My name is Rufus. I lived in a gated condominium housing several hundred families, spread over four tower blocks. There was a swimming pool, gardens with fruit trees and a convenience store, but not much in the way of resources really. That wasn't a problem though, most people living here worked in the city and there was never a shortage of food and other necessities just within walking distance in our neighborhood, so we had everything we ever needed close at hand.

But one day, it all disappeared.

It happened sometime before dawn, when the night shift reported a strong wind blowing. They said trees outside were being toppled. Then the noise died down. Only dawn revealed the true nature of our predicament.

The first morning, a few security guards were already scrambling to warn drivers not to accidentally drive off the brink. There was a commotion as residents gathered around the perimeter to gawk at the sight, I too could not believe what I was seeing; the world outside was gone.

Everywhere we looked outside, there was only sky. All utilities were cut. For a while, some residents argued about trying to find help. Some tried to peer over the edge to see if they could spot land below, but all they saw were clouds. We wondered what kept us up? How stable was the ground we had left?

On the 2nd day, a few daring security guards tied to ropes tried to scout out the underside of our sky bound condominium. They shouted out what they saw; rock, pipes, tree roots... They said it was floating. Everything we feared was true, this was something uncanny, supernatural even. People began to shout and bicker, and the security team began to retrieve their men, pulling them back up to the surface. They got three men back safely, but unfortunately, at the last moment, the fourth man fell. His rope had frayed and snapped, and he plummeted, screaming into the white abyss below. The shock ended all arguments, and a sobering thought occurred to everyone present; there was no hope for rescue.

The next day, the air was full of discussions about food and water. Some thought that everyone should share what food was available equally. Some thought otherwise. Either way, it was clear that things were going to get ugly somewhere down the road. There was an uneasy silence that night as families tried to sleep as best they could.

Over the course of the week, people still gathered outside to look at the beautiful, terrifying view, and to gather rain in buckets and pans. The noise of the city was gone. The weather was colder too, as if we were miles in the air. We wondered, was there land below us? If so, could we still escape somehow?

The following week, a few homes were broken into, and a couple was murdered for their food. The culprits were identified and reported to the guards. It was decided that they were to be imprisoned in their apartment on the 15th floor. They pleaded for leniency as the doors were welded shut. They plummeted to their deaths off their balconies a week later.

Week three and some of the survivors grouped together to make a giant parachute. They tried to convince everyone that it was their only chance, but few seemed to believe them. They launched by the third weekend. As they disappeared into the sky below, I wondered what fate would befall them, and... was it worse than the fate that awaited the rest of us up here? I sat alone on a bench, lost.

"Hey."

The voice was quiet, yet hopeful. A boy wearing a white shirt appeared and sat down next to me. I mumbled something back and tried to ignore him. "Do you think they'll make it? The chute looked like it worked, well at least til they disappeared." I looked away at some trees nearby and tried not to think about it.

"Will they reach the bottom?" he pondered. I looked at the kid, he was probably about 14, chubby, nerdy. But his eyes had the look of one who had seen the worst that life had thrown at him and resolved to persevere. We sat in silence for a while. "You know, we learned in school that rain only happens because there's water that evaporates and forms clouds" he suddenly mused.

I sat up and turned once again to look at him, slowly processing what he just said. "We've been getting a bit of rain. That means there must be an ocean or water somewhere." The thought raced through my mind, and questions began to burn. Was there land below? I slumped back in the bench, realizing that the people in that descending basket might actually discover the answer.

The next day, I found him sitting on the bench once again, waiting for me. His name was Neil, I discovered. I shared a small bag of airline peanuts with him, and decided that there might be something to what he said yesterday. I told him about how I noticed the colder air, implying that we might actually be higher up than we were. We continued to talk every day for the whole week but the reality of our isolation kept creeping into our discussions.

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"I wonder if everyone's still there" he said one day. I asked him if he missed anything from the outside world. "Yeah, I miss my friends" Staring out at the vast blue sky I reminisced about all my friends and family, people I had lost touch with, people I had purposely avoided, people I wish I could still see... regrets held onto from long ago. I shook it off and asked about his family, what about them? He choked back a sob. "They... died. A few weeks ago. It's just me now." I stared aghast, remembering the horror of the murders that happened then, not knowing much more than the rumors that went around, blinked back tears and stared at the ground. The kid was alone, like me. "You can stay with me if you want" I said.

At the end of the first month, it was decided that a census of the food supplies was done. Committees went from home to home to gather all the remaining food people had left and laid it all out. Several families had already long ran out of food. The final tally of supplies was dismally underwhelming. This was the first major breaking point, where it finally dawned on us that there was no way to sustain the hundreds of people living here.

Someone cried out "Who gets the food?" and heated arguments shot up amongst the crowd. Several people were crying, and some were angrily trying to take back their belongings. All this time, the now much skinnier kid stood beside me, fear visibly gripping him. I put my hand on his shoulder as we watched the growing rancor. Then a sudden crack of thunder silenced the crowd.

The committee decided that the remaining food would be distributed equally and everyone quickly received a tiny portion of whatever condiments, cooking oil, grains and random foodstuffs were left before the rain fell. I motioned to the boy to look at the sky ahead. "Dark clouds" he said. "That's never happened before." It occasionally ranged from drizzles to light rains, but this was the first thunderstorm we had. We ran to my apartment for shelter.

That night, the wind howled.

At night, we were used to the dark. Some still had candles, but most of us had to make do sleeping in pitch blackness. However, there was an amazing view at night we had gotten used to over the weeks. You could see the Milky Way so clearly, it was a sight most of us city folk never knew existed. I sat up with a start... Nobody's tried peering over the edge at night. Could we see stars in the sky below?

I raced down the stairs in the black, buffeting winds and made my way to the iron fence around the perimeter. There was a spot I knew where one could get a good look over the brink of our land. I started to strain my eyes to pierce through the clouds but it was too dark below to confirm. The moon! I searched the sky for the orb to discover if it disappears over a horizon or not. I ran along the fenced perimeter looking for it. Dark clouds parted. Then there it was. A crescent moon.

The next morning, the kid was waiting for me outside the apartment. "You have to see this" he said excitedly. He led me to the front gatehouse fences where a group of people were already gathered. "Look! Look!" I shaded my eyes from the glare of the morning sun directly ahead. I laughed to myself. Of course, the sun too was a clue! If there wasn't the Earth below, there wouldn't be a night time. As my eyes adjusted, my mouth fell open. Was that... a building?

"Emergency meeting!" The cries spread out through our condo complex. Soon all the residents had seen it. Another floating island had appeared in the distance overnight. Finally we could see how our situation looked like from afar; tall towers above with a rocky mass below, like an upturned hill. Did the people in that building just experience what we did? We discussed the news and spoke about ways to communicate. Excitement filled the air. We were not alone.

We decided to wait for nightfall and then build a signal fire to see if they would return the sign. The neighboring island was about 500 meters away by our estimation so we built a bonfire with as much wood as could be spared and danced, shouted and sang as loudly as we could through the night, hoping for a response. Nothing, so we continued on the second, then on the third night, a reply beacon was lit. Cheers erupted and a weary celebration commenced, but by the fourth night, a more sober realization hit us; though hope was in sight, what could we do?

I had discussed my discoveries and realizations with the boy and the other members of our community over those excitement filled days. His eyes had filled with such hope that I myself believed that everything was going to be alright. But now that it seemed like we were closer than ever to a solution, the last stretch felt as insurmountable as ever. Days went by, and from time to time we saw lights coming from our neighboring island. There was however no meaningful way to communicate with them.

By now, some residents had started to consume leaves and vegetation from the condo grounds. There were those who dug up earthworms, and most people had already started to grow what kitchen scraps they could. The swimming pool was our main communal source of water, and the residents would take the opportunity to wash themselves only when it rained. Yet, hope seemed ever within reach even as families began to starve. The community had grown closer, brought together by our misery and cheered each other with gaunt yet determined smiles.

"What if we made a kite with a really long string to reach them?" my young friend suddenly said one day. We had discussed things like hot air balloons and gliders to travel the chasm but the knowhow and risk involved always seemed too great for anyone to accomplish. This would be a start. We took the idea to the community leaders. Plans were drawn up and executed, a note written directly on the kite itself with instructions on building a system of pulleys to be able to transfer objects. Finally, we had a plan. We just had to hope it worked.

By the 2nd week of the 2nd month, my young friend, Neil, and I along with most of the residents had fashioned a large kite made from bedsheets and affixed to a wire frame, with schematics and a message from our community to our neighbors to the east of us. The string was the greatest challenge for us. When we ran out of twine, rope and other lengths of material, we resorted to ripped and spun cloth. The rope was tested again and again to ensure it didn't break in flight. The residents emptied their closets of all they could spare for it, and there was hardly a window remaining that was dressed in curtains by the end of our endeavor. The kite was attached to the lightest strings and ropes first, and the end was the heavier cloth rope, spanning a final length of 560 meters long.

From time to time, on clear, windless nights, we could hear the neighboring community shouting to us in the distance. We tried shouting back, but we never could hear what they were saying. Maybe we could pick out a word or two but voices were much too weak to be deciphered at that distance. We tried using torchlights and signal fires, and though that often got a responding signal back, nobody knew Morse code or anything we could communicate with at a reasonable rate. Yet, the night before we were set to launch our kite, we signaled them again and sang, banging pots and pans and whooped and hollered. And then we went to bed, excited for the long-awaited flight the next day.