Emily Clarke sat at her desk, eyes glued to the screen of her battered laptop. The numbers and formulas made perfect sense to her — they always did. Engineering was her dream. She loved the way things fit together, the way systems could be designed, improved, and built from the ground up.
If only her life could be engineered too.
At sixteen, Emily was one of the brightest students at Cresthill High. Her teachers always praised her work, and she often ranked top in class. But no one ever saw her beyond her grades. Not even at home.
Her father, Mr. Clarke, was a finance executive. Always in a suit, always on the phone. He treated the house like a hotel, passing through in silence unless there was something to criticize.
Her mother, Grace Clarke, was a social events planner. She loved parties, appearances, and gossip. She rarely noticed Emily unless it was to comment on her posture, her clothes, or why she wasn't "a little more like other girls."
And then there was Lily — Emily's five-year-old sister. A ball of sunshine and the only person who looked at Emily like she mattered. Emily adored her, even when she woke her up at 5 a.m. asking for stories or refused to sleep without her.
Their house looked perfect from the outside: white walls, trimmed hedges, shiny cars in the driveway. But inside, Emily often felt like a ghost. Her parents didn't believe in dreams not hers, anyway.
"Engineering?" her mother once scoffed. "Why don't you focus on something more realistic? You're not a boy."
Her father never even asked what she wanted.
Still, Emily kept studying. She had a plan. Scholarships, competitions, internships anything to escape this house, this silence, this feeling of being invisible.
At school, she didn't have many friends. People found her too serious, too quiet, too "different." But she didn't mind. She believed that one day, her hard work would speak louder than popularity ever could.
She just didn't know that darkness was creeping in that the very people she had ignored would soon turn her life into a nightmare.
But for now, she still had hope.
And a dream worth fighting for.