The alarm on Sunita's phone rang sharp and shrill across the quiet hallway at precisely 5:00 AM, but fifteen-year-old Khwahish had been awake for twenty minutes.

She lay curled on a thin, stiff mattress pad shoved into the corner of the small windowless storage room beneath the staircase. The air in the room was always thick with the faint scent of old cardboard boxes, phenyl cleaner, and dust. Pulling a thin, faded cotton bedsheet closer to her chin, Khwahish stared up at the concrete ceiling, tracing the jagged cracks in the plaster with her eyes.