# Chapter 2: Laura
I dug deeper into the envelope with trembling fingers, searching for something that would make this real. The graduation certificate was impossible enough—but Project Sky? That demanded answers.
My fingers brushed paper at the very bottom, folded three times and tucked so neatly against the side that I'd almost missed it. I pulled it out carefully, hands shaking so badly the paper rustled.
"It says... it's from Professor Laura."
"Professor Laura?" Mom leaned closer, confused.
"She's my physics professor." The words came out flat, but my heart was hammering.
Laura.
I'd bumped into her many times in the library over these three years. To other students, she was this mysterious beauty—the kind that made people stop mid-sentence when she walked by. Long grey hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail that fell past her shoulders, so pale it was almost silver in certain lights. Slender features, sharp and elegant—high cheekbones, a delicate jawline, eyes that were dark and observant behind thin-framed glasses she only wore when reading.
She moved with this quiet grace, like she was always thinking three steps ahead of everyone else. Spoke only when necessary, her voice low and measured. The kind of person who commanded attention just by existing, even though she never seemed to want it.
I'd heard girls whisper about her in the hallways. *So pretty. So intimidating. Never smiles. Is she even real?*
To me? She was just... weird.
---
The first time we crossed paths in the library, I was reaching for a book on quantum mechanics. She appeared beside me—silent, like she'd materialized out of nowhere—and reached for the shelf above mine. I flinched, automatically pulling back, waiting for the stare. The look. The moment of recognition followed by disgust or pity.
But she didn't look at me at all. Just grabbed her book and left, her ponytail swaying behind her as she walked away without a sound.
It kept happening. Week after week. We'd be in the same section, reaching for books near each other, and she'd act like we were... I don't know. Like we were sharing a secret? But we'd never spoken. Not once. She'd just nod sometimes. This tiny acknowledgment that felt huge because it wasn't pity or curiosity or revulsion. Just... a nod. Like I was normal. Like we were colleagues in this weird obsession with theories that most people dismissed.
Then one day, everything changed.
---
I was at my usual desk, buried in a textbook about spacetime curvature, when I heard a loud THUD.
I jumped, looking up.
Professor Laura stood there, having just slammed a massive book down on my desk. Our eyes met for half a second—hers dark and unreadable, mine wide with confusion. Then she just... left. Walked away without a word. No explanation. No greeting. Nothing.
I stared at the book.
*"Beyond Observable Reality: Linking Theoretical Physics to Proven Phenomena"*
I opened it carefully, like it might bite. The introduction started talking about how long ago, parallel universes and time travel were just wild theories people dismissed. But look at black holes—once impossible, now proven. Look at quantum entanglement—once magic, now measurable. The book argued that today's "impossible" theories might be tomorrow's reality.
It had some basic theories to feed our curiosity. Not the dry textbook stuff they made us memorize for exams, but the real questions. The big ones. It linked theory and actually proven stuff. Like parallel universes and time travel—that's how I got interested in those topics too.
Before that, I'd only read about space, the Big Bang, black holes, the observable universe. Long ago, these were just theories as well, wild ideas that people dismissed. But now, these are proven. Real. Possible.
It was exactly what I needed. Not dry formulas, but *possibilities*. Hope wrapped in equations.
Professor Laura knew that's what I needed. Not just facts, but possibilities.
---
"What does it say?" Mom asked, leaning closer.
I smoothed out the letter and began to read aloud, my voice shaking.
*Dear Maggie,*
*I'm happy to have you on board. It's a secret mission to find other worlds. It's not our government providing funds, but my company. Yes, I'm not only a physics professor, but also a scientist. The book I gave you was written by my own father. I'm going to follow his dreams and find clues about parallel universes, other worlds, any proof they exist.*
*If you want to disappear, why don't you come with me? Hahaha.*
My breath caught. How did she know? How did she know I wanted to disappear?
*I always thought you were beautiful. Now, I'm going to have you as my assistant. Please, won't you come?*
*Thank you for wasting your time on reading this. Don't cry alone—I am here with you!*
Don't cry alone.
My hands started shaking so badly the paper rustled. Those words. Those exact words felt like they'd been pulled from the pages of my diary, from the entries I wrote at 3 AM when I couldn't sleep, when the thoughts got too dark and I had to pour them out somewhere or drown in them.
She knew. She knew I cried alone. She knew I wanted to disappear.
How? When? Had she somehow—
*She'd read my diary.*
The thought made my stomach drop. Violation and confusion twisted together in my chest. But underneath that, something else. Something I didn't want to acknowledge but couldn't ignore.
Relief.
Someone knew. Someone had seen the real me, the broken parts I kept hidden, and instead of running away or looking at me with pity, they were offering me a way out.
*Your young and lovely teacher, Laura*
*P.S. Please call me Sissy!*
The letter ended, but I kept staring at it.
Call me Sissy? We didn't even talk before! Your young and lovely teacher? You're not though!
She really is weird.
But my hands were trembling as I held the letter. She knew everything—about wanting to disappear, about the pain, about all of it. And instead of pity, instead of the sad looks everyone else gave me, she was offering me exactly what I'd been dreaming of.
A way out. Far, far away.
---
"Maggie?" Mom's voice was uncertain, pulling me back to the present. "What does it mean? What mission?"
I couldn't answer. My mind was spinning, trying to process everything. She'd read my diary. She knew I wanted to disappear. And now she was offering me this—Project Sky, whatever that meant. A mission to find other worlds.
Other worlds.
The phrase echoed in my head, impossibly hopeful and terrifying at the same time.
Mom took the letter gently from my trembling hands, reading it herself. Her eyes moved across the words, her expression shifting from confusion to concern to something else I couldn't quite read.
"Maggie..." she said slowly, carefully. "This woman... your professor..."
She didn't finish. Didn't push. Didn't tell me what she wanted or what she thought I should do. She just looked at me, her tear-stained face soft with worry and love, and asked:
"Do you want to? Honey?"
Did I?
I opened my mouth, then closed it. The question should've been simple, but nothing about this felt simple. I was already graduated—the certificate proved that. There were no terms binding me, no obligations that said I *had* to accept this just because I'd finished school. I could say no. I could stay here. I could...
What? Keep waking up to that poisonous thought? Keep watching my parents cry in hallways? Keep being the weight that crushed them a little more each day?
"Let me think about it, Mom."
She nodded, understanding in her eyes. No pressure. No expectations. Just patience.
---
I took the contact information and the acceptance certificate, leaving the letter on the table. My fingers brushed against the thick paper of the graduation certificate, but I didn't take it.
Mom's hand reached out and gently picked it up instead.
I glanced back as I headed to my room and saw her holding it, both hands cradling the certificate like it was something precious. Something sacred. Her shoulders began to shake, and tears—silent tears—slid down her cheeks.
Not tears of sadness this time. Something else. Something that made my chest ache in a different way.
Three years. Three years of my father sleeping on that cot in the back room of his workplace, servers humming all night, never quite getting proper rest. Three years of my mother stretching meals, counting pennies, smiling through exhaustion that aged her beyond her years. Three years of sacrifice and worry and hope that sometimes felt more like a burden than a blessing.
And now this—proof that their daughter had made it. Had finished. That despite everything, despite all the pain and isolation and days I couldn't leave my room, I'd done the one thing they'd asked of me.
The hard work had paid off.
I turned away before the tears could start again and closed my bedroom door behind me.
---
The acceptance certificate felt heavier than it should've as I sat on my bed, smoothing it out against my thigh. I'd skimmed it before, caught the big words—*Project Sky*, *selected*, *assistant*—but now I needed to read it carefully. Really read it.
Most of it was what I expected. Reasons for selection: academic excellence, research interests aligned with project goals, demonstrated capability for independent study. What I should follow: confidentiality agreements, research protocols, safety guidelines. Standard stuff that sounded official and important but also vague enough to mean almost anything.
But then I reached the end.
My eyes caught on a section I'd missed before, and my breath hitched.
**Compensation and Accommodations:**
- Separate humble home, fully furnished
- Basic laboratory setup included in residence
- Ready-to-move arrangement available for family relocation
- Monthly salary: [amount listed]
- Contract term: Initial 6 months with renewal options
I read it again. Then a third time, slower, making sure I wasn't misunderstanding.
A house. Not an apartment, not a dorm room—a *house*. Fully furnished. With a lab. And they were offering to move my whole family?
The monthly salary listed at the bottom made my hands shake. It was more than my father made in two months doing IT work he was overqualified for. Maybe three.
What was I supposed to do? Just sign and submit? Was it really that simple?
*Am I that valuable?*
The thought felt absurd. I was just a student. A girl who couldn't even leave her apartment without panic tightening her chest. Someone people stared at like dirt, like something wrong and other and less than human.
*Do any companies actually do this?*
Offer houses. Relocate families. Pay this much for an assistant position. This wasn't normal. This couldn't be normal. Companies didn't throw this kind of money at fresh graduates, especially not ones who hadn't even officially finished their last semester.
Unless...
Unless they really needed me. Unless Professor Laura had been telling the truth in that letter—that she thought I was valuable. Perfect for this, somehow. That my isolation, my obsession with escape, my desperate need to disappear made me exactly what Project Sky required.
The thought should've been disturbing. It was disturbing. But it was also intoxicating.
To be wanted. Not despite what I was, but maybe even because of it.
---
I looked at my phone lying on the desk—that old, barely-used thing with its default wallpaper and empty contact list except for two names: Mom and Dad. I'd never been the type to have friends' numbers saved, had never gotten comfortable enough with anyone to exchange contacts. It was just a tool to call my parents when I needed something, to let them know I was okay when I stayed late at the library.
Now I was staring at the paper with Professor Laura's number on it, and my heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat.
I really wanted to talk to her. Now.
Not tomorrow. Not after thinking it over more, not after consulting with Dad, not after weighing pros and cons in my diary like I usually did with big decisions.
*Now.*
Because if I waited, I'd talk myself out of it. I'd find all the reasons this was suspicious, dangerous, too good to be true. I'd remember that she'd somehow read my diary, that we'd barely spoken, that I didn't really know her at all beyond those silent nods in the library and that one weird moment when she'd dropped her father's book on my desk.
But none of that mattered as much as the simple, undeniable truth:
This was my only way out.
---
I picked up my phone, the plastic smooth and cool against my palm. My hands were trembling—when had they started doing that? The screen lit up, casting a pale glow across my face in the dim room.
I unfolded the paper again, even though I'd already memorized the number. Ten digits. That's all that stood between me and everything changing.
My thumb hovered over the keypad.
What would I even say? *Hi, Professor Laura, it's Maggie, the girl whose diary you mysteriously read*? *Thanks for the incredibly generous and slightly suspicious job offer*?
I took a breath. Typed in the first digit.
Then the second.
Then all of them, one after another, until the number glowed on my screen, complete and waiting.
My finger moved to the call button and stopped.
*This is it. Once I press this, there's no going back. Once I make this call, I'm choosing to leave. Choosing to trust her. Choosing to believe that somewhere far away, there's a place where I can exist without wanting to disappear.*
I pressed call.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
My heart was hammering so hard I thought I might pass out. What if she didn't answer? What if this was all some elaborate—
Click.
"Hello, Maggie."
---
My breath caught in my throat. She knew. She knew it was me before I'd even said anything.
"H-how did you..." I stammered, my voice coming out smaller than I wanted. Weaker.
"How did I know?" Her voice was calm, measured, with a hint of amusement threading through it. That same quiet confidence she carried in the library, like she was always three steps ahead of everyone else. "Because this is my private number that I use for only confidential matters. Only a few people know about it. And, judging from the point of view? It should be you."
Of course. Of course she'd know. She probably knew I'd call today. Probably knew the exact moment I'd break down and reach for my phone. She'd orchestrated all of this—the letter, the timing, everything.
"Y-you really are weird!"
A soft laugh came through the speaker, genuine and surprisingly warm. "Ahaha, am I?"
Despite everything—the anxiety twisting in my stomach, the trembling in my hands, the weight of this decision pressing down on me—I felt my lips twitch. Almost a smile. Almost.
---
"H-hey," I started, trying to steady my voice. "Can... can I ask... is this information all true?"
There was a pause. Not awkward, just... thoughtful. Like she was considering which part I meant.
"What information?" she asked gently. "About the graduation? Or the acceptance?"
Right. There were multiple impossible things in that envelope. Multiple things that didn't make sense.
"I need to know that too..." I admitted, because honestly, I did. How had she arranged for my graduation? How did any of this work? But that wasn't what was making my heart race right now. That wasn't what had pushed me to call immediately instead of waiting.
"But th-the accommodation and upfront salary..." My voice dropped lower, almost embarrassed. Like I was asking for something I had no right to want. "Is this true?"
"Of course it is!" She sounded almost offended that I'd question it. Almost. There was still that thread of amusement, like she found my doubt endearing somehow. "Why would you doubt that?"
Why would I doubt that? Because people like me didn't get offers like this. Because I was the girl who hid in her room for three days straight, who couldn't handle walking to a corner store, who was a burden to everyone around her. Because this felt too good, too perfect, too much like a dream I'd had a thousand times only to wake up disappointed.
But I didn't say any of that.
---
"So," Laura continued, her voice shifting slightly. Still calm, still measured, but now with an edge of something else. Anticipation? Hope? "Are you in?"
The question hung in the air between us, carried through invisible signals and satellites, traveling the distance from her wherever-she-was to my tiny bedroom where I sat in the dim light, phone pressed against my ear.
*Are you in?*
Three simple words that contained everything. A yes meant leaving this apartment, this city, maybe this life entirely. It meant trusting this woman I barely knew, following her into some secret project about parallel universes and other worlds. It meant taking my parents away from everything familiar, uprooting them again after they'd already sacrificed so much to get here.
It meant hope. Dangerous, fragile, terrifying hope.
"I'm in."
The words left my mouth before I could second-guess them. Firm. Certain. More certain than I'd felt about anything in three years.
"But I want..." I hesitated, my fingers tightening around the phone. "I just want one favor."
"What is it?" Her tone shifted, genuinely curious now. Interested.
I took a breath. This was important. More important than anything else.
---
"My father is good at mathematics. Really good. But because of our situation, he works at jobs he's more than qualified for. Basic IT troubleshooting when he has a degree in advanced mathematics. He takes all the shifts he can get. He even sleeps there—at his workplace—to minimize expenses. He's sacrificed so much. Too much." My voice cracked slightly. "Can you help him?"
There was a pause. Then Laura's voice came back, and I could hear the smile in it.
"Did you read the document carefully, girl?" She sounded almost amused, but not unkindly. Like a teacher catching a student who'd skipped a crucial paragraph. "You're good at studies but somehow absent-minded!"
I blinked, confused. "What?"
"Our company is 800 kilometers away from where you are now. Your accommodation already includes your family. Of course I already planned all of this through. Your father won't need that warehouse job anymore. Your mother won't need to worry about stretching meals. You don't have to worry!"
The words hit me like a wave. All of it. Everything. Already planned. Already arranged.
Relief flooded through me so suddenly my eyes stung. My chest felt tight, but in a different way—not panic, not anxiety. Something else. Something that felt dangerously close to joy.
"Really?" My voice came out barely above a whisper.
"Really," Laura confirmed, her tone warm. "I told you, Maggie. I've been planning this for a while. I don't do things halfway."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't find words big enough to contain what I was feeling. My father could stop sleeping on that cot. My mother could stop crying in hallways. We could all just... breathe. Finally breathe.
"Thank you," I managed, and it felt pathetically inadequate for what she was offering.
---
"Don't thank me yet," Laura said, and there was something new in her voice now. Excitement? Anticipation? "We still have work to do. Speaking of which—we're going to the space station for our research within three months. So be prepared."
My breath caught. "Space station?"
"Mmhmm. That's where the real work happens. Can't study space rifts and parallel dimensions from the ground, can we?" She said it so casually, like she was talking about a trip to the grocery store instead of *actual space*. "The facility here on Earth is just preparation. Training. Getting you ready."
Space. Actual space. Not just theories in books, not just calculations on whiteboards, not just dreams of somewhere far away.
*Far, far away.*
Farther than I'd ever imagined.
---
A space station. With controlled environments, filtered light, regulated temperatures. No random sun exposure. No people staring. No crowds to navigate. Just... work. Research. Purpose.
A place where maybe, just maybe, I could exist without being a monster.
"I..." I tried to process it. Space station. Three months. Research on space rifts, time travel, other worlds. Everything I'd obsessed over in those lonely library hours, everything I'd studied to keep the dark thoughts at bay—it was all real. All possible. "I'm fully in."
The words came out stronger this time. Certain. Because this wasn't just an escape anymore. This was an opportunity. A real, incredible, impossible opportunity.
---
"Good," Laura said, and I could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "I'll send a car tomorrow at 10 AM. Pack what you need, but don't worry too much about it—everything will be provided. Bring your parents. Let them see what you're getting into. Let them decide too."
"Okay," I said, my mind already racing ahead. Tomorrow. 10 AM. Everything would change.
"And Maggie?" Laura's voice softened slightly. "About what I said in the letter..."
My heart skipped. The diary. How she knew.
"Your diary?" She sounded confused. "Maggie, I never read your diary."
Wait. What?
"But you said... you knew I wanted to disappear. That I cry alone—"
"Because I saw you." Her voice gentled, became something tender. Something careful. "That day in the library. Three weeks ago, maybe four? You fell asleep at your desk. You were exhausted—I could see the dark circles even from across the room. And you were crying. In your sleep, tears just... falling. And you said it. Whispered it, really. 'I want to disappear.'"
My breath caught. I remembered that day. The exhaustion so heavy I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, the textbook blurring in front of me. I'd thought I was alone. I'd thought no one had seen.
---
"I almost woke you up," Laura continued quietly. "But you looked so... I don't know. Peaceful, despite the tears. Like finally letting yourself feel it was a relief. So I just... I stayed nearby. Made sure you were okay. And when you woke up, you left so quickly I didn't get a chance to talk to you."
Relief flooded through me, mixed with embarrassment. She hadn't violated my privacy. She'd just... seen me. The real me. The one I tried so hard to hide.
Those secret reservoirs. The tears that only came when I was completely alone, completely unguarded. When I thought no one was watching.
But she had been watching. Not in a creepy way. Not in an invasive way. Just... caring. Making sure I was okay.
"Oh," I said quietly. "I thought..."
"I know what you thought." There was understanding in her voice, no judgment. "I'm sorry if the letter made it sound that way. I just wanted you to know—you don't have to cry alone anymore, Maggie. You don't have to disappear. You can just... leave. With me."
Leave. Not disappear. Not cease to exist. Just leave. Go somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere far away where I could start over.
With her.
---
"Get some sleep tonight," Laura said gently. "Actually sleep. You'll need your energy."
How did she know I barely slept? Of course she knew. She'd seen me exhausted, seen the dark circles, seen me literally fall asleep in the library because my body couldn't take it anymore.
"I'll try," I said.
"Good girl. See you tomorrow."
The line went dead.
I sat there in the dim light of my room, phone still pressed against my ear even though she was gone. My heart was racing, but not with panic. Not with that familiar anxiety that made my chest tight and my hands shake.
With something else. Something that felt like the opposite of that poisonous morning question.
*What if I had woken up?*
What if this was why? What if everything—all the pain, all the isolation, all those nights filling notebooks with theories about other worlds—what if it had all been leading here?
To Professor Laura seeing me crying in my sleep.
To her giving me her father's book.
To Project Sky.
To space.
To somewhere so far away that maybe, finally, I could exist without wanting to disappear.
---
I lowered the phone slowly and stared at the acceptance certificate still lying on my bed. Three months until the space station. Three months to prepare for something I didn't fully understand yet.
But I didn't need to understand it. Not yet.
I just needed to show up.
I stood up, my legs steadier than they'd been in days, and opened my bedroom door. Mom was still in the living room, the graduation certificate held carefully in her lap like a prayer, like proof that miracles could still happen. She looked up when she heard me, her eyes red but hopeful. Scared but trying not to show it.
"Mom," I said, and my voice only shook a little. "We need to pack. We're leaving tomorrow."
Her eyes widened. "Tomorrow? Maggie, are you sure—"
"I'm sure," I said, and I was. For the first time in three years, I was absolutely sure of something. "Professor Laura is sending a car at 10 AM. She wants you and Dad to come too. To see the facility. To see what I'm getting into."
Mom stood slowly, still holding the certificate. "And you want to go?"
Did I want to go?
I thought about waking up in this apartment tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Thought about my father coming home smelling of fluorescent lights and server rooms, his back permanently curved from sleeping on that cot. Thought about my mother's tears in hallways. Thought about that question that greeted me every morning like an old enemy.
"Yes," I said. "I want to go."
She looked at me for a long moment, searching my face for something. Then she nodded, decision made. "Then we'll go. Together. As a family."
As a family.
The words settled over me like a blanket. Warm. Protective. Real.
---
We were leaving. All of us. Tomorrow.
To somewhere 800 kilometers away.
To Project Sky.
To a future I couldn't quite see yet but that felt, for the first time in years, like it might actually exist.
I went back to my room and looked around at the space that had been my prison for three days, my sanctuary for three years, my cage for longer than I wanted to admit.
Tomorrow, I would leave it behind.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
I pulled out my small suitcase from under the bed—dusty, barely used, the same one I'd brought with me three years ago when we first moved here. I didn't have much to pack. A few clothes. Some books. My notebooks full of calculations and theories and desperate dreams written in the dark.
The diary.
I picked it up from my desk, that thin notebook with its worn corners and cracked spine. All my pain documented in these pages. All my loneliness and fear and self-hatred poured out in ink that had sometimes smudged from tears I didn't remember crying.
I should bring it. It was evidence of where I'd been, proof of how far I'd come.
But maybe... maybe I didn't need it anymore.
Maybe I could leave it here with everything else I was trying to escape.
---
I set it back down on the desk, open to a blank page. And on that page, in handwriting that was steadier than it had been in months, I wrote:
*I'm going to disappear. But not the way I thought I would. Not into nothing. Into something. Somewhere far away. Somewhere I can finally breathe.*
*Thank you for holding all this pain for me. But I don't need you anymore.*
*- Maggie*
I closed the diary one last time and left it there on the desk.
Tomorrow, when we left, it would stay behind. A ghost of who I used to be, gathering dust in an empty room.
And I would be someone new.
Someone going to space.
Someone with a purpose.
Someone who didn't wake up wishing she hadn't.
---
I climbed into bed, and for the first time in weeks—months, maybe years—I felt my body relax. The exhaustion was still there, bone-deep and heavy. But the poisonous thoughts were quiet. Replaced by something else.
Anticipation.
Tomorrow.
10 AM.
A car.
A journey.
A new beginning.
I closed my eyes, and for once, sleep came easily.
---