The weightlessness took my breath away, the fall seeming endless. Even as I risked glancing side to side, and witnessed my entire birth group, whooping and screaming as we fell, I still had time to question. Were they fearful of The Jump, the coming of age celebration throughout Korai Uji; the beautiful planet I called home? Or just the eighty-foot drop from the sloping rock of our land? Did they howl at the thrill of leaping from The Cliff Edge, or only the fast-approaching future it initiated?

With air hissing in my ears, and my hair whipping above me, I found the piercing whoosh of the plummet was almost enough to inspire distraction. So I shut my eyes, and all the while I hoped the rush of wind would clear my mind. I wished for it to end my questioning. Yet it went on. The questioning. The falling.

Then, I hit the water. Just as the hundreds of others in my birth group, I instantly felt it. Life would be different now. The carefree existence I had abandoned on The Cliff Edge could never be mine again, as from this moment onwards…

I could find my Soulmate.

The collision struck my thighs, hard, but my days in diving club meant my body was used to the impact. What really shocked me was the salt in the water, stinging my eyes. I squeezed my lids shut as my downward plunge eased to a halt, and in the midst of the seas my body began to float. Suspended, for the moment.

I allowed myself the feeling; the weightlessness of my body, the gentle ripple of waves pushing me towards the surface. It was, blissful. Far more than I could have ever imagined. The discovery made me want to stay. Linger. Only, it wasn’t long before my need for air emboldened me to swim to the water’s surface; and the second I emerged from the sea, my childhood ended.

I gasped deeply into lungs that tradition had declared fully matured. Now, after fifteen cycles of life I could at last taste, feel, and swim in the water that encapsulated the island of Uji. After fifteen cycles, along with the other four hundred or so in my birth group, I was officially an adult among Korainians. I was officially a new woman.