Outsmarted by a Smart House

I, Gianna Johnston, am born into a family of prodigies. My dad, Henry Johnston, is a computer science professor from Hafford University. My mom, Naomi Liddell, is a medical professor at Starvard University. And my brother, George Johnston, is an international math olympiad champion. Meanwhile, I'm barely passing my math classes at school. George gets so mad at me that he immediately writes down three full sets of math exam questions and exclaims, "You're so dumb that you're nothing but an embarrassment to Mom and Dad and me! "Don't you even think about leaving the house and embarrassing us again without completing all these math questions!" Mom then forces a few pills straight down my throat. Those pills are one of her inventions, called "smart pills". However, she doesn't care that I'm choking so hard on them that my eyes roll to the back of my head. "Stop using excuses, saying that you're tired or sleepy. These pills will keep you up for 24 hours without sleep. That should be enough time for you to complete all those math problems!" Dad then turns on "Strict Mode" on the smart house system, Domi. He says to me, "And don't even think about escaping the house to look for help. I will lock the door and cut off every signal going in or coming out. If you don't finish your work in time, nobody will even care if you die here!" After that, the three of them leave me behind and head off for their vacation in Hervaii. While shutting the door behind them, however, the vase of flowers full of water suddenly crashed into Domi's control panel. I'm choking so hard on the pills that I feel asphyxiated. I keep banging my fists against the front door for help. However, Domi, who has now short-circuited, keeps repeating, "Please complete your math questions, Gianna. Study hard and be a good student. "Study hard and be a good student. "Study hard and be a good student." I grip the sheets of math problems in my hands in agony. Will Mom, Dad, and George finally be happy when they see that I'm giving up my life for this? Chapter 1 The pills that Mom, Naomi Liddell, stuffed into my mouth wedged firmly in my throat and would not give. I couldn't even cough it up, let alone breathe or speak. And the smart house system that Dad, Henry Johnston, built, had sealed the only escape route I had to call for help. It didn't matter that I kept hammering my fists against the door until my bones fractured. The door still wouldn't open. I could feel a huge boulder pressing down heavily against my chest. Soon, it got so heavy that I lost all strength and slid down the back of the door. While I still had a sliver of consciousness left, I kept praying in my heart that Mom and Dad would save me. "Mom, Dad, please come back and save me! I'm scared! I'm going to die… I don't want to die alone. Don't leave me alone!" My hot tears ran down my cheeks and reached the corners of my mouth. However, the only reply I got was, "Study hard and be a good student…" I was going to be a dead student soon. I couldn't be a "good" student anymore. I closed my eyes in despair. However, the smart speakers suddenly lit up at that moment, blasting Mom's voice all over the house. "Gigi, have you started solving the problems yet? "Hello? Hello? Why aren't you replying? Fine, then! You're still not done throwing a tantrum yet, are you?" I shook my head in great agony. "No, Mom! That wasn't the case at all! Think about it; I can't answer you because something terrible has happened to me! I'm about to die!" The thought screamed through my mind. But Dad's cold voice sounded next. "It doesn't matter. I've already programmed Domi to lock up the fridge and the kitchen if she doesn't complete the questions in time. She won't get a single bite to eat! "That'll teach her to defy our orders! She needs to be taught a lesson!" Tears kept rolling down my cheeks. The mirror showed my face turning bluish and purple. My complexion was also beginning to look ashen. But I wasn't defying their orders! I was trying to be good. I would complete the math questions if I could! However, I heard George's voice next. He sounded very impatient. "Alright, alright. Hurry up and get in the car. Let's have as much fun in Hervaii without her. We'll make that stupid Gianna extremely jealous of us!" The car door then slammed shut, and I heard nothing more after that. The only sound I could hear was my heartbeat growing weaker and weaker by the second. Finally, it gave out. My heart felt like it had sunken beneath a frozen lake, never to be heard again. … When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I was at a bustling airport. Mom and Dad were happily chatting with each other while George was gaming on his phone. I used to ask him to play mobile games with me, but he would always shove me aside and tell me to practice solving more math questions. He told me that only smart people like him were allowed special permission to play mobile games. But now, I could just simply float over to him and watch him play on his phone. He couldn't chase me away anymore. George seemed to suddenly feel something and put his phone down. Then, he said in a condescending voice, "Gigi is so freaking stupid! I can't believe she barely passed Math. Do you think she'll be fine at home?" Mom's smile dropped immediately. "Why wouldn't she be fine? She'd just be throwing a tantrum at most! That brat just refuses to study and keeps causing trouble for everyone!" She then bit her lip and said, "At most, I'll just bring home some Hervaii cookies or something of the sort for her. She likes rubbish food anyway. Henry, tell her that only good students get rewarded!" However, the video that showed up on the screen was the last footage before the control panel had short-circuited—and I was scrunching up the math papers in my grip while still choking hard on the pills. Dad lost his temper. "How dare she tear up the questions? That little brat is just itching to get punished! Did she think she could win against us?" He then immediately gave more orders to the smart system. "Domi, change of plans. Gianna Johnston is not allowed a single bite of food or a drop of water for the next three days! If she's thirsty, tell her to drink from the toilet bowl instead!" Mom was also enraged. "I can't believe that an internationally-acclaimed professor like you and a medical professor like me wasted so much time and effort on that ungrateful idiot for years! How dare she still be so lazy? My colleagues have been making fun of me because of her!" I tried explaining myself to them, but George just asked Mom and Dad to stop talking. "Why are you speaking so loudly? Everyone is staring at us. If anything, both of you should never have given birth to her. She's nothing but an embarrassment to our family. She should have died the moment she was born!" At that moment, my fingers went right through Mom's and Dad's arms before dropping. I looked at them nodding at George's words, agreeing with everything he said. They said that they regretted giving birth to me. I smiled bitterly and thought that it was a good thing I was dead after all. I wouldn't bring shame to them or humiliate them anymore. Maybe now, Mom, Dad, and George would finally be happy. Chapter 2 I watched them as they flew to Hervaii. I watched Mom and Dad change into snorkeling gear while George hopped onto a surfboard. The sun was bright and shining, and it warmed up the sand on the beach. Meanwhile, my corpse was still lying on the cold, hard floor. Dad looked into the sky in the general direction of home and gripped his phone tightly. "I bet that little brat is crying from hunger right now." The corners of Mom's lips tugged downward. "Serves her right if she dies from starvation! I won't forgive her unless she copies out every question on the sheet she tore up a hundred times over! That little brat!" But Mom, dead children couldn't copy math questions anymore. "I'm sorry," I said. George just clicked his tongue impatiently as always. "Please! Have you forgotten how stupid she really is? She's dumber than a rock! What if the hunger gets to her brain and she starts acting up? She's such a bother! You should still check on her." Dad probably thought I was dumb, too. He quickly took out his phone to check. Mom came closer with a frown on her face, looking like she was about to spew angry curses at any moment. I rushed up and tried to hide the screen from them. If not, they would realize that something had gone wrong with the surveillance cameras, and they'd see that I was dead! And I had made a huge mess right before I'd died. Mom and Dad would hate me even more for that! I cried so hard that my body couldn't stop trembling. Dad stared at the surveillance footage and exclaimed, "What the-?" I never thought that his phone would somehow connect to the camera facing the living room. There was trash all over the floor, and it was a huge mess. It was all my fault for not studying well and lying on the ground, getting in the way of Orbi, the robot butler. Even Orbi called me "trash" and wanted to throw my body out. Orbi turned on his vacuum cleaning mode and ran all over the house. He used such brute force that the other flower vases fell to the ground, and even the table was overturned. Dad was fuming with rage. "Gianna Johnston! How dare you destroy the house! You stupid brat, why don't you just die already!" Mom screamed. "We won't forgive you even if you wreak havoc in the house! If three days won't cure you, how about ten? We'll keep you locked up until you finally admit defeat, you stupid girl!" "What a killjoy. Orbi! Clean up the mess in the room!" Dad said before throwing the phone aside. He would never see Orbi slamming itself against the wall repeatedly and going haywire. Orbi's outer casing broke after several more slams, with sharp, jagged hard plastic protruding from its sides. Then, it ran over the broken ceramic vases on the floor, dragging hundreds of sharp ceramic pieces into its wheels before ramming into my body. The sharp edges of ceramic and hard plastic were like butcher knives, slicing up my body and turning it into a bloody carnage. I fell to my knees next to Mom and Dad, crying hysterically as I begged them to stop Orbi. I was already dead. I just wanted to preserve my body so I could properly say goodbye to them again. But why did Mom and Dad have to ruin the chance with their own hands? Desperate, I then glanced at George for help. However, he just scoffed angrily and said, "That stupid idiot actually dared to touch my things!" I suddenly recalled seeing broken pieces of Lego on the floor in the video just now. That had been part of a huge Lego model George spent a whole month putting together! I shook my head in fright. "George, you have to believe me!" No matter how stupid I was, I still knew that I had to be very protective of George's belongings! I would hug the math sheets he wrote for me to sleep if I could! I would wait for George to come home. Maybe he would forgive me if he saw me… Wouldn't he? Suddenly, someone called out to him. "George? You're vacationing here too?" I immediately recognized Fiona Dickson. She was my deskmate and my neighbor, and Mom and Dad always compared me to her. They thought that she was the perfect student and a very well-behaved person. But they didn't know that she would stick gum in my hair and tell the boys to put dead rats in my bag. Since I could never do well in school and was thus considered a "bad student", she said that the teachers would never believe me even if I tattled on her. Fiona pretended to look around and asked, "I don't see Gianna." George huffed angrily at once. "What's the point of bringing a moron along? I really wish you were my little sister instead, Fiona!" I shuddered. My heart had already stopped. I was supposed to be dead. And yet, I could somehow still feel the pain spreading in my chest and making it hard to breathe. I didn't mind if they hit me or yelled at me. But I couldn't let them abandon me! However, Mom and Dad smiled at Fiona and said, "You always get such good grades at school, Fiona. I really wish I could throw ours in the trash and have you as our daughter instead." "Exactly! At least Fiona looks a lot prettier than that brat at home!" I widened my eyes and watched as Mom and Dad continued praising my school bully. George also said that I should be learning from a school bully too. Chapter 3 Fiona looked at Mom, Dad, and George like she was looking at a group of monkeys. How dare she do that? My parents and George were all geniuses! Prodigies! I was very proud of them and I refused to let anyone look down on them! I rushed forward, trying to push Fiona away. However, Mom spoke up just then. "Are you hungry, Fiona? Here, have some cookies…" But Mom said that these cookies were for me! Although I couldn't eat them anymore… Still, how could she reward the bad student who always bullied me at school? I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. It was as if there was a massive hole in my heart, and blood wouldn't stop pouring out. Someone next to Fiona suddenly said, "Why would Fiona want your cookies? Your crazy daughter would just get all upset and lie that Fiona was bullying her again!" Fiona's dad, Bruce Dickson, was the headmaster of our junior high school. Now, he was standing in front of her, shielding her from Mom with a look of disdain on his face. He didn't look pleased. It was the same exact look he used to threaten me with when I said that Fiona had been bullying me in school. He said that he was going to kick me out of the school back then. Mom apologized instead, to my shock and horror. "I'm sorry," she had said. "It's all because that brat is a huge liar!" Then Mom removed the turquoise amulet from around her neck and pressed it into Fiona's hand. "Take this necklace as my way of making it up to you. That brat has been eyeing it for a very long time. You can have it instead. Make her jealous of you all you want!" I glared at the turquoise amulet that Mom was now putting around Fiona's neck. The amulet had been Grandma's. Grandma gave it to Mom, and Mom also said that she would give it to me next time. The turquoise amulet was supposed to bring good luck and also protect the wearer from harm for the rest of their lives. But I was dead now, and the amulet was no longer mine. Mom's love disappeared too. Mr. Dickson scoffed coldly again and said, "Your daughter is nothing but a troublemaker! How dare she accuse me of playing favorites? I won't let this go if you don't make a public apology about it!" Mom and Dad, who were still furious with me, immediately posted on all of their social media accounts, painting me as a jealous bitch who framed her deskmate for no good reason. They then said they were good parents who stood only for the truth. It was I who didn't know any better and turned out to be a rotten child. At once, everyone in their social circle, including my relatives, began scolding and insulting me. "I knew it. Her parents are such capable people, but she's the black sheep of the family. She's just rotten on the inside!" "I could tell since she was a baby that she wasn't good news! Nothing good will ever come out of her!" Suddenly, I felt suffocated again. However, Mom and Dad continued playing with Fiona like nothing bad had just happened. They always told me they were busy with work, but now they were happily snorkeling with Fiona, looking at the corals and tropical fish underwater. George always told me that he hated stupid people, but he was patiently teaching Fiona how to surf. And after Fiona got tired, she lay curled up on Mom's lap to nap. She even put on a show and said, "You're so good to me, Mrs. Johnston! I'm sure that if my mom was still alive, she'd be just like you…" Mom immediately hugged her with a tender look in her eyes. "You can be my daughter instead and call me 'Mom'!" Then, what was I? Dad grinned as he watched Mom and Fiona. "Maybe Fiona could stay with us for a while. Let me see which room would do—" George suggested, "Tell that idiot to give up her room and then send her off to boot camp instead. She won't be able to cause any trouble for Fiona, then!" I listened with my own ears as my own family planned to throw me out and replace me with my bully. Over the next five days, none of them ever brought my name up again. One day, one of our neighbors finally called Dad. "Mr. Johnston, I've already called the police. There's a terrible stench coming from your house. It smells like rotting flesh. Or a dead body." Chapter 4 Dad gnashed his teeth angrily. "Gianna Johnston! She must have scattered trash all over the house, making a huge mess!" Mom also slapped her thighs in anger. "That little troublemaking idiot! How could she stoop so low and eat from the trash? What a freaking humiliation! She's brought nothing but shame to our family!" They immediately flew home the next day, but it was still too late. The police were already waiting at the front door. Dad saw that they had gotten a locksmith to open the door. He quickly shoved his hand out, blocking the keyhole. "Officers! It's just a kid messing around. Please leave. I don't want to embarrass ourselves any further." The policeman in charge handled the case strictly in accordance with standard protocol. "Please explain yourselves. Your neighbors saw the three of you leaving for vacation without your youngest daughter. And now, there's a smell of a dead body coming from inside—" Dad smacked his palm against the door in fury. "It's all because of that little diabolical brat! She tossed all the kitchen waste onto the ground, letting it rot on the floor! That's why it smells like dead bodies!" Mom piped up next. "You don't understand, officers. That brat has been a tiresome troublemaker since she was born. I know that she did all this on purpose just to embarrass her family!" George hammered on the door impatiently. "Open the door, Gianna Johnston! If you don't want us to go in there and teach you a hard lesson, then come out on your knees and apologize!" There was only a door separating my body from them. I stared at my cold, rigid body on the floor and began to cry. I wanted to open the door for George too! I wanted to hug Mom and Dad! But I couldn't do it anymore. The policeman asked calmly, "Have you never thought that leaving a child at home alone for a few days might cause her death, simply by accidental electrocution, for instance?" George scoffed and laughed loudly at that. "Indeed. That idiot…" Suddenly, his face fell. Dad was stunned at first. However, he quickly burst into laughter afterward. "That's impossible! Hahaha! I graduated top of the class from Hafford University with a doctorate in computer science! The smart home that I designed has absolutely no danger or threats!" "But Dad… I died in the smart home that you built. And I died from choking on the smart pills Mom invented, still grasping George's math problems in my hand," I lamented, unheard. Mom shook her head mechanically. "You've got to be joking. That idiot was born just to make our lives miserable. How could she possibly be d-d…" Suddenly, Mom stuttered. It was as if she couldn't say the word "dead" out loud. But Mom always kept telling me to go kill myself. Her wish had already come true. The policeman removed Dad's hand and asked the locksmith to continue opening the door. Dad's breathing tensed. "I told you that my daughter is fine! She's not dead! You don't believe me? "Domi! Open the door and show the policemen that the brat is still alive and probably laughing her head off behind the door!" Since Domi wanted to make sure that the whole house was clean before welcoming Dad into the house, he activated Orbi, who immediately rushed toward me again. Initially, Mom and Dad could still see my face for the last time if they wanted to. But as Orbi continued slashing its sharp, jagged ends against me, every last shred of skin on my body was sliced and torn into ribbons. Dad was still in a very smug mood. "Open your eyes wide and take a good look inside. My daughter is still fine and alive!" The door opened. However, the first thing that seeped out from the door was Orbi's dirty mopping water, mixed with my blood, and my unmistakable murky yellow decomposition runoff. Domi's robotic voice sounded. "Welcome home, Mr. Johnston. We are happy to serve you." Meanwhile, Orbi kept repeating, "Cleaning up the trash… Cleaning up the trash…"