sighed in chorus with your mother, your grandma had always been clearly delusional about it. Likely brainwashed by her own mother, who had been brainwashed by her mother and so on. But you and your mother were new generation, who didn't believe in such absurd stories and had reliable medical research under your fingertips but unfortunately, you had had to listen your grandma talking about it all your childhood.

When your grandma had passed away, you moved out from your hometown and settling to a nice little town in southern England. You got a job as a cleaner-occasional cook-extra pay caretaker in a fancy mansion owned by an elderly couple, and life was good.