"Rian! Hurry up with that load, you're falling behind!" A cross-looking woman barked at you.
"Yes, Mrs. Tynon," you pant as you grab two large tubs of wet linens and totter towards the door.
"Here, let me," a shy male voice startles you as you feel the weight of one of the tubs lighten. Before you can protest, a harsher voice cuts in.
"Lyres, have you finished the accounts and inventory?!" The even angrier Mrs. Tynon snaps at her 17-year-old son. Lyres Tynon's face falls and he reluctantly returns the tub to you. As you continue your stumbling walk to the outdoor clotheslines, you hear Mrs. Tynon snarl in an unkindly loud whisper, "How many times have I told you not to hang around with the hired help! Especially that girl, you know what her mother was!" You sigh inwardly, too tired to be angry. Thanks to her fool son, Mrs. Tynon would now make things twice as hard for you. If only he would leave you alone. You needed this job.
Exhausted, you finally leave the hand-wash laundry owned by Mrs. Tynon's husband and make your way home to a ramshackle second-floor apartment, if it could be called that. It was more like the second story of a shed which barely kept out the weather, but it was all you could afford. As you open the creaking door, a little form barrels into you.
"SISTER!" The smiling face of your little sister, Elisa, stares up at you.
"How is Garn?" You ask, concerned for your youngest sibling.
"I'm better, sister," A frail little boy calls to you from the only bed in the apartment, one which the three of you shared, partly for warmth, but mainly because you were too poor for anything else. You head over to Garn, who is sitting on the edge of the bed, and put your head against his chest to hear him breathe. Unlike the day before, thankfully, he was no longer wheezing.
"Okay, let's eat and later I'll tell you a story, okay?" You smile as you ruffle Garn's reddish-brown hair, completely different from your nearly-black wavy hair and Elisa's dirty-blonde limp hair. Although there are similarities between the three of you, it would be hard to recognize you as siblings, for the simple reason that while you shared a mother, heavens only knew who your fathers' were. To keep herself and later her children fed, your mother had turned to the oldest profession; at least she had until she died. You, as the eldest, took over care of your siblings two years ago, and now at age 16, you had the ruddy, worn cheeks and calloused hands of a manual laborer. However, you didn't complain, as you swore you would never end up in your mother's position. Anything was better than that, even dealing with Mrs. Tynon.
Frustrated at the hand life has dealt not you, but your innocent siblings, you bite your chafed lip as you had done so many times in the past, but instead of the dull pain that usually followed, you suddenly felt a sharp twinge from your lower lip.
"Sister, you lip's bleeding!" Elisa gasps.