Who are the others?

It's been 30 years since everything changed. Since the sea opened up underneath my people's tiny island village and swallowed us whole, since we landed face first in the dirt of this strange new world.

At first it was chaos as my forebears panicked and scrambled and counted heads. Then they looked up at the looming towers of glass and steel and knew that nothing would ever be the same.

They came for us, asked their questions and stated their demands in tongues we didn't understand and brandished weapons we didn't recognize. They thought we'd caused the event, whatever it was. Like we had some reason to. Some of us died in that time. But most of us survived.

It's said the event had never happened before and hasn't since, that it won't happen again and there's no going back. That's what they say. That's what the memorial proclaims.

I don't know. I don't think it matters any more what happened or didn't. Most of them hate us and the rest barely tolerate us. We are "protected," but that doesn't account for much. For all intents and purposes, we're still an island. We are Tao.