Naperville, Illinois.
Yet another picturesque day in the land of perpetual suburbia. The sun gleamed off the Riverwalk's meandering waters, minivans trudged dutifully towards Neuqua Valley High, and every third jogger seemed to have a labradoodle in tow. Just your typical Thursday morning in the Parker household.
I was hunched over my secret sketchbook at the breakfast bar, a piece of half-eaten toast growing cold beside me. Mom hadn't emerged from her home office yet, which meant she'd stayed up way too late puzzling over her latest biotech breakthrough. Dad was long gone, no doubt taking the 5:12am Metra into the Loop so he could squeeze in a few more billable hours. My little sister Chloe was at the counter, slurping Lucky Charms and chattering at warp speed.
"...And then Ashley said there's no way we can beat Lincoln Junior High with Olivia's ankle still messed up. But Coach Dan thinks if we put Jasmine on left forward..."
I let her words wash over me like background noise, losing myself in the sketch taking shape beneath my fingers. My hands moved automatically, tracing the outlines of a fantastical landscape—a place that made sense to me, unlike the real world. Crimson mountains, silver trees, twin moons hanging in an orchid sky. A world where I could be anyone or anything, unburdened by expectations, free from the nagging feeling that I didn’t quite fit anywhere.
In that world, I was bold. Confident. Maybe even powerful.
But here? Here I was just... Mia. A girl no one noticed unless they needed something from me—like help with math homework or quizzing for a vocab test.
"Uh, earth to Mia!" Chloe waved her spoon in my face, yanking me back to reality.
I blinked, disoriented. "What?"
"Can you quiz me on my vocab words this afternoon? Dad's got another closing, and Mom will probably be zombified."
I sighed, reluctantly closing my sketchbook and giving my world one last glance. "Sure, Chlo. But I'm headed to Lily's after school, so it'll have to be later."
Chloe made an exaggerated kissy face, her cheeks puffed up like a cartoon character. "Ooh, quality time with your BFF?"
Shut up. We're working on a project," I said, rolling my eyes. It wasn’t technically a lie. Lily and I were planning to redecorate her room this weekend, but Chloe wouldn’t understand the real reason I spent so much time there.
Lily’s house was more than just a place to hang out—it was my refuge. The one place I didn’t have to be Amelia Parker, introverted artist, reluctant mathlete, all-around disappointment. At Lily’s, I could breathe. I could forget that high school was suffocating me with its endless social hierarchies and unspoken rules, none of which I had the energy or desire to follow.
A car horn blared outside, jolting me from my thoughts. I stuffed my sketchbook into my bag, grabbed my backpack, and hustled to the front door.
Lily was already waiting in the well-worn Toyota she'd inherited from her mom. Sweet, dependable Sophia, who worked a million hours a week as an ER nurse but always had a warm hug and a fresh batch of snickerdoodles ready for us. Sometimes I wished Sophia were my mom.
"About time, slowpoke," Lily teased as I slid into the passenger seat. She was all sparkling eyes and shiny hair, bubbly where I was brooding, popular where I was peripheral. But she was also sarcastic and real in a sea of Naperville fakeness, and I loved her for it.
"Some of us have to put up with obnoxious little sisters," I retorted, buckling my seatbelt. My words came out sharper than I intended, but Lily didn’t seem to notice. She never did.
"Yeah, yeah. Just for that, I get to pick the music." She cranked up some bouncy K-pop as we pulled out of the driveway. I didn't mind. The upbeat rhythm was a good distraction from the heaviness pressing against my chest.
"So, you ready for another day in the glorious halls of Neuqua Valley High?" Lily asked with a wry smile, her fingers drumming to the beat.
I rolled my eyes, the mere mention of school stirring up a fresh wave of dread. "Oh, absolutely. Can’t wait to hear more about Jasmine’s new diet plan or Brandon’s latest lacrosse victory."
Lily chuckled, the sound light and carefree—everything I wasn’t. "Hey, don’t be such a hater. We’ve only got two more years of this. Then it’s goodbye Naperville, hello… well, anywhere else!"
She grinned as if that simple thought could keep her going for another two years. But the idea of sticking it out felt unbearable to me. Two more years? I could barely handle two more days of this. Every morning felt like I was trudging through quicksand, trying not to sink under the weight of expectations I didn’t ask for, surrounded by people I could never really connect with.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the familiar scenery blur by. If only I could click my heels and transform into the person I was meant to be… If only escaping this life was as easy as sketching a door in the air and stepping through it.
But that kind of magic didn’t exist. Not in Naperville. Not in my life. Here, you just had to grin and bear it, wait for the day when you could finally break free. The thought made my chest ache, the weight of it pressing against my ribs as I leaned back in the familiar seat of Sophia’s old Toyota. I let the sugary beats of K-pop wash over me, drowning out the constant hum of disappointment and braced myself for yet another ordinary day.
School passed in a blur of fluorescent lights, droning lectures, and the steady hum of anxiety I’d come to live with. Mr. Henderson waxed poetic about the symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye while I absently sketched Holden Caulfield escaping his prep school prison on a flying skateboard. Ms. Lopez lectured on parametric equations, but all I could think about was a dystopian future where math was outlawed. I smirked at the thought, wishing it were true. By the time the last bell rang, I was itching to escape—Lily’s room was waiting, our redecorating project my only reprieve.
But when I walked through the front door of my house, something stopped me in my tracks. Mom’s voice, rising with an excitement I rarely heard from her, slipped through the cracked door of her home office.
"...a major breakthrough, I’m telling you. Programmable nanites that can target and reshape any aspect of human biology. Aging, disease, even cosmetic traits—the applications are endless!"
I froze, my ears perking up. Mom’s work was usually way over my head, the kind of scientific jargon that blurred together into background noise. But this? This sounded different. This sounded like something ripped straight from the sci-fi novels I devoured in secret.
"We’re starting human trials next month. The DoD is chomping at the bit to get their hands on this tech. And I’ve got the only viable prototypes right here..." Her words were followed by the familiar rattle of pills in a bottle.
A strange tingle crawled up my spine, my pulse quickening. What if… what if this was the escape I’d been dreaming of? A magic bullet, a way to quantum leap over the drudgery of high school and transform myself from invisible, awkward Mia into someone bold, confident, and thrilling?
The thought took root, blooming dangerously fast.
The rest of the evening passed in a daze, my mind spinning with possibilities. I picked at my pork chop and green beans, nodding absently to Chloe’s chatter about the big game against Lincoln Junior High. Words like “prescient,” “ephemeral,” and “mercurial” slipped by as I quizzed her on vocab words, though I wasn’t absorbing a single definition. I hugged my parents goodnight, the familiar scent of Dad’s aftershave and Mom’s shampoo oddly poignant, like it might be the last time I’d smell them as Mia.
I lay in bed, watching the clock tick past midnight, then 1 AM, then 2. My mind raced, replaying Mom’s words— reshape any aspect of human biology. If those nanites could change my body, could they fix everything I hated? Could they make me better, stronger, someone unbreakable?
What if they could make me someone else?
The thought gnawed at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. The house was dark and silent as I slipped out of bed and crept downstairs, my socked feet barely making a sound.
Mom’s office door was unlocked. The glow of her computer bathed the room in eerie shadows as I rifled through the desk drawers, my hands shaking. Then I found it—a small vial of plain white pills. They looked harmless, but I knew their power.
I powered on Mom’s laptop, heart pounding, and opened the encrypted folder: Project: New Genesis. My pulse quickened. I knew this was wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The file opened easily—dosage protocols, nanite programming, everything I needed. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, trembling. Could I really do this? Should I?
Doubt crept in, but the weight of my life crushed it. The whispers at school, the constant feeling of being on the outside, the exhaustion of pretending—I was never enough. This could change all of that. It could change everything.
Without hesitation, I started typing: "older," "wiser," "stronger." I programmed the nanites, crafting a version of myself free from fear and insecurity. I wanted to skip the heartache, the confusion—straight to adulthood and freedom. I pressed execute, and the system beeped, confirming my choice.
My hands shook as I uncapped the vial and tipped two pills into my palm. They felt impossibly heavy, as if my entire future rested there. I hesitated, then swallowed them down, eyes closed, heart pounding.
For a moment, nothing. Just the hum of my laptop and my unsteady breathing. Then, dizziness hit me like a wave. The room spun, and I collapsed as darkness closed in.
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