As our boat reached the shore, there was a loud cheer from the passengers. It had been a long voyage, at times turbulent, but in the end it had proved worthwhile. We were finally here, at Island 473E.

I stood alone at the stern gazing eastward, from where we’d embarked ten days before at the Port of Miami. Now the urban legend had become truth: Florida was sinking into the ocean.

The government was quick to respond to the oceanographers’ dire prognosis—every Florida resident was given a choice, a plane ticket to another state OR a passage on The Royal Steward to a government-controlled island in the Pacific.

It was uninhabited. The weather was temperate, the island having a moderately high altitude. The brochures they sent me showed beautiful mountains side by side with cascading waterfalls.

My family wasn’t pleased with my choice. They had opted to move to Colorado. I opted to have a fresh start, a new beginning. Where nobody knew who I was. Where I could become something different – the real me.