Sleepless in the House of Ye

Short Story by Ian McHugh

Poe Ye is some sort of amphibious alien creature, whose family needs her to stay awake (which is essentially biological suicide) for the winter to protect their spawn from predatory worms. Things go to hell rapidly and keep getting worse, the ending is thoughtful and bittersweet.

I really enjoyed this one. The aliens are very alien and an intriguing world is developed well without any obtrusive infodumps. You can really empathize with these things that aren't even close to being human. And it is an exciting survival/self-sacrifice story as well. 4 out of 5.