“Even if your life is painful now,” the priest delivered his sermon as Cass was served gruel by the attendants. “You can work towards a dream and make it your reality!”

That sounded nice, but where would anyone even find a job? Cass would work for food, but out here on the streets there simply was no work for people like her. Even if she found an opening, who would hire a emaciated, rag wearing, nine year old girl? There were some, but the things that kind of employer wanted… The very best an orphan like her could hope for is to have a somewhat decent pimp who would make sure the johns actually returned her alive. But since there were always more orphans to replace the girls that didn’t come back, a decent pimp was just a fairy tale and Cass knew it. She stayed away from those kinds of people.

Actually, she stayed away from people in general. She was too small and weak to fight, so even spots for begging were denied her in the cutthroat streets of Tyine, no gang would want her for much the same reason, and Cass wanted to avoid thinking about her work prospects again… She just quietly ate her gruel and listened to the sermon, grateful to have some warmth even if was just for a moment.

Cass nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand touched her shoulder and she spun around to see a priestess smiling at her.

“Hello there,” The priestess greeted Cass, she could not have been much older than seventeen or so, quite young for a priestess. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail behind her. “What do you think of the sermon?”

“Ya can wis’ fo’ a dream,” Cass replied, not wanting to talk but unwilling to offend a priestess who might deny her food again. “‘ut to be ‘onest, it is ‘opeless.”

The priestess nodded, “It can certainly feel that way, can’t it? Especially when it is so cold and miserable outside…”

Cass stayed silent, she should really think of something to say… The sermon had ended, and she would be told to leave and go back outside, the longer she could stay here in this warmth… But she had no idea what to say, Cass could not even think of a way to stay in this warm room a second longer and that made her want to cry…

“There, there.” The priestess sat down next to her and put an arm around her, “Tell you what, what if I gave you something to work towards?”

Cass was still struggling not to cry, but she was also suspicious of anything offered. “Wha’ do ya mean?”

“Would you like to learn how to talk properly?” The priestess smiled, “Working towards something, anything, can make a world of difference in your life if you let it.”

Cass was about to refuse when the priestess quickly added, “Of course, the lessons would be inside the Church…”

“Ok.” Cass’s voice was small, but she did not want to go back out in the cold.

“How about we start with my name,” the priestess had Cass follow her to one of the Church’s side rooms. “My name is Heather.”

“t’ank ya, ‘eather.” Cass said, and Heather smiled.

“Come on, I will guide you through the pronunciation.”

Cass came to look forward to these lessons for much more than the warmth they gave her, or perhaps it was a different kind of warmth. The Church did not have the resources to spare for food, so she still ate the gruel they provided and scavenged as she could for whatever else she could find. But the day Heather brought Cass a fresh apple to eat, she had not stopped crying for hours.

Heather taught Cass how to speak properly, having her recite the Church’s teachings and sermons. Cass could really feel the depth of Heather’s belief, and to some extent it rubbed off on her.

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The basic teaching of the Church of Light was to eliminate the darkness in people's hearts through growth and work. They believed that so long as someone had a dream that they worked towards with all their might, there would be no room for darkness to grow. Not all dreams were treated equally of course, there were the Gods above who ordered the kinds of dreams and valued them more or less than others. But even a small dream, like learning how to talk properly, could battle against the darkness and emptiness that grew in ones heart.

Cass had to agree, because she could feel the difference in herself. She felt happy when she spent an afternoon with Heather, trying to have an entire conversation without slipping back into slang. A year later, Cass was sill meeting with Heather, who had started to suggest Cass become a priestess.

“The bishop will be visiting tonight Cass,” Heather smiled. “I will get to meet him and I will ask him to consider taking you to the cloister.”

“Really?” Cass asked excitedly, “Thank you so much Heather!”

“You are welcome Cass!” Heather laughed, “Given your devotion to the Church, even if he doesn’t agree to the cloister, I am certain we can bring you in as an attendant.”

Cass was nearly skipping with joy the rest of the day, and that night she was too excited to sleep. Instead, she sneakily climbed on to the Church’s roof and slipped in through the gap left for the kitchen’s smoke to hang in the rafters above.

There she saw the bishop, an obese and bejewelled man surrounded by his guards and attendant priests. Heather was talking to them and Cass strained to hear…

“That’s right, I am shutting this dump down.” His voice was filled with contempt, “It brings nothing to the Church and is just a waste of resources.”

“Bishop, Sir!” Heather was begging, “Please, there are people we can reach here, there is a young girl who I think might even-”

Cass flinched as she saw the bishop casually slap Heather and send her to the floor.

“You should know your place, girl.” The bishop said casually, as if he had swatted a mildly annoying fly, but then he perked up. “How about this, if you can help with… My needs… I will overlook this place for now.”

Heather flinched, but nodded quietly. Cass shut her eyes and tried not to listen to what happened next, as the bishop broke Church law as if it was nothing, his fat mass grunting over Heather for what seemed like an eternity until it was over.

“Hey, you guys can have a go now.” The bishop said to the men around him after he had caught his breath.

“What?” Heather cried out, her face red with tears. “I didn’t agree to that!”

“You agreed to take care of ‘my needs,’ and I ‘need’ you to take care of my men.” The bishop and his guards and priests laughed. Cass recognized some of the priests as the ones who served the gruel and gave sermons…

Hours later… “Hey, she has stopped moving, did you break another one?”

“Don’t get mad at me, we should have left a while ago anyways, and it is so much better when you choke them with your cock up their ass!”

The men laughed, got their clothes together and left. Trembling, Cass barely managed to climb down and go over to Heather. They had left her naked, covered in semen and excrement, in the middle of the Church floor, Heather’s eyes stared into nothingness and her chest was not moving.

Bruise marks on her neck, bite marks on her breasts, even burns were visible where the bastards had taken a candle to her. Cass closed Heather’s eyes and cried. Heather had done all that for her, for that little bit of food and warmth that meant so much to Cass. Dreams might be a wonderful thing, but dreams can shatter, and all that is left afterwards is nothing.

Cass left before the attendants showed up, shaking and trembling, and feeling emptiness eat away at her heart.

Three years later, Cass sat in the same spot eating gruel as the priest preached. He was preaching about the how dreams that helped others were praised above all else. He had been there three years ago, laughing and jeering at Heather. But Cass found it difficult to hate him, she found it difficult to feel anything at all… Cass still believed the Church’s message, but she no longer believed that most of them believed it.

She still came to this Church, because she did not really have a choice. She was faced with those memories until she had retreated so far inside herself it could not touch her. She supposed she was lucky that she was still capable of fear even…

She had tried to go somewhere else in the city, but the gangs had become more violent of late. The Red’s were pushing to take control of the backstreets, and the other gangs were fighting back. Some mornings, people woke to see the gutters running with blood…

Honestly, she wondered why she even bothered to stay alive.