Spheris stared wide-eyed as he watched the islands starting to descend. At first, it was subtle, the shift was gentle, almost as if the floating islands were groaning and yawning after their long suspension in the sky.
But Spheris noticed one move faster and soon it was already a hundred feet lower than the rest. That was when the descent quickened. The weight of the earth returned, and panic crept in.
Spheris took a deep breath, and the first thing he did was to steady himself. Anytime now his own island would begin its own descent, but the air already felt colder, heavier, as the world itself braced for some inevitable collision.
He looked around the expanse of clouds and in the distance far and near, he could see other islands falling at different speeds. Some dropped too quickly, plunging into the abyss below, swallowed whole by the clouds and impermeable whiteness.
