While They Sleep

Aya has been a mother since she was five years old. Not by choice - but because someone had to. With an alcoholic mother, an abusive father who vanished years ago, and six younger siblings who look to her for everything, Aya has long since accepted the impossible role handed to her: protector, provider, comforter, Mama.

Her siblings don't just depend on her - they believe in her. To Oliver, she's the shield who once stood between him and their father's fists. To Ivy, she's the only safe place in a world full of fear. To Ethan, she's the one who never lets him go hungry. To the twins, she isn't a stand-in mother - she's the only one they've ever known. And to baby Leo, whose very first memory is of Aya saving him, she is life itself.

But Aya is still just a teenager, her own childhood stolen by the weight of responsibility and the shadows of her father's violence. She tells herself she's strong enough, that she'll endure anything for them. Yet late at night, when the house is silent and the past creeps back, she wonders how long she can carry a family that was never truly hers to bear.

Tender and devastating, While They Sleep is the story of one girl's unbreakable love for her siblings, the haunting cost of survival, and the impossible question at the heart of it all: how much of yourself can you give away before there's nothing left?