STELLARIUM(BOOK ONE)

Chapter 2: The Message From Galen

"This doesn't make any given sense." Her alarm goes off, it's from her phone. It's 2:00am, it's time to sleep. She turns it off, she walks away from the computer, she grabs a bottle of water when she notices something about the computer. Even her finger. 

           It's glowing with a blue light inside it, the computer made a vibrating sound once. She walks up to it again, she pulls the top down to the keyboard. It's closed, the noise stopped and the vibration stopped. "It's clear, that's not blood at all. That's blood and something else but what is it?"

        She stared at her hand and she walked away from the laptop, she walked into her room. She shut the door behind her, she lay on her bed with her back. Her eyes slowly shut down. 

         Her eyes open up and it's already morning, it's 7:19am. She didn't sleep properly, so she turned to the right side of her bed. She took her phone up as she lay there looking for a new message from the firm or from anyone at all. As expected when she saw one, she sat up for a moment. Then she realized something, "where's my frame? My picture frame?" She walks down to the wall, she's staring at the space it left behind. She walks fast to see Mara. 

        "Mara! Mara! Get up! Come quick," Mara replied, "I've been awake for the past two hours, you can reduce the tone of your voice lady. What is it? What's wrong?" 

         She walks into her room, without being told, she could tell what the problem is.

       "Where is this? I guess you had a structure here, I mean a frame. You had a picture frame here, right? Now it's gone and you can't find it, not just that but you don't know who took it." They walk to her bed with their backs turned away from the position the frame used to be at, as they turn to face it, right in front of them, the frame can be seen. Mara's shocked, she's speechless, same as Aurora. They stare at each other in shock. 

         "There's a writing on it, did it have that before?" Aurora walks close to it with caution. 

      She replied "No, I don't think so. No, it didn't, none of my paintings or artworks have writings on them and to be honest, that's not the major problem right now. How did it get back?" 

      Mara walks up to it, she tries to read it, lucky enough for them, it's a small frame. She picks it up and turns it upside down, she reads the words aloud. "Help! It's me."

          Her eyes widened, "Galen! I think it's Galen! Are you serious? Where are you? Are you a spirit now?" Aurora takes the frame from her. 

       "Mara, I think I know where he went but I'm not sure about him coming back. It's the other universe, the other lifetime." Mara stared at her confused. 

     "What do you mean? Universe? Earth is a realm, is that what you scientists call the universe? So you mean he's on another earth? How did he get there? Why did he go there? What timeline? How do we know if there's more? Show me your laptop immediately."

            "Let's go downstairs," both of them ran down the stairs headed for the laptops. "You turn on mine and I'll turn on his, that's my password on that little paper right there." 

        Mara takes the paper and types the password in. It logs in, and she sees different icons, "Which is it? The blue one?" 

         Aurora answered, "Yeah, that one. I noticed he had a thing for the color blue but I never understood why, it wasn't a gender thing but a personality thing I guess. Tap on it and wait for it to load." She obeys the swift instructions. The file processes completely, she sees the soft copy of theoretical writing. 

         "This states the first composition of the project, I need to see the major practical." 

         Aurora replied "This is science, everything is the major practical, you'll need to read it and memorize it, it's not that hard. He made it easy."

        Aurora's phone rings, it's the head director. "Mara? Where are you? We are having a meeting? If anyone should be absent, it shouldn't be you. I know you are mourning your friend but the project must go on. Get here fast." He hangs the phone up. 

        Aurora mimics him "Get here fast! These people have no sympathy for human culture do they? Happy working, I'll be here researching." 

        Aurora smiles at her, "He's a good man, he's just on a hot seat right now. He needs more of the breaks than I do. Also, if you are staying here, you need to stay indoors. This is a reserved estate. Don't go out. Everything you need is right here in this house."

         "Alright, I'll see you later. I'll have to get back to work," Her phone beeps with a new message. It's someone she expected but she doesn't know how to answer him. She smiles sadly at her phone. 

         Aurora asked, "Who is it? Who texted?" She exhaled and answered, "his son, Xander. His only son. I don't know what I'm going to tell that young man, I don't have the words to console him or calm him down."

         "Can I see him? Maybe I could talk to him. He'll listen to me, I'm a scientist." Mara laughs at her statement. 

       "I don't know why I find that funny, maybe it's because he's a scientist too, a junior scientist in charge of his father's private firm. Who knows?" She turns to her after the sarcastic statement. 

        "You know what? Go to work and I'll meet with the young man, I'll talk with him and I'll get back to you or better still we'll just come here if you are fine with it?" 

       Aurora replied "Yes, that's fine. I'll be happy to meet him here if he wants." She walks up to have a shower quickly, she gets out and notices something about the laptops. It's just one out there and Mara already left before she could get dressed. Mara took Galen's laptop with her. 

        Aurora doesn't flinch but Mara just hits a nerve. She drives off to the firm. She walks into the board meeting halfway late, everyone turns to her as she walks in and sits on her chair. The director however exhales and continues talking, a colleague passes a paper to her. It's an A4 paper with printed information on it, she reads through and she's surprised. There's a change of plans. They moved on so fast, it's like they never liked him or his out-of-the-box ideas. 

          Mara on the other hand, got to Xander. She plugs her black box to it, she's loading the information from the laptop to it. Xander walks in, he sees his father's laptop, "How did you get this? You had someone from the firm didn't you? Who helped you? No one really liked my dad at that firm, despite his additional scientific values and ideas or ambitions."