3 The Hidden basement

Diana turned to the class as the lecture was coming to an end,

"Your Assignment of the week is to write a report on the reasons on why the Earth faced near complete extinction and what we can do to avoid it from happening again" Diana told her class as she prepared to leave the class and head home for the day.

"Yes Professor" Her students replied somewhat disappointed for getting assignment as they all prepared to leave as well.

Its been a week since Pixel was working on normal mode and helping Diana with her research in her lab and Diana was satisfied with Pixel's performance and she wanted to take Pixel home today so that Pixel would help Diana with the chores around the house. It had been a long time since she properly cleaned her house anyways.

With that thought in mind Diana turned around to leave the class when she saw a handsome man with a beautiful smile waiting for her by the door, he raised a hand holding a cup of coffee as a sign to tell her he got coffee.

Diana smiled at him as she walked up to him and took the cup taking a sip and sighing.

"How was your day?" the man asked her

"Exhausting, Omer, to be honest with you, I don't wanna take lectures, but it's necessary, I wish there was a way to get funded for research without having to teach" Diana told her honest thoughts to him

"Though it doesn't seem like you don't enjoy taking lectures to me.." He had a mischievous grin as he said that to her, his olive skin glowing under the sunlight in the hallway entering through the windows at one side.

To say Diana was not mesmerized by his beauty would be a lie. After all she is a 28 year old women who is still single, and Omer was a single guy in his early thirties and was intelligent and handsome with beautiful green eyes as a Practical Physicist in Quantum field.

It was not like she didn't wanna date, its just that none of the men could stand to be with her for more than a few dates because of her weird personality, workaholic nature while being messy and clumsy at times.

"How was your lecture? I see you got notes given to you even today" Diana said pointing to the paper slip that was half out of the book he was holding in his hand "another one of your admirers?" she asked playfully.

Omer just shook his head and smiled "seems like it" he replied

"You not gonna see who its from? maybe its from Miss Janet Oberon from the Humanities department this time!" Diana continued the topic oblivious to the gaze of longing in his eyes for her.

"Maybe it is" Omer replied and changed the topic "By the way I wanted to ask you something"

"Yeah! what is it?" she asked

"So this weekend is my cousins wedding and I was hoping you would go with me as my plus one" Omer asked hopefully

Diana thought about it for a bit, she wanted catch up on anime after a long time this weekend, but didn't wanna break Omer's heart at the same time so she decided to go with him.

"Sure, I would love that" Diana smiled on face while she scolded herself in the head,

'why did you say you would love that? you could have said something else'

'like what?'

'I don't know, like sure, it would be a fun experience, maybe'

'You know how lame that sounds?'

While Diana was busy with her inner self dialogue Omer was happy to get a positive reply from her and to say he was ecstatic would be an understatement.

"I'll Pick you up at 8 in the evening" He said as he was smiling with eyes.

Diana nodded as she opened the door to her lab and entered while she waved goodbye for the day to Omer.

"Thanks for the coffee" she said as she smiled at him one last time and this would be a last one for a long long time, unknown to her, she will not make it to the wedding either.

"Pixel, Pack up we are going home for the day." Diana told Pixel as she packed up the stuff as well that she is going to take home with her.

Diana decided to drive back home, with pixel beside her. She didn't let Pixel drive because Diana wanted to test Pixel's skill on empty roads first and that's why Diana had decided to take Pixel to a test later.

Once they reached home, Diana told Pixel to scan the layout of house so she can start cleaning the house and left to take a shower after a long day of work.

By the time Diana was done with shower Pixel has also finished cleaning of the house and was waiting for Diana in living room with a black leather bound journal in her hands. Pixel was holding it as if it is a very delicate thing that would break easily with even a tiny movement.

"Where did you find that?" Diana asked as she was shocked to see this journal after a long time as all the suppressed memories of her long forgotten father came back to her.

She was very close to her father when she was young. In fact her interest in science and wanting to research was also due to her father and the number of hours she spent in lab with him after her mother's death.

Her mother was a scientist that did research in space station. Usually the space station is well equipped to detect dangers and tackle them but one day due to some technical issues there happened to be an accident in space station and she had lost her mother.

After that she became very close to her father and her interest in experiments was her coping mechanism to get over the grief of her loss.

When Diana was only 12 years old when her father had left to work and never came back. She has enough funds in her name left by her parents to live comfortably and her mother's sister, her aunt May had taken Diana into her care. Diana grew up to be an amazing scientist and a professor in university of M city.

"In the basement" Pixel replied

"There is no basement in this house" Diana replied. She has moved back into her childhood home as it was closer to university and was convenient for her to live here, but she had forgotten a lot about the past including the existence of the basement.

"There is one, the entrance is hidden under carpet in the cupboard under the staircase." Pixel replied as she carefully placed the journal on the table and lead the way to show Diana.

Diana was in a state of numbness, not knowing how to process this information as she saw the door to basement, she started taking shallow breathes as she felt an onset of anxiety take over her.