Chapter 1 : Maggie

It's morning.

The left side of my face throbbed—a dull, familiar ache that had become my alarm clock for the past three days.

Not the gentle kind of pain that fades when you wake up fully, but the persistent kind that follows you into consciousness like an unwanted companion. A reminder. A brand.

I hadn't even brushed yet—but my stomach grumbled, loud and insistent, drowning out everything else.

The sound was almost offensive in the quiet of my room, a biological demand that didn't care about my desire to simply cease existing.

“Fine. Food, then.”

What was the point? It wasn't like I was going anywhere. It wasn't like anyone would see me.

I dragged myself out of bed, still groggy, movements slow and uncoordinated. My limbs felt heavy, weighted down by exhaustion that sleep never seemed to cure anymore.

I shuffled to my door, bare feet silent on the worn carpet.

What's in the fridge? Nothing. Great.

"Mom???"

"Yes, honey?" Even through the wall, I could hear the hope in her voice. Hope that today might be different. That I might be different.

"The fridge is empty!"

A pause. I could picture her face—the guilt, the apology already forming.

"Oh! Sorry, your dad isn't home yet, night shift. I'll ask him to pick something on the way."

Night shift. Always the night shift.

"Haa! I'm already hungry!!!!"

The whine in my voice made me cringe. Like a child. Like someone who had the right to demand things.

"Then, you can go yourself! Take the money on the TV stand."

The words hit like a physical blow.

Go outside.

Go. Outside?

As if it were that simple. As if I could just walk out that door, down those stairs, onto those streets. Like it all had changed. Like the past three days—the past three years—hadn't happened.

As if people wouldn't stare.

My chest tightened. My hands started to shake. The familiar panic rising like water filling my lungs, slow and suffocating.

"Oh… gee thanks." The sarcasm came out sharper than I intended, bitter and defensive.

"But no, I'm not gonna go outside. Anymore!"

That last word slipped out before I could stop it.

“Anymore.” It hung in the air between us, even with the wall separating us. Heavy with everything I wasn't saying. Heavy with finality.

Not "today." Not "right now." “Anymore.” Ever again.

"Honey!" Mom's voice carried a desperate edge now, that tone she got when she was trying to sound cheerful but couldn't quite pull it off. "It's already 3 days, that bruise would've healed by now."

She said it so casually. So matter-of-factly. Like the bruise was the problem. Like this fading purple smudge on my cheekbone was all that stood between me and the world. Like if I just waited long enough for the discoloration to fade, everything would be fine. Normal. Fixed.

She didn't understand. Couldn't understand.

The bruise wasn't what kept me inside.

The bruise was just the latest excuse, the most recent justification for something that had been building for three years. Three years of stares and whispers. Three years of being looked at like I was something other. Something wrong. Something that didn't belong in the sunlight.

It was easier to let her think it was about the bruise. Easier than explaining that every time I thought about stepping through that door, my chest tightened until I couldn't breathe. That my hands started to shake. That my vision would narrow and darken at the edges. That my body physically rejected the idea of going back out there, into that world full of eyes that saw me as a monster.

The bruise would fade. It was already fading, yellowing at the edges, barely visible unless you knew where to look.

What happened to put it there wouldn't fade. Would never fade.

I turned away from my door, letting it stay closed. The light disappeared, leaving me in the gray dimness again. Good. Better.

I got back into bed, pulling the covers over my head. The fabric blocked out what little light filtered through the curtains, creating a small dark cave. Safe. Hidden. Alone.

“What if I hadn't woken up?”

The thought surfaced like poison bubbling up from somewhere deep and dark inside me. Unwelcome. Uninvited. But persistent, always there, waiting in the quiet moments when I couldn't distract myself.

What if this morning, I just... hadn't?

What if my body had finally gotten the message that I didn't want to keep doing this anymore?

What if I could just stop, quietly, without making a fuss, without adding one more burden to my parents' already crushing load?

The thought felt a little less shocking each time it came. A little more familiar. Like an old friend I never wanted to make but who kept showing up anyway, patient and persistent.

Like a comfortable lie I was starting to believe.

Then I tried to close my eyes. Wanted to sleep again, or stay there like that forever. Just exist in this small dark space where nothing could reach me. Where I didn't have to be a person, didn't have to have a face or a body or expectations hanging over me like storm clouds.

Just... nothing. Just dark. Just quiet.

But it doesn't work.

Sleep was a luxury I'd lost somewhere along the way, traded for sleepless nights filled with spiraling thoughts and what-ifs and replays of every terrible moment.

My body was exhausted—bone-deep, soul-deep exhausted. But my mind refused to shut down, refused to grant me even a few hours of unconsciousness.

It just kept going. Replaying. Analysing. Tormenting.

I reached under my pillow with one hand, fingers searching until they found the familiar shape. My diary. I pulled it out, still hidden under the covers, and held it against my chest.

It was a thin notebook. Nothing special. The kind you could buy for cheap at any store.

Its corners were worn soft from being gripped too tightly, from being held like a lifeline in the dark. The cover was creased and bent, the spine cracked from being opened and closed too many times.

It wasn't filled with memories—not the kind other girls wrote about, anyway. I'd seen other students' journals sometimes, glimpsed pages covered in hearts and inside jokes and excitement about parties and crushes and all the normal things that normal people got excited about.

Mine wasn't like that.

Just my life struggling. What I went through these past three years since I came here for college. A catalog of cruelty. A documentation of otherness.

Proof that I wasn't imagining it all, that it was really as bad as it felt.

I flipped through the pages without really reading them. I already knew what they said. I'd written every word, after all. Had poured my pain onto these pages night after night when I couldn't sleep, when the thoughts got too loud, when I needed to get them out of my head before they consumed me entirely.

The words were just evidence now. Proof that I wasn't imagining it all. That I wasn't being too sensitive or overreacting or any of the other things people implied when they wanted you to pretend everything was fine.

People around me always stared at me strangely. Every corner felt like a nightmare waiting for me to come inside and—

I couldn't finish the thought. Even in my head, even alone under these covers, I couldn't finish it.

I slammed the diary shut, the sound muffled under the blankets.

The silence in my room was suffocating. Pressing down on me from all sides. The walls felt closer than they had a minute ago, like they were slowly contracting, squeezing the air out of this small dark space.

Staying here wasn't working. But leaving wasn't an option either. I was trapped between two impossibilities—couldn't stay, couldn't go. Couldn't breathe, couldn't stop breathing.

But maybe...

The thought came slowly, uncertainly. Tentative.

Maybe there was a third option. Not here. Not out there. But somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere safe.

I stood up, throwing off the covers. My legs were unsteady beneath me, weak from three days of barely moving, barely eating. The room tilted slightly and I had to grab my desk to steady myself.

"Mom!" My voice came out louder than I intended, desperate. "Can I—can I go to Grandma's place?"

The words hung in the air. I held my breath, waiting.

There was a pause from the other room. A long pause. I could picture her face—the confusion already forming, the worry lines deepening, the internal calculation of what this meant, what I was really asking for.

"Haa? Why, honey?"

Why. Such a simple question. Such an impossible one to answer truthfully.

Before I could figure out what to say, she spoke again, and her voice carried an edge of panic now.

"What about the rest of your semester? It's just one semester left!!"

One semester.

She said it like it was nothing. Like it was barely any time at all. Like I could just white-knuckle my way through another few months of hell because the finish line was visible in the distance.

Like time healed anything other than bruises.

All the struggle my parents went through to get me here. The thought crashed into me like a wave, pulling me under. The documents. The paperwork that had taken months. The savings account they'd bled dry, watching every penny disappear into application fees and deposits and all the countless expenses of trying to give their daughter a better life.

The apartment in a neighborhood they could barely afford, in a building where the heat barely worked, and the walls were thin enough to hear our neighbors' conversations. This cramped, dim space that still cost more than they should have been paying.

My father sleeping at his workplace. A cot in the back room, surrounded by humming servers and flickering monitors that cast blue light all night, never quite letting him rest. Taking every shift he could get—morning, evening, overnight—even though he had a degree in mathematics, even though he was overqualified for basic IT troubleshooting.

His back aching from the uncomfortable mattress, his eyes strained from staring at screens for twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours at a time.

All so I could have what they never did.

Opportunity. A future. A better life.

Or whatever hollow promise they'd been sold when they decided to uproot everything and move here. When they decided their daughter's education was worth any sacrifice, any hardship, any amount of suffering.

But all in vain.

The thought sat in my chest like a stone. Heavy and cold and undeniable.

All of it—every sacrifice, every extra shift, every time my mother stretched a meal meant for two to somehow feed three. Every time my father came home too exhausted to speak, collapsing into sleep still wearing his work clothes. Every worry line that had appeared on their faces, every grey hair, every year they'd aged too quickly from stress and lack of sleep.

All of it for nothing.

Because their daughter couldn't even make it to the end. Couldn't even last one more semester.

Couldn't even fulfil the one thing they'd asked of her—to finish. To graduate. To make it all mean something.

And it wasn't even one thing I could fight.

Class bullies? I could've knocked their teeth out. I'd done it before, almost—came close enough to taste the satisfaction of it. Close enough to feel my knuckles connect with someone's jaw, to see shock replace cruelty in their eyes for one beautiful moment.

I could fight individuals. Could stand up to isolated acts of cruelty. Could defend myself when the threat had a face and a name.

But an entire campus? An entire world? What could I do against that?

How do you fight when the problem isn't a few cruel people but everyone? When the stares come from strangers on every corner? When the disgust is ambient, atmospheric, as much a part of the environment as air?

Whenever I went outside, people would stare at me like dirt. Like I was something they'd stepped in and couldn't scrape off their shoe. Something offensive. Something that didn't belong on their streets, in their nice neighborhoods, in their line of sight.

Some looked at me like I wasn't even human.

That was worse, somehow. Not the disgust—I could handle disgust.

But the confusion, the way some people looked at me like they were trying to solve a puzzle that didn't make sense.

Like they couldn't quite reconcile what they were seeing with their understanding of how people should look. Even though we had the same facial structure. The same body. The same two arms and two legs. The same basic human anatomy.

But somehow, in their eyes, I was fundamentally other. Less than. Wrong in a way that went deeper than appearance, in a way I couldn't fix no matter how much I changed myself.

A face pale as paper.

I'd heard that one early on, whispered behind hands but loud enough for me to hear. Loud enough that they wanted me to hear.

Red eyes like a demon.

That's what one kid had called me once, and the name had stuck. Spread through my classes like a virus. Whispered behind hands and snickered across hallways. Demon. Monster. Ghost. Freak.

A little bit of sunlight could give me burn marks. Angry red welts that would throb for days, that would make my already pale skin look mottled and wrong. So I avoided the sun. Wore long sleeves even in summer. Kept to the shade. Made myself smaller, dimmer, trying to blend into the shadows where maybe people wouldn't notice.

But they always noticed.

I am albino.

Three words that explained everything and nothing.

A medical condition, my parents called it. Tried to make it sound clinical, scientific, neutral. Just a quirk of genetics, just an absence of melanin, just a thing that happened sometimes.

A curse, others implied. Or said outright when they thought I couldn't hear. Bad luck. Poor thing. What a shame.

A joke to the ones who found cruelty entertaining. The ones who made demon sounds when I walked past. Who put mirrors in front of me and asked if I could see my reflection. Who asked if I sparkled in sunlight like those vampire movies.

A monster to the ones who stared too long, who looked at me like I was something that had crawled out from under a rock. Something that shouldn't be allowed in public. Something that disrupted their aesthetic, ruined their day, offended their sense of how the world should look.

A ghost to the ones who tried to ignore me entirely, who looked through me like I was transparent. Who moved their bags when I sat down, who found excuses to leave when I arrived, who made it clear that my presence was unwanted without ever saying a word.

Something to be feared or pitied or studied from a safe distance.

Never just a person. Never just Maggie.

What can I say? I was born ugly.

The words tasted bitter in my mind, but they had the weight of truth. Or at least, the weight of what everyone else seemed to believe was true.

Not an idol. Not even close to whatever standard they worshipped here. Whatever impossible combination of features and proportions and colouring that made someone acceptable to look at, desirable, normal—I was the opposite of that.

Even back home, what I got was pity.

At least there, people had the decency to look away. To pretend I wasn't there. To let me exist in peace, if not in acceptance.

Here, they looked too long. Too hard. Measuring me against something I could never be. Finding me lacking in every possible way.

I was supposed to be worth it.

The thought was a knife twisting in my chest.

Their investment. Their hope. Their reason for every sacrifice they'd made.

And instead, I was this: a girl who couldn't leave her bedroom. Who flinched at unexpected sounds. Who wanted to disappear—really disappear, permanently, completely.

A failed experiment in a better life.

My only dream—I pressed my palm against my chest, feeling my heart beat beneath my ribs, fast and irregular—was to experience life with joy.

That's all.

Not success. Not wealth. Not fame or beauty or love or any of the things other people seemed to want. Just joy. The simple, uncomplicated kind. The kind other people seemed to stumble into without even trying. The kind that came from existing without pain, without fear, without constantly calculating whether it was safe to be seen.

So my lifetime goal became to go somewhere far away.

Like far, far away.

Not just another city or another country. Somewhere completely different. Somewhere no one knew me, somewhere I could start over completely. Somewhere I could be anyone—or no one. Somewhere the stares couldn't follow.

Even if I wouldn't be able to come back. Even if it meant never seeing my parents again. Even if it was one-way, permanent, irreversible.

Maybe especially then.

So my mom and dad wouldn't have to suffer because of me anymore.

So they could finally be free of the burden I'd become. Could stop worrying, stop crying, stop sacrificing. Could live their own lives instead of constantly trying to fix mine.

They talked cheerfully every day in front of me.

Voices bright and determined, smiles painted on like armor. Like if they just said the right words, believed hard enough, I could be fixed. Motivated. Saved.

Like positivity was a cure for being fundamentally unwanted by the world.

But I saw them cry.

Many times. More times than they thought.

Because I'd gotten good at being quiet, at moving through the apartment like a ghost, at hearing things I wasn't supposed to hear.

Late at night when they thought I was asleep, I'd hear Mom's muffled sobs through the thin walls. The way she'd try to stay quiet, to swallow the sound, but couldn't quite manage it.

In the morning before I woke up—or before they thought I'd woken up—I'd emerge from my room to find them red-eyed and pretending they weren't.

Dad washing his face in the kitchen sink, Mom suddenly very interested in breakfast preparations, both of them startled by my appearance like they'd been caught doing something wrong.

In the hallway sometimes, when they thought I was in my room with the door closed. I'd hear their footsteps pause, hear the soft sound of fabric as they held each other. Silence, but the heavy kind. The kind that's full of unspoken pain. And then soft, almost silent tears streaming down faces they tried to hide from me.

For me. Because of me.

The knowledge was unbearable.

Why?

Why did I have to be the weight they carried?

Why couldn't I just be normal, easy, happy?

Why did my existence have to be the thing that broke them?

They'd done nothing wrong. They'd been kind parents, loving parents. They'd given everything they had and more. Worked themselves to the bone, aged before their time, sacrificed their own dreams so I could chase mine.

And what had they gotten in return? A daughter who couldn't even manage to exist in public without falling apart. A daughter who hid in her room for days, who flinched at doorbells, who woke up every morning wishing she hadn't.

A daughter who was supposed to be their pride and joy but had become their greatest source of pain.

The guilt was crushing. Suffocating. It sat on my chest like a physical weight, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to see any way forward that didn't involve causing them more suffering.

"Mom, I—" My voice came out apologetic before I'd even formed the words. Dropped like flowing water on plants—gentle, desperate, trying not to cause more damage even as it overflowed.

"I can't anymore!"

The words burst out of me, raw and broken.

I broke down.

Not crying—no tears came. They'd dried up somewhere along the way, used up months ago, maybe years ago. My body had decided it wasn't worth the effort anymore, that tears changed nothing.

But my voice carried the sadness anyway.

Heavy and cracked and full of everything I'd been holding in. Three days. Three years. A lifetime of trying to be okay when I wasn't, trying to be brave when I was terrified, trying to keep going when every cell in my body was screaming to stop.

I couldn't stay in that room anymore. Couldn't be alone with those thoughts, with that poisonous question about whether waking up was even worth it.

Couldn't hide behind my closed door and pretend everything was fine when it so clearly wasn't.

I hid my face and moved to the next room where my mom was.

The distance was only a few steps, but it felt like miles. My legs barely held me. My vision was blurry even without tears, the world reduced to shapes and shadows.

She was crying.

I saw it the moment I entered. She wasn't hiding it, wasn't trying to be strong anymore. She was just sitting there on the couch, her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Crying for me. Always for me.

The moment she saw me, she opened her arms.

No words. No questions. Just open arms and a face full of pain and love and desperation.

I fell into them.

Let myself collapse into her embrace like a building finally giving up its fight against gravity. She hugged me tight, her arms wrapping around me like she could hold all my broken pieces together through sheer force of will.

Like love could be glue. Like if she just held on hard enough, I wouldn't shatter completely.

I sobbed.

Dry sobs, airless and painful, my body going through the motions of crying without any tears to show for it. My chest heaving, my throat closing, gasping for breath between the waves of grief that crashed over me.

"Please, don't cry, honey!"

Her voice shook even as she said it, contradicting her own words with her tears that were soaking into my hair.

"Let's talk things through. Father will come home soon. Let's eat and talk it out. Please—"

She pulled back just enough to look at my face, her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes were red and swollen, searching mine for something.

Understanding. Hope. A way to fix this.

"Please, don't hide things from me. I've known all along—you've been carrying so much pain in your heart."

The words broke something in me.

She knew. Of course,, she knew. How could she not?

I'd been walking around like a ghost for three years, and she was my mother. She saw everything, even the things I tried to hide.

We hugged each other and cried.

Real crying this time, the kind that came from somewhere deep and necessary. The kind that couldn't be stopped or controlled or prettied up. Just raw, ugly, honest grief.

Her tears soaked into my hair. Mine disappeared into her shoulder as I shook with silent sobs.

For a moment, we were just two people who loved each other and didn't know how to fix anything. Didn't have answers. Didn't have solutions. Just had each other and this terrible, beautiful shared pain.

The doorbell rang.

The sound cut through the moment like a knife.

We both froze, pulling apart slowly. Mom wiped at her face with her sleeve, trying to compose herself.

"Father?" I asked, hope flickering despite everything.

Maybe he'd come home early. Maybe he'd heard somehow that we needed him. Maybe—

Mom went to check, her footsteps hesitant. I heard the door open, heard her exchange quiet words with someone.

Then she called back, voice confused: "Courier!"

"Courier??"

I echoed her confusion. We weren't expecting anything. We never got packages. Who would send us anything?

"Who's it from?"

"Wait there, I'll pick it up, honey."

"Okay."

I stayed on the couch, my body feeling hollowed out, exhausted from the breakdown. My face felt hot and swollen. My throat was raw.

I thought my tears had long dried up. Wrung out from years of crying into pillows and shower water and the silent darkness of 3 AM. Used up and gone, my body's well finally running empty.

But when I saw my mom's crying face the redness around her eyes, the wet trails on her cheeks, the way she tried to smile through it all, tried to be strong even though she was breaking—they flowed again.

Like God had given me secret reservoirs for each type of sadness.

One for my own pain—that one had been drained long ago. But another, deeper one, for watching the people I loved hurt because of me. That one was bottomless, infinite, always ready to overflow.

I wiped at my face with my sleeve, surprised by the wetness. So I could still cry. Just not for myself anymore.

I listened to her footsteps padding toward the door. The click of the lock. The muffled exchange of voices—hers uncertain, the courier's professional and polite.

"It's for you, honey!" Mom came back holding a package, her tear-stained face now confused.

"Do you have any friends?"

The question shouldn't have hurt, but it did. A small, sharp pain among all the larger ones.

"No?" The word came out uncertain, almost a question itself. I wasn't close enough with anyone to send me letters. Not here. Not anywhere, really.

"Then, let's see what it is."

My hands trembled as I took it from her. The weight of it felt important somehow, official.

Heavy not just with physical mass but with possibility—the kind that made my chest tight and my breath shallow.

I tore open the outer packaging with fingers that wouldn't quite cooperate, fumbling at the tape and paper. Inside was an envelope. Plain cream-colored paper, thick and expensive-feeling, unmarked except for my name printed across the front in elegant script.

My name. Just my name. Not "To whom it may concern" or some administrative label. Someone had thought enough about this to print my name like it mattered.

I slid my finger under the seal, heard the satisfying whisper of paper tearing. Inside—

I pulled out the first document slowly, reverently, like it might disintegrate if I handled it too roughly.

A graduation certificate.

My name again, this time in formal calligraphy: Maggie. The seal of my college embossed in gold at the bottom, raised and official. Awarded in recognition of completed studies... The date was today's date. Not months from now when I was supposed to finish. Today.

I stared at it, numb. The words swam in front of my eyes, refusing to arrange themselves into meaning. They were letting me graduate? Just like that? Without the final semester, without the classes I'd been dreading, without having to show my face in those halls again?

"Maggie?" Mom's voice seemed to come from very far away.

I couldn't speak. Couldn't process. My brain felt like it was moving through water, thick and slow.

There was something else in the envelope. I reached in with shaking hands and pulled out a second document.

This one was different. Crisper. More formal. At the top, simple elegant text:

"PROJECT SKY"

Below that, smaller text:

'Congratulations, Maggie'

'You have been selected.'

The name alone made something crack open in my chest. Project Sky. I read it once. Twice. Three times, tracing each letter with my eyes like I could absorb its meaning through sheer repetition.

Project Sky.

My heart was doing something strange—beating too fast and too slow at the same time, like it couldn't decide whether to race toward this or run away from it.

I'd always had high scores. Perfect grades, actually. Not because I was brilliant or passionate or any of the things professors liked to praise during their lectures, voices warm with approval for students who weren't me. But because my situation never left me free.

Idle hands, idle mind—that's when the darkness crept in, slow and insidious, wrapping around my thoughts until I couldn't breathe. Always, bad thoughts came whenever I was doing nothing.

So I studied. I worked. I filled every empty moment with equations and essays and research, anything to keep my brain too busy to turn against itself. Sleep was impossible most nights anyway—might as well put the insomnia to use.

But I studied other things too. Things that weren't assigned, weren't on any syllabus, wouldn't earn me any credits. Parallel universes. Time travel. Space research. Theoretical physics that lived in the realm of "what if" rather than "what is."

All as a hobby—if you could call an obsession a hobby. If you could call the desperate search for proof that somewhere else existed—anywhere else—a hobby.

The library had become my sanctuary over these three years. Those dusty corners where the theoretical physics books lived, untouched by other students who preferred their science practical and applicable. I'd run my fingers along those spines so many times I'd memorized their positions. Third shelf from the top, four books in. Fifth shelf, by the window where the light was best.

Empty study rooms after lectures, when everyone else had fled to their social lives and parties and normal student experiences.

Me alone with whiteboards, scribbling calculations that no one else would see. Working through thought experiments about worlds folded into each other, about time as a dimension you could navigate, about the sky not as a ceiling but as a doorway.

My room at home whenever I couldn't sleep or had nothing else to do—which was most nights. All nights, really.

Pages and pages of notes filling cheap notebooks, my handwriting getting messier as exhaustion set in but my mind refusing to stop, always chasing the next idea, the next possibility.

Is it related to this?

The question bloomed in my mind, wild and desperate. Had someone been watching? Had someone seen all those hours in the library, all those calculations, all that desperate searching for a way out?

My fingers tightened on the certificate until the paper crinkled. Project Sky. A project about... what exactly? Space? Research? Finding something beyond this world that had been so cruel to me?

"What is it?" Mom asked, leaning over my shoulder, trying to read.

I couldn't answer. My throat had closed up, words trapped behind the lump that had formed there.

"Project Sky?" she read aloud, slowly, like the words were in a foreign language she was trying to translate. "What does it mean?"

I kept staring at those two words, elegant and mysterious on the expensive paper. Project Sky. They seemed to pulse with possibility, with promise, with something I couldn't quite name.

But what *was* it?

The question hung in the air between us, unanswered. Heavy with everything I didn't know, everything I desperately wanted to know, everything that might—just might—change everything.

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 2 to 3 years 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 two years. 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.