Slowly, I tilt my head back up to where I'm looking at the endless sky in front of me. I take slow steps backwards, feeling the ground with my foot before I complete each step until I can see the iron fence without moving my head or eyes. My body feels light, so light that I'm scared a small gust of wind will blow me right off the edge. I continue taking steps backwards while the rest of my body remains frozen.

  "Adrian!" I faintly hear being called out behind me from a distance.

  I take another step backwards, but now my leg barely wants to move. I fumble my step and fall backwards. The sudden change of pace startles me and I scream believing as if I'm falling endlessly before my arms instinctively catch my fall on the grass behind me.

  "Adrian!" I hear more closely to my left along with the running footsteps of two people.

  Jonas and a random dog run in front of me. The dog has droopy ears with curly fur, a brown body with white accents, and she wears a black qipao.

  Jonas extends a paw to help me up. My gaze breaks from the sky to Jonas as I grab his paw to help me stand up. As my body stands up, the nausea rushes back into my body as I see the depth of the sky behind him again. I drop to my knees and fall forward slightly as vomit rushes out of my mouth onto the grass below me.

  "Oh dear!" the random dog says as she quickly takes a step away from me.

  Jonas kneels down and rests a paw on my back, trying to comfort me.

  "Are you okay? Deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth." he says

  I cough a little, discharging any excess vomit or mucus out my nose and mouth before I can breathe normally.

  "What the fuck is that?" I ask, looking towards the edge.

  "That is what I was going to tell you about before you ran off on me." he tells me, thinking I'm just supposed to understand now.

  "There's nothing down there." I yell, pointing towards the edge. "Nothing! No land, no roads, no other skyscrapers or-" I pause, running out of things that should be seen from a skyscraper besides clouds.

  "We call it the abyss." Jonas tells me. "We don't know what's down there. Therefore we don't really know where we are. Honestly, some of us think we're not even on Earth."

  What? Not on Earth? No. That's actually not possible. But neither is being so high up that you can't even see the fucking ground.

  "No." I say before speaking hysterically. "No no no no no, this isn't real! There's no way we just left Earth. There's no way we can't see the ground."

  "Just calm down, Adrian." the dog tells me as she and Jonas help me back up.

  "Adrian, this is Arizona, a good friend of mine who just happened to be up here." Jonas tells me.

  The dog, Arizona, then tells me, "Please just call me Ari. I don't like being called Arizona."

  "It's spelled like the state too." Jonas whispers in my ear.

  Did everyone just forget that we were contemplating if we were even on planet Earth a second ago? Whatever the case, this is just too much for me. I want my old life back. I think back to one of my best memories to calm me down. Unfortunately, I've still never been able to think about him without remembering... That day.

  Tears begin to flow from my eyes as I tell Jonas and Ari, "I just want to go home."

  Those words turn into a sob as memories from that horrible day and everything that happened till now play through my head.

  "Let me take care of this." Ari tells Jonas under her breath.

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  Ari looks at me and speaks in a gentle tone, trying to comfort me saying, "There there, I know this is a lot for you but everyone here has gone through something similar to whatever happened before you got here. That's why we're all here. We lost our homes too."

  "Wh- What are you talking about?" I ask Ari, blubbering under my tears.

  Jonas leans over to Ari and whispers just loud enough that I can hear him, "Do you know where Heather is? Maybe she can explain this better."

  She looks at him with sort of a glare, offended by what he said. I assume telling her that Heather would console me better may have hurt her. However, she quickly brushed it off before responding.

  "It's Thursday so it's likely she's in the casino today." Ari tells Jonas.

  "Perfect!" Jonas says with excitement. "We can give Adrian the grand tour of Stratosylum on our way to the casino. It's still early and there's a lot to cover."

  I sniffle a bit before wiping the tears off my face with my sweater. Nodding to Jonas and Ari, I stand back up and regain my composure.

  Jonas begins to lead the way to the casino until I see Dante leaning against the iron fence on the edge of Stratosylum, looking down into the abyss. Just looking at how close he is to the fence is making me uncomfortable. All of the sudden, the unthinkable happens. Dante quickly hops over the 4 foot iron fence before plummeting into the abyss.

  "DANTE NO!" I scream as I run over to the fence where he jumped.

  Thinking I'd be quick enough, I reached my paw out into the abyss, trying to catch him when he's already several feet down and falling.

  "DANTE!" I scream into the abyss. "No no no no no no. Why Dante?"

  Tears are flowing down my face again and into the abyss. Jonas and Ari are just standing on both sides of me looking down at Dante falling, completely unfazed. They probably see this happen a lot, enough to not really be fazed when someone jumps to their death.

  "This is going to sound strange but he'll be back up here in about ten minutes." Jonas tells me.

  I look over at him, very confused by what he told me.

  "What are you talking about?" I ask Jonas. "Did you not see him jump into the abyss?"

  Jonas tells me, "We don't know what it is, but anyone who jumps off the edge ends up in their room after ten minutes."

  "How is that possible?" I ask him, "There's nothing down there. And even if there was, no one would survive the impact."

  "No one's been able to hurt themselves here, or anyone else for that matter." Jonas tells me. "When you grabbed me earlier outside Building 0, you were going to hurt me, right? But something kept you from doing so."

  That's right. The housekeeper. They must have done something to make me stop. But what could they have possibly done to just make me want to not fight Jonas? The housekeeper just spoke to me and I let him go. Was it hypnosis? I know it sounds crazy but that's the only theory I have.

  "So Dante will be okay soon?" I ask. "You know this for a fact he will be back in his room after ten minutes?"

  "We've seen a lot of people hop that fence." Ari tells me. "No matter how many times they do, they always end up back here."

  "Wanna try it?" Jonas asks me.

  The mere thought of jumping into the abyss is enough to make me feel lightheaded, even if I knew I was going to end up in my room.

  "No." I tell Jonas. "I'm too scared of heights to even try that."

  "Well then let's go! There's a lot here to show you in Stratosylum. Plus, we need to get you out of those newbie clothes." says Jonas.

  I'll have to be sure to find Dante later if what they're telling me is true. I really hope it's true. I knew Dante had some issues, but I didn't actually think he would jump off Stratosylum. I don't know what his damage was before coming here; but whatever it was, he could really use a friend here.

  Ari can see the concern in me as I look back to the iron fence.

  "He's okay Adrian." Ari tells me. "We'll help you find him after we talk to Heather."

  Something about the way she said that made me trust her. I know both of them are sincere and have been telling me the truth about Stratosylum. I just hope Heather can answer all my questions.

  "By the way, do you know him?" Jonas asks me as we're walking back into town. "Normally people don't come here with someone."

  I say in reply, "We met in Building 0. We woke up around the same time. He seemed really bummed out."

  "That's how people normally arrive here." Ari says. "We're here because we lost everything. Our families, our money, our homes, everything. We were brought here because we had nowhere else to go down there. I can understand why your friend was super depressed when he got here."

  I guess that kind of makes sense why I'm here. I was booted from my apartment by someone I thought was my friend. But I don't think I had nowhere else to go. I had a few bucks to my name and could have stayed somewhere, or am I missing something? Heather should know.

  But now I wonder what must have happened to Dante. He told me he tried to kill himself before coming here. Maybe he survived an overdose and woke up here. No, he would still be in a lot of pain and would have to stay in a hospital to recover. Maybe he came from a hospital.

  I shake my head to adjust my focus off of Dante committing suicide, it's starting to depress me.

  Jonas looks at me and asks, "That reminds me, what happened to you down there to get you here?"

  "Hey!" Ari says assertively to Jonas. "He just got here. Give him some time to process before you ask that again."

  "It's okay." I tell them. "I got kicked out of my friend's apartment and passed out somewhere in Lansing."

  "And?" Jonas replied. Ari turns her head to scowl at him before speaking further. "Actually, don't answer that. We'll talk more about it later. I want you to meet Heather first."