Suddenly, Laura realized she was going to be late for class. She snapped out of her daydream and ran downstairs from her bedroom loft to the kitchen. She saw a piece of paper on the counter. Laura picked it up and read it

"Laura," it read, "Sorry I wasn't home. I had to leave for work for and important meeting. Your lunch is own the table and your allowance is attached to this note. Have a good time on the nature hike today!

Love Mom"

Laura turned the note over and found ten Munny attached to it. She then walked over to the table and picked up her lunch box. Then, grabbing a cereal bar out of the pantry, she dashed out the door and down the steps of her veranda house and off to where here class was meeting.

As she rushed down the road, Laura didn't see Morick, a friend from her class, walking the other way. Laura crashed into him at full speed, sending Morick flying in the other direction.

"Ow," Morick said, "Laura, you're not going to be that late. I was coming by to see what was taking you so long, though."

"Oh," Laura replied as she paused to pick up Morick's glasses and hand them to him, "Sorry Morick, I've just been out of it this morning."

Morick adjusted his glasses, picked up his book, pushed his long brown hair to the side of his face and smiled.

"It's okay, Laura. Come on, Kitsune's waiting for us at school."

At the school, Laura and Morick walked over to a low-hanging tree. Leaning against it was a girl with long red hair and green eyes. She was wearing a black shirt and black jeans.

"Hey," Kitsune called out, "What took you guys so long?"

"Sorry," Laura replied, "I overslept a little…"

"That's okay, it happens to the best of us."

"Yeah," Morick said, "Then that means Laura is the greatest!"

All three of them started laughing. Suddenly Kitsune stopped laughing. Her face looked grim.

"Did you hear that another world has been destroyed?" she asked.

"No," Laura replied worriedly, "Which world was it?"

"Megrathea; luckily, nobody was there, at least that is what the government said. They were really being secretive about it."

"Didn't Megrathea make planets before the galactic economy went under?" Morick inquired.

"Yeah," Laura replied, "But they had to stop because nobody could afford them anymore. By the way, where was the keyhole?"

"I think it was in an underground chamber, near a, get this, whale skeleton." Kitsune said.

"I wonder why the Heartless haven't attacked our world yet."

"I don't know, but everyone's being paranoid about it. The government is looking for the keyhole. They tell everybody to go about their day as normal, but there are all these ships ready just in case."

"I guess they don't want the same thing to happen here that happened to Irk."

"Yeah, what with there best fighters away trying to gather information for another invasion."

"The Irken are kind of stupid. They should have learned that from the first Operation Impending Doom."

"I heard that failed because of one Irken named Zim or something," Morick butted in, "Besides, we need to be going now; our class is starting to gather."

"Hey Laura," Kitsune said, "I'll race you!"

"You're on!"

Laura and Kitsune dashed off as fast as they could with Morick jogging behind them, unaware of how their lives would be changed forever by the upcoming hike.