Author's Note: Hey guys, it's been awhile since I wrote the last chapter and I decided to finally continue with a third chapter – I can't just end it with only two chapters, especially with the ending of the second chapter which was a bit of a cliffhanger I guess. I'm really sorry for the long wait all of you had to go through.

[Insert random author comments consisting of utter nonsense, spazzing out, and begs for reviews here]

The Dance

Chapter 3: Forty winks

"Asshole", she muttered silently as she snatched the picture of Arnold out of her locket and threw it in a pint-sized trash can at the corner of her room.

She awoke to a chilly breeze while lying on the cold floor of her bedroom – she fell asleep on the ground last night and used her sentimental teddy bear as a pillow. Her closet was still wide open and other than her childhood clothes that she never got rid of and plenty of other junk, there were no clothes left in it. It's been that way for a few weeks now and she hadn't noticed up until now. Miriam must've forgotten to wash the clothes, and Helga must've forgotten to remind her. The aroma of a sweet, flowery sort of scent wafted all around her room and it's likely what caused her to step out of whatever strange dream she had been living in while her body slept heavily

"Miriam", she screamed as she hid her locket under a pile of love poems in her closet.

What felt like minutes passed and she stood tapping her foot anxiously. It was over eight in the morning – she overslept, but she didn't mind anyways because she could use a good day or two away from school. Her stomach growled at the thought of breakfast and yet her mind boiled at the likely fact that her own family didn't realize that she had slept in. She quit tapping her foot and crossed her arms wondering where her mom could be.

"Miriam…", her voice boomed once more.

Her patience was waning quickly and there was still no sing of Miriam or anyone else home. She stared at the endless ticking on the clock on her wall – a tick here, and a tock there, eventually it drove her insane and she felt the need to throw the contraption out her window. The sunlight from outside poured light into her room and she caught a view of millions of dust particles sparkling in her room, fluttering gracefully yet hurriedly, like butterflies caught in the a gust of wind. The ray of light ended on her pillow and she rushed over to the window and pulled the blinds down and felt her curtains delicately as she slowly slid them across, completely eradicating all traces of it being the morning.

"Miriam", she screamed as loudly as she could the third time as she kicked her teddy bear into the closet.

The clock continued to tick and the pointers moved endlessly. Her hand swept the pillow off of her bed and chucked it at the clock in a blind rage, but that did absolutely nothing to stop its constant racket. Moments passed and she allowed herself to cool down, only to slam her door open after taking one last glance at her clock.

"Miriam", she hollered as she marched her way down the hallway, she whispered to herself as she slid down the steps effortlessly ", criminy, what do I have to do to get noticed in by half-assed failure of a family…"

There was no sign of anyone in the house, and it was likely Bob was at work and Olga off who knows where. But Miriam, she thought, Miriam should be someone around here. The house was cold and life-less; pictures of Bob, Miriam, and Olga were cluttered all around the place, but if someone were to enter their home there would be no evidence whatsoever of there being a second Pataki daughter. She sighed as she stared at a grand picture of the rest of her family smiling together and the last step groaned along with her, when she finally stepped down.

"Miriam", she repeated, this time calmly; a small hint of melancholy managed to inject itself into her calling – like if a pleasant breeze over a meadow on a sunny day turned out to be moving from the direction of a thunder-storm, no a tornado, heading straight towards it.

She retraced her steps and rushed silently up the steps when she thought she heard something, but it evidently ended up being nothing more than the upstairs floor sighing. Her disappointment only grew as the thought of her entire family leaving her also did; her silent screams only became louder. Helga paced over the floorboards quietly in an attempt to avoid a creaking noise that might disturb her mother, as it's likely she was off somewhere sleeping around if she were home. Beams of light came through the front door and the windows, so she shielded herself from the perils with her right hand and attempted to move speedier. The living room was her first choice, as the TV was on, plus the curtains and blinds were still down so she could take shelter and relieve the stress on her eyes before they catch on fire. She took one small baby step forward but stopped mid-track when the flooring moaned miserably.

She treaded into the living room and called her name once more, and while the TV was on she soon found that there was no one lazing around on the couch and no answer proceeded – what was she expecting? She had no idea where else Miriam could be, until it dawned to her that there could only be one possible place where she was sitting around. She rushed straight to the kitchen, but began to tip-toe after realizing that she was indeed correct: Miriam was sitting at a chair, her head on the table, asleep. She should have known from the start, as her mom's quite a heavy sleeper, and then there's the fact that she saw her toss back a few drinks last night at the kitchen table as usual.

"Miriam", Helga whispered into her ear quietly like a mother speaking to its snoozing infant as she dropped her hand onto her mom's right shoulder and shook violently ", Miriam", she spoke once more and several times again.

Despite her attempts, Miriam only continued to snore, drooling all over the place.

Whatever last shred of patience she had at the moment had chipped off the block and she continued shaking as brutally as she could. The amount of time that passed and the fact that Miriam's eyes did not open, nor had there been a moan from her, frightened her pale and she shook with both of her hands until she eventually gave up. Her right hand reached for Miriam's and she lifted hers up anxiously, put two of her fingers on Miriam's veins and waited cautiously. She searched frantically for a pulse and found none, her heart raced and she felt like knocking the glass off the table and it took all of her strength not to cry. But her worries soon disappeared – her fingers soon relieved that Miriam indeed had a pulse and she felt like a complete idiot; she dropped Miriam's hand and it thumped on the table loudly.

Miriam woke in an instant and she looked as if she had seen a ghost; her head jerked up and she watched around until she finally caught a view of Helga.

"Ol-", her belch interrupted ",Ol-Olga", her mom asked, she shut her eyes again and a strange mixture of spit and some other liquid flowed out of her mouth; she had fallen asleep in a bowl of cereal.

Helga nearly exploded at this point, but she kept herself from beating up Miriam on account of Miriam being her mother. Helga may have been a violent and aggressive, care-free bully and she may have picked on nearly everyone, beating plenty of people up and pushing them out of her way, but even she wouldn't hurt her own mother – even if her thoughts had a different opinion. Even if her mother was a drunken neglector who couldn't even remember her own kid's name, Helga tried her best to not hurt her mother emotionally or physically. Her eyes rolled as she thought of a reply.

"I'm Helga", the only non-bashful retort that she could think to say was spat out of her mouth miserably, but she soon forgot the fact that her name had been forgotten.

"Oh, Helga, I'm so sor-."

"Sorry…Sorry", she reiterated, her eyes glowing with a glowing as if someone had lit two parallel sticks of dynamite at the same time.

The look of pure disgust on her face soon shifted to a cheesy, obviously ironic grin and the smile only grew wider as broke off for a dramatic effect – anyone who knew the behavior of Helga would know that a silence would not be required in order for her to add an effect to the feelings of others. Her mother didn't seem to realize that her expression was sarcastic though; she simply ignored Helga's face, but kept a look of confusion despite that. The amount of intelligence that Miriam lacked baffled Helga, and she kept the elaborate façade of hers. She looked at the bowl of cereal. Her stomach growled, while her mind barked.

"Sorry", she stared at her ", you do realize that I overslept, missed the bus, didn't eat breakfast, was sleeping on the floor, and, it gets better, my clothes still haven't been washed…"

"Hel-Helga", Miriam smeared the liquid off her face but soon realized that the liquid had dried and that was actually her own sweat ", Helga…I'm sorry, I-"

Miriam's hands delicately moved the bowl of cereal to the side and the sunlight from the windows shined down on her broken nails, highlighting the obvious cracks – like how rain highlights the potholes and splits in a rundown road in a poor inner-city neighborhood

"Oh you're sorry, oh. Okay then. Then it's completely fine. Everything's fine now."

Miriam's eyes shifted to the several beer bottles that were lying next to her and she felt embarrassed. She noticed Helga's eyes soon followed hers and her head collapsed on the table. If only Miriam were to know that Helga didn't care the slightest at that point.

"Helga I-"

"You know what, it doesn't matter", she built a dam to keep Miriam's slow flow of words from flooding her own thoughts", I don't care. I don't care. It's all fine; it's all good. I'll just buy an alarm clock; I'll walk to school, never lie on the floor at night, skip breakfast every day, and figure out how to wash the laundry on my own. I don't need your help, or, actually, you're lack of. I don't care about anything anymore."

Miriam's head rose up, but she avoided eye contact. Helga continued to observe her mother as if awaiting something else to echo out of her food caverns, but after being put down by Helga in such a manner that if was as if Helga was actually the mother, how could she? Helga figured that she had successfully sucked all of the happiness and self-esteem out of Miriam. Miriam acted as though what Helga had stated was only constructive criticism meant to help her; the muscles in her cheeks stretched upwards and her grin looked utterly genuine, but her eyes whispered a different story in the head of Helga. She almost felt sorry for her, but instead of falling into an abyss of pity she simply wiped a line of dust off of the uncleanly, cluttered table and scotched her chair back. She spoke of nothing else and pretended as if the conversation never happened; as if this whole morning was a midday mirage on an excessively warm day that caused all of her sweat to pour into her brain instead of out of her skin.

"Clean the table", her voice announced in an ordering, yet pretty neutral or even friendly way as she slipped her shoes on while sitting down on the last step.

Miriam's eyes watered like a hose splashing water onto a lawn, but Helga didn't even look back and if she had there's no doubt that she wouldn't have cared anyways. Miriam's skull crashed onto the table with a plentiful of might but Helga only continued to ignore her, instead putting on the cap that she had left on the bottom of the steps yesterday night so that she could easily drop it onto her head and scratch out any worry of her not being able to find it.

"Useless drunk", she bellowed.

She went upstairs in search of her backpack. Miriam whimpered as vomit slowly flowed out of her mouth like a small stream under a bridge would. Her last bottle of beer was on the table; half-empty and entirely flat.

"No, no, I have to have it", Helga whispered to herself as she searched frantically for her backpack in the closet.

She threw her poems and her stuffed animals, and her toys all around in search of it, until she finally caught sight of it and grabbed it swiftly. Her impulsiveness got the best of her. Her body couldn't overkill the urge to run so she had not choice and dashed through the halls. The cap she had fastened onto her head flew gracefully as she stumbled down the steps, due to how reckless she was. The last thing she remembered before tumbling down was the sound of a high-pitched yelp screaming into her ears with a megaphone.

"Helga", a familiar voice screamed, but the quality of the spoken word that boomed into her ears in waves was quite poor.

It felt as if she were shaking, no, as if her mind were shaking. As if she was having some sort of internal earthquake. At the same time her mind seemed to be rushing with thoughts, but yet she could not quite follow all of the thoughts that sprinted into the regions of her brain. She could feel sunlight shining a heavy, blinding weight on her eyelids so she naturally refused to open them, but yet she wasn't quite sure if it was sunlight. She wasn't quite sure if her mind was shaking crazily, and she wasn't quite sure if any of this was real or simply one large, very detailed dream – at least she wished it were the former. It all felt like a fantasy, like nothing was truly real.

"Helga", the voice repeated once more and she felt what she thought was two hands shaking her shoulders, bouncing her head up and down which only worsened the feeling of an earthquake happening.

And yet she still hadn't opened those lids as not only did the light keep her from doing so, but she felt as if she were only half-conscious. She was grateful, though, that this person had shook her as her body felt like weights were crushing it down, keeping her from moving and her breath was short. She wanted all of this to be over. She wanted this paralization to be over, she wanted her racing thoughts to end, she wanted her earthquake to suddenly halt, and she wished that what happened earlier never did. She wished that she could wake up right now and be lying in her bed, warm, cozy, safe, and full of energy from a great night's sleep and slightly amused from such a detailed, odd dream that she would have to write into a story later. But she wasn't even sure if all of what happened earlier was even real; maybe it was just a dream or a crazy hallucination, some sort of mental breakdown. Maybe her she was in dozing off in her warm bed and maybe she was half-conscious because her mother was calling her name and shaking her to wake her up. But it couldn't be a dream and she knew it was real after the last thought as her mother would never go into her room to wake her up.

Her brain only squirmed more as her thoughts became ever more detailed, the shaking didn't stop and she wasn't sure if the person was still shaking her or not.

"Helga", the voice shouted into the depths of her mind once more, the person seemed to have begun crying at that point.

The circuits in her head began to function once more as she realized it was her mother. Her eyelids ripped open, her eyes wide out of fear as her body shot up out of her miniature coma, her breathing was heavy. She thought that she had screamed when she rose up, but she isn't quite sure if she did or not, nor did she even know if it was her who had squeaked.

"Miriam. Miriam!"

Her mother said nothing as she held Helga into her arms while the tears were no longer produced by her tear ducts and the ones that remained on her cheeks slowly collected and fell to the floor.

"I- I was so worried, I-", her ability to speak weakened ", I thought I lost you there, I-"

Helga said nothing in return, because her arms spoke for her when they tightly wrapped around her mother's. It took all of her might not to cry herself, in fact she was afraid that maybe she had cried all of her tears out because she couldn't produce any at the time. Her head was still squirming so she thought that she should be thankful that she wasn't crying, she had a pounding headache already after all. Miriam's head left the side of Helga's and looked into those cold, distant, painful eyes.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what happened today, and for everything actually. I'm sorry for failing my duty as your mother, I'm just too sorry. I can't let you out of my sight now, I can't, I also can't not help you and take care of you…I just can't because you're my daughter! My youngest daughter, my youngest loved on. I- err, well, what exactly happened, what-"

Helga stared blankly in annoyance. Her mother looked down to the floor and felt as if she had done something wrong once more after seeing chilling face stare straight into her eyes; after her extremely apathetic face printed into Miriam's mind. Helga's only continued to pierce into her mother's soul.

"Uh, well there's a staircase right behind me. Figure it out yourself, Sherlock", she sneered.

They both shared a laugh, and Helga thought that maybe that day wouldn't be so rotten after all.

~ End Of Chapter 3 ~

A/N: Right, so this definitely was a shorter chapter, but I'm still thinking of what direction the story should go in and such. I wanted to make the chapter longer, but I still need plenty of time to figure out what events will occur in the future of the story, and I decided to stop it short just so I could upload something finally.

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