Defying Desires

Episode 1- Disaster

Mia

I hated this shit!
I would literally kill someone if this noise continued.
I'd cheerfully burn their bodies and keep their ashes in a jar!
The music emanating from the top floors could cause an implosion in the entire building.
I would a thousand times settle with the faltering and muffled footsteps heard from the sidewalk as if I slept on the streets. I groaned then stuck my fingers into my ears, hoping to cease hearing the heavy metal music coming from above. Unfortunately, my little act was in vain. It felt like I had a rock concert right in my face. Can't a human being sleep in peace in their apartment? Sorry, I meant basement? I resided in a basement with my little brother and my Papa.
Before I went on with anything, I was poor. Well, my family was poor. This explained why we lived in a wretched, unfurnished, shabby, old, harlem, and gloomy basement the owner gracefully sheltered to us for free. Though we shared the room with little maintenance equipment. The hole punctured in the roof casted the sun's reflection right into my cornea. The tattered and almost broken bed I shared with my brother sank both of us down till the mattress touched the floor. Still facing the sticky and disgusting wall and away from my brother, I tossed my hand behind me to shake him up.

"You know, I always wake up before you." I heard him speak from behind me. I turned and saw him seated on one of the two chairs we had in the room, neatly dressed and ready for school. Oh so he wasn't on the bed.

"I'm just waiting for you to make me some sandwich for school. Didn't want to wake up because you kinda got in late yesterday." He gave a small smile. Ever since our mother died, Jayden simply lost his glow, his amazing and contagious personality. A fourteen year shouldn't experience such lamentation. More fuel was added to the fire the day our papa was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis making him unreadily paralyzed. The disease had no cure but had specified treatments that could prevent further deterioration. We had to sell all our property for his medication which unfortunately wasn't enough and to no avail.

I dropped out of college in sophomore year, realizing it was my responsibility to take care of my brother and my sick father. And now, I worked as a librarian in a small local center. This job wasn't exactly the kind to land you thousands of dollars since it was a small community library but it played a fair cut in taking care of my struggling family.

"Okay, kiddo I got you. Do you mind helping me out of this quicksand?" I stretched my hand to him as he pulled me up.

Okay, so I didn't finish describing the room to you. So every room had four walls right and so would obviously have four corners too. One corner housed me and Jay, another housed my dad and another housed the maintenance equipment and the last space we used as a kitchen.

The room had a venetian lantern that flickered little sparks of light. The room wasn't dim. it wasn't chandelier bright too. A non-working fan hung on the ceiling, not that we needed it anyway.
We had a bathroom too, the size of a small walk in closet. We didn't own a lot of stuff so the space was practically enough but the environment wasn't hygienic especially for my Papa.

I walked to his bed and saw him lying awake.
"Good morning papa." I pecked his forehead as his shadowy eyes blinked at me.

"Good morning Mia. Can you help me up into the wheelchair?"

"Of course Papa." I carefully set up the wheelchair. The disease had so far spread to his hands and arms making them immobile. He'd been complaining of pains in his patella of which I should take me to see the doctor but the money wasn't even enough for transportation fare to and back. I carried him by the armpits and gently sat him on the wheelchair.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

"No problem papa. I'm going to fix some breakfast for Jay then I'll heat up some soup for you, alright."