Sky at OXUN

PROLOGUE There was nothing extraordinary about Skylar Monteverde. At least, that was what she always told herself. She lived in a quiet village tucked far away in the province, where every morning started with the loud crowing of roosters, the low rumble of tricycles passing down the dusty dirt road, and the familiar voices of neighbors calling out to each other across their front yards. Their house was small, made of worn wood and concrete blocks. Their life was simple. And their dreams had always been just big enough to make sure they survived until the next day. Skylar had been raised by her mother alone. She never complained about it. Her mother had taught her early on that life did not get any easier just because you wished for it. Sometimes, you simply had to learn how to carry whatever heavy weight was handed to you. So Skylar learned. She learned how to stretch a few hundred pesos until the next payday. She learned how to cook whatever little food was left in the kitchen. She learned how to scrub the floors and sweep the yard while staying up late into the night to finish her schoolwork. She also learned something else, something she kept close to her heart. She learned to read her mother's exhaustion without needing a single word spoken. She knew the difference between her mother's usual tired silence and the heavy, suffocating silence that meant they were running out of money for food. She knew when her mother was just pretending not to be hungry so Skylar could have the last piece of fried egg on the plate. And she knew those hands. The same hands that gently braided her hair before school every morning. The same hands that washed their clothes until late at night. The same hands that had turned rough, calloused, and worn out from years of hard work just to keep a roof over their heads. Whenever Skylar looked at those hands, a quiet promise stirred inside her chest. "One day Ma, you will not have to break your back like this anymore". She never said it out loud. She was always afraid that if she spoke those words, the promise would sound too big, too impossible for a girl like her. Skylar had always been a dreamer in secret, and her mother was the one who gave her that gift. When Skylar was just a little girl, she once asked why her mother had named her Skylar. Her mother had smiled, gently brushing the dirt from her daughter's forehead. "Because the sky is the one place where nobody can ever tell you that you do not belong." Skylar kept those words close. Whenever life in their small house felt too heavy, she would step outside and look up at the wide blue sky resting above their village, at the clouds floating freely past the rooftops, and at the bright stars that shone clearly at night without any big city lights to hide them. She wondered if there was a bigger life waiting for her somewhere out there .something far beyond their tiny home, beyond their village, and beyond the quiet future everyone assumed she would have. But in their world, dreams cost money they did not have. Skylar had just graduated from senior high school. There was no big party waiting for her, no fancy vacation, and no university acceptance letter resting on their wooden table. There was only a dusty graduation photo, her borrowed black shoes tucked neatly under her bed, and her mother looking at her like she had just conquered the entire world. "You did it nak," her mother had whispered, wiping her eyes. Skylar had smiled back. "We did it Ma." Her mother looked away quickly, pretending to fix a loose thread on the tablecloth. Skylar knew why. They both knew what came next. Work. She needed to find a job right away, not because she hated studying or had given up on her dreams, but because she could not bear to let her mother carry everything alone any longer. That night, Skylar sat in front of an old, clunky computer while a noisy electric fan blew warm air against her face. The computer was not even theirs. It belonged to a neighbor who let her use it whenever she needed to. The keyboard had missing keycaps, the mouse kept sticking to the plastic pad, and the internet connection was painfully slow. But for Skylar, it was more than enough. She opened job site after job site. Online assistant, Data encoder, Customer service agent, Virtual tutor, She clicked, filled out forms, waited, and applied again. Some wanted years of experience. Others required college degrees or fancy certificates she did not own. Most of them did not even send a reply back. Skylar let out a quiet sigh and leaned back against her chair. Her eyes drifted toward a tiny, yellowed piece of paper taped to the side of the monitor. It was an old handwritten note from her mother, with only six simple words written on it: "Don't give up before you try." Skylar smiled faintly. Her mother had given her that note years ago when she wanted to quit school after failing a hard exam. She had kept it ever since. The corners were torn and the ink was fading, but she could never throw it away. "Maybe tomorrow," she whispered to herself. Then she thought about her mother's rough, tired hands, and she knew tomorrow was not soon enough. She refreshed the browser and searched one more time. A strange website popped up near the bottom of the page. It looked nothing like the messy, ad-filled job portals she had been clicking on all night. It was clean and dark, featuring a sharp black and gold crest right at the top. Beneath the logo were words that made her stop. OXUN (Oxford University of Elites). Skylar frowned. "A university?" She almost moved her cursor to close the tab. She was looking for a job to earn money, not a school. But then a bold line of text caught her eye FULL SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY APPLICATIONS OPEN. Her breath hitched. A full scholarship? She clicked the link. The page loaded slowly, revealing pictures of massive stone castles, grand libraries, and polished marble halls. The site explained that OXUN was one of the most private, prestigious institutions in Europe, opening its doors to only a tiny handful of exceptional students each year. Its halls were filled with children from royal families, massive business empires, and global billionaires. People whose names Skylar had only ever seen in magazines or on TV news. She let out a soft laugh. "Definitely not for someone like me." Still, she kept reading. The scholarship covered every single thing: full tuition, private rooming, meals, textbooks, flight tickets, and even a heavy monthly living allowance. Skylar stared at the screen in disbelief. It sounded unreal, like a story written for someone born into wealth and power, not a provincial girl sitting in a small room with a rattling electric fan. Not a girl who re-used old notebooks until there was no blank space left. Not a girl who knew down to the last cup how much rice was sitting in their plastic dispenser because every single meal mattered. She moved her mouse toward the close button, but then her eyes caught a bright gold box at the bottom of the page APPLY NOW. Skylar paused, her finger hovering over the mouse. She looked toward the kitchen, where her mother was quietly scrubbing the dinner dishes in the dark. Skylar watched her thin, bent back for a long moment, then looked back at the bright screen. "What do I have to lose?" she whispered. She clicked the button. A simple application form opened up asking for her basic details: name, age, country, high school grades, and family background. She filled out every box with complete honesty. There was nothing fancy to write down. No international awards, No powerful family name, No special connections. Just a girl from the province who worked hard in school and wanted a better life for her mother. When she reached the last question.Why do you want to study at OXUN? Skylar stared at the blinking cursor for a long time. She typed a line, deleted it, and then typed what was really in her heart. I do not know if I belong in a place like yours. But I want to learn. I want to build a better life so my mother does not have to suffer anymore. And if you give me a chance, I promise I will work harder than anyone else to prove I deserve it. She read it over twice, her heart beating fast against her ribs. "For you Ma," she whispered. She clicked SUBMIT APPLICATION. The screen buffered for a few seconds before a simple message appeared: APPLICATION RECEIVED. Skylar let out a quiet breath and smiled. "At least I tried." She shut down the old computer, completely unaware that thousands of miles away, her name had just flashed across a high-security monitor inside one of the most exclusive admissions offices in Europe. She had no idea that a panel of powerful people would soon be staring at her file, or that someone would spot something deeply unusual buried in her records. And she certainly did not know that the scholarship she had just applied for was never meant to be opened to the public in the first place. Skylar thought she had just sent out another desperate application. She thought tomorrow would be the exact same as today. She was wrong. Because sometimes, life does not wait for you to be ready. Sometimes, it just takes one quiet, careless click to change everything. And that night, Skylar Monteverde took that leap. CHAPTER 1: The Weight of Silence The morning after she submitted that application, the village woke up to the exact same quiet rhythm Skylar had known her entire life. At five o'clock, the neighborhood was already coming alive. Outside, the low rumble of a passing tricycle echoed down the dusty road, kicking up a thin cloud of dirt that drifted right through the wooden slats of their window. In their small kitchen, the warm smell of boiling water and toasted rice filled the cool morning air. Skylar neatly folded her thin blanket, rolled up the woven mat from the wooden floor, and tied her long hair into a loose bun. She looked down at her hands at the light calluses on her palms from carrying heavy pails of water from the deep well, and the tiny faint mark on her finger from chopping firewood last summer. They were the hands of a girl who had worked hard for every single thing she owned. "Sky nak! Are you awake already?" her mother's gentle voice called out over the sizzle of a hot pan. "Drink your coffee while it is still warm." "I am awake Ma," Skylar called back, stepping into the small kitchen. Her mother, Elena, was standing by the small gas stove, carefully flipping two small pieces of dried fish. She looked so small standing there in the soft morning light. The dark circles under her eyes seemed a little heavier today, but the moment she saw Skylar, she forced a warm, quiet smile .The exact same smile that had kept Skylar feeling safe through every hard time they had ever faced. Growing up, whenever Skylar asked about her father, Elena's answers were always short and full of a quiet, fragile sadness. "He is gone Sky. The Lord took him early. It is just the two of us now." Skylar had stopped asking years ago. Watching her mother wash clothes for neighbors until her fingers were raw and tend to their small vegetable patch just to put food on the table, Skylar realized early on that asking about the past only made her mother's burdens heavier. "Ma let me do that," Skylar said softly, walking over to take the wooden spatula. "Sit down for a bit." "I can manage nak," Elena murmured, though her hands trembled slightly as she set the tin plate down. She looked at Skylar with a mix of deep pride and a quiet, aching sorrow. "I was just thinking... you already graduated from senior high school. We should be celebrating, even if it is just with a simple chicken dish. I am so sorry Sky." "Ma stop that," Skylar smiled softly, wrapping her arm around her mother's thin shoulders. "The only thing that matters is that I finished. Things are going to get easier for us soon. I am going to start looking for a job today." "I really wanted you to go to college Sky. You are so smart." "I will go back to school eventually Ma. But right now? My main priority is helping you." By mid-afternoon, after her mother left to drop off freshly washed clothes at a neighbor's house, the small home grew quiet. Skylar sat back down at the narrow wooden table where the secondhand laptop sat. The noisy fan rattled away, blowing lukewarm air over her wrists. She flipped the screen open, connected to the weak Wi-Fi signal from next door, and loaded the browser. Last night, sitting right here, she had clicked through so many links before submitting that form to OXUN. In her heart, she was sure it was just another job listing.Maybe a remote encoding gig or an online assistant role. But she needed to check just to be sure, to see if there was any update or if she needed to keep sending out resumes. Skylar typed in her email details and waited as the inbox loaded line by line, the slow internet test-driving her patience. She scanned down the list, expecting the usual empty inbox or automated rejection letters. But sitting right at the very top was an unread email marked with a small gold seal icon FROM: admissions@oxun-of-elites.edu.eu SUBJECT: OFFICIAL ADMISSION & GRAND SCHOLARSHIP NOTICE TO: skylar.monteverde@email.com Skylar frowned, her heart doing a sudden, nervous flip. OXUN? She clicked the email open. DEAR MISS SKYLAR MONTEVERDE, We are pleased to inform you that following a rigorous review of your academic records and personal essay, you have been selected as the sole recipient of the OXUN International Grand Scholarship for the upcoming academic year at OXUN of Elites (Oxford University of Elites). Out of thousands of global applicants, your submission demonstrated exceptional merit, resilience, and potential. THIS FULL SCHOLARSHIP COVERS: 100% Academic Tuition & Institutional Fees Private Campus Boarding & Accommodation All International Travel & Flight Arrangements Monthly Academic & Living Allowance (€2,500/month) Skylar froze. The quiet room around her felt completely silent, except for the dull hum of the laptop fan. Her throat went bone-dry, and her heart began slamming wildly against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Scholarship...?" she whispered to the bright screen, her voice shaking in the empty house. "What... this was not an online job?" Her eyes darted down the screen, her cold fingers quickly scrolling through the rest of the message. Please find your official acceptance documents and initial flight itinerary attached below. You are required to confirm your acceptance within 48 hours to prepare for your departure to the European Campus. Welcome to OXUN of Elites. Sincerely, The Office of International Admissions OXUN of Elites, United Kingdom A monthly allowance... in Euros? Skylar quickly did the math in her head, her hand shaking against the laptop touchpad. That monthly allowance alone was more money than her mother made in an entire year of washing clothes. It was enough to fix their leaking tin roof, pay off every single debt they owed to the local store, and make sure her mother would never have to do heavy manual labor again. Skylar sat completely still in the dim afternoon light of their living room. She caught her own reflection in the dark frame of the screen, a quiet provincial girl wearing a faded shirt, with calloused hands and a mother who had sacrificed everything for her. She had filled out an application meant for international royalty and wealthy heirs, thinking it was just a simple job listing. And now, a world of unimaginable wealth, high walls, and dangerous power was waiting for her across the ocean, completely unaware that the girl who accepted their most prestigious scholarship had applied entirely by mistake on an old borrowed laptop in a tiny provincial home.