Chapter 1: The Weight of Morning
The alarm clock on Eliana's bedside table didn't ring; it rattled, a metallic protest against another day of survival. Eliana sat up, her joints aching from a double shift the night before. The room she shared with Anita was small, smelling of cheap perfume and the faint, persistent scent of damp concrete. In the corner, a small framed photo of her family sat—her mother smiling weakly, her younger brother Tobi looking hopeful. That photo was her fuel, the only reason she endured the humidity and the noise of the city.
Lagos was a beast that ate the poor, and Eliana was currently on its menu. As she dressed in her faded yellow restaurant uniform, she checked her purse. There were only a few crumpled Naira notes left. After paying for the bus, she wouldn't even have enough for a meat pie at lunch. Her stomach gave a dull roar of protest, but she ignored it, tightening her apron.
She walked to the bus stop, her beauty a curse she tried to hide behind a slumped posture and a downward gaze. Men whistled, their eyes roaming over her natural curves, but Eliana felt invisible in all the ways that mattered. She wasn't a person to them; she was just a beautiful thing in a grey world. By the time she reached "The Golden Spoon," the restaurant where she worked, her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her manager, a man whose kindness had long ago been replaced by a ledger, pointed at the clock. She was two minutes late. That meant a deduction. Eliana didn't argue; she simply picked up a tray and began the dance of the underpaid, serving hot food she could never afford to buy herself.