Astraea floated fifty kilometers above the surface of Venus, held aloft by the simplest trick in physics: air is lighter than carbon dioxide. 

   The city was a dirigible the size of Manhattan, stitched together with acid-resistant polymers and powered by solar energy so abundant it bordered on obscene.

   It wasn’t paradise. It was survival. And it was home.

  Cael and Lys were born there—second-generation cloud kids. No mutations, no enhancements. Just human beings raised in a place where stepping outside without a suit meant death by acid mist.

   They were seventeen. Old enough to know better. Young enough not to care.

   The Council had rules. Rules about who got to train for Earth-return missions. Rules about who stayed behind to keep the city running.

   Cael had the scores. Lys had the instincts. Neither had the pedigree.

   Earth was for the elite. The genetically vetted. The politically connected.

   They were neither.

   So they did what kids always do. They broke the rules.

   The shuttle was old. A cargo hauler nicknamed Tin Widow, half-disassembled and parked in the maintenance bay like a forgotten relic.

   Cael knew its systems. Lys knew its blind spots.

   They spent six days rerouting power, patching hull breaches, and forging launch codes. They stole oxygen tanks, protein packs, and a digital copy of I Come From A Blue Planet by the philosopher Eugene Mark Boyd from the library archive. He grew up on Earth.

   On the seventh day, they launched.

   Venus tried to kill them.

   The shuttle bucked and swirled. Pressure dropped. The hull groaned. The heat shield cracked.

   But they made it.

   They broke through the clouds, through the gravity well, through the bureaucracy that said they didn’t belong.

   They were free.

   Space was quiet. Too quiet.

   They drifted for weeks, rationing food, recycling water, and arguing about orbital mechanics. 

   Cael was methodical. Lys was impulsive. They fought. They made up. They kissed. They listened to Boyd read aloud to them in the dark.

   They talked about Earth.

   About forests. About rain. About freedom. They didn’t know if they’d survive re-entry. They didn’t care.

   Earth was beautiful.

   Blue and green and white, spinning like a promise.

   The shuttle was barely holding together. The guidance system was manual. The heat shield was patched with scavenged plating.

   They held hands as the sky turned to fire.

   They screamed. They laughed. They rode it down like a wild ride and lived.

   They woke in a forest. Real trees. Real air. Rain that didn’t burn.

   The shuttle was a wreck, but they were alive. 

   Lys was in awe at the fresh air and tried to drink it with cupped hands and it started to rain. It was amazing. 

   Cael tore his suit from his torso and danced in it and they kissed in the cooling downpour.

   They wandered for days, drinking from streams, eating wild berries, and dodging drones.

   They found an abandoned cabin. Overgrown. Forgotten. They made it a home.

   They built a garden. Learned to hunt. Learned to live. They were alone, but not lonely. They had Boyd to read to them.

   Sometimes they saw satellites pass overhead. Sometimes they heard distant aircraft.

   But EarthGov never found them.

   They were ghosts. Myths. The cloudbreakers. Two kids who ran from the sky to find a world worth loving and in that world, they loved.

   Wildly. Fiercely. On their own terms.