Today's the day.

Everyone knew what it meant when you turn sixteen. How sometimes people didn't make it back from the trial. How parents and siblings wept for their loss. How there was never even a body to bury.

Today's the day.

As I walked along the path to the trial I wondered if this was what it was like for my brother and sister all those years ago for their trial. Dad had been training me for months to be able to do this. I was confident that I could reach the other side and finally become an adult. 

We got to the crowd that was formed of this months jumpers and their families and looked at the objects that had taken so much life.

They were rather mundane for for what they were. A group of pillars of differing heights in a relatively straight line that led to the temple on the other side. As one looked down into the clouds below they could see nothing below. As with everything the clouds covered. There was nothing down there. And nobody ever came back from an attempt at exploration. There was only the world above the clouds.

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The trial was a relatively simple one. On the sixteenth of every month at noon the pillars would start to shake and rumble, tilt and whirl, and overall defy the way the world was supposed to work. They would continue to do this for half an hour. One would have to jump across them while they did this and attempt not to fall to they're death. They would then go inside the temple and recieve a blessing from the monks that lived there and then jump back across. If they succeeded then they would be adults with all the responsibilities that came with it.

As the clock struck noon there began a huge rumbling from the clouds below and the pillars began to shake. We all said our goodbyes and moved to the starting position.

This was it. One way or the other I'm going to see my family again.

Today's the day.