“Well, the fire’s going,” Akari said awkwardly. “I guess now we pray?”

  “My church always started this sort of thing with a song,” Cassy said. “Not that the usual opening song makes sense here, I guess.”

  “Too happy? Or too specific to large gatherings in buildings?” Akari asked.

  “How about that one that starts, Lord out of the depths I cry?” Danielle suggested.

  “That would make sense,” Akari said. “It’s even from the Bible, isn’t it?”

  “Not word for word, I don’t think. Maybe part of it? I’m not sure,” Danielle admitted.

  “I’m not sure I know it,” Cassy said.

  “Well, let me start it then, and if you recognize it we’re set,” Danielle said, “and if not, then there’s a chorus you can pick up on and you can pick the next song.”

  “OK, go ahead then,” Cassy agreed.

  Danielle took a deep breath, trying to quiet her nerves. No crowd to hide her voice in here – but then, no crowd to hear her if she missed a note, either. Just the three of us and God, and God isn’t judgy about flat notes, she reminded herself.

  “Out of the depths I cry to you,

  In darkest places I will call;

  Incline your ear to me anew,

  And hear my cry for mercy, Lord!”

  Akari joined in on the second line, but Cassy just shook her head. The two of them continued on to the chorus, and then to the next verse. Cassy joined in on the second chorus, and sang it when it came around after that.

  Danielle heard the sounds of some people on the upper walkways as they got to verse three.

  “So put your hope in God alone, Take courage in his power to save,” she sang, trying to put them out of her mind. “Completely and forever won, by Christ emerging from the grave!” She was pretty sure the verse was supposed to be about the afterlife, but for the first time she realized it might be relevant to her life right now, too. She might not be entirely alone, but she was afraid she would need God’s help to survive if 48% of the people in the camp weren’t sure that killing her wasn’t an acceptable way of getting home faster.

  They finished the song, and Akari immediately turned to Cassy. “OK, do you know what you want to sing next?” she asked.

  “I think so,” Cassy said. “I’ll just start, and if you know it you can join, right?”

  “And if not, then we learn a new song,” Danielle said firmly.

  “OK, here goes,” Cassy said, taking a deep breath like Danielle had.

  “I lift my eyes up,

  Unto the mountains;

  Where does my help come from?

  My help comes from you,

  Maker of heaven,

  Creator of the earth.”

  Danielle recognized the song, though it had been a while since she’d heard it. She joined in on the chorus: “Oh how I need you Lord, you are my only hope, you are my only prayer; so I will wait for you, to come and rescue me, to come and give me life!”

  Akari didn’t seem to recognize it, but the song repeated, so she gamely joined in on the parts she’d already heard once. She seemed nervous, but Danielle put it down to the return of the sounds from the building; someone was saying something angry, and then a door was shut rather hard, if not outright slammed. Danielle reminded herself that anyone on the balconies was too far away to be sneaking up on them, and focused on singing.

  It wasn’t a very long song, anyway, so it was over soon enough. "So, um. I guess we pray next?" Cassy said. "I don't even know how to start right now."

  "My Sunday studies teacher taught us to use the Lord's Prayer as a guide," Danielle said. "Let's try that."

  "You just want to say the Lord's Prayer?" Akari asked.

  "No, the thing where you take each line and pray about it," Danielle replied. "You remember, Mrs. Green taught us about it last year."

  "Oh. Oh, right, I do remember now. I never really used it though," Akari said.

  "Well, neither did I," Danielle admitted, "but I feel like that part about daily bread is starting to take on new meaning, you know?"

  "So, you start and I'll follow along?" Cassy suggested.

  "Sure. Ahem. Our father, who is in heaven, honored be your name. Um, may your name be honored here in this camp," Danielle began. "I know a lot of people here probably think you're imaginary or if not then you abandoned them, but I know you're still with us here, just like you would be during anything that happened to us Inside." Danielle paused to see if the others had anything to add.

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  After a longish pause, Akari started the next line. “Your kingdom come, and your will be done on Earth, like it is in Heaven. God, please let everyone here in this camp town realize that it’s better to follow your rules than to have no rules at all. Help us three at least to do your will.”

  Cassy started in only a moment after Akari finished. “Give us this day our daily bread. God, we ask you to help us find our food each day; we don’t know how we’re going to live here, and we don’t have much stored up. We need your help to fill our daily needs, day by day, week by week, and season by season.”

  “And especially help us find enough each Saturday that we can continue to reserve Sunday as a day of rest, but not a day of starvation,” Danielle added.

  “Yeah,” Akari agreed softly.

  “Um. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us,” Danielle continued after a moment. “Lord, we don’t know why we got sent out here so young, when it’s not supposed to ever happen like this. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m angry. And you didn’t tell us not to be angry about injustice, but you did tell us to forgive, and leave the vengeance to you, and right now we have to anyway because even if we knew who it was, they’re probably Inside. So, um, help me let go of this anger I can’t do anything about, and forgive, and trust you for the justice.”

  “I’m definitely going to need help with that one,” Cassy said, anger burning in her voice. “They broke so many of the rules to send me out here, and why? I don’t even want to forgive, but I know it does me no good to be thinking about it all the time. Help me, Lord.”

  “Yeah. It goes into the next part too: Lead us not into temptation,” Akari prayed. “Lead us away from the temptation to obsess over why we’re here instead of figuring out how to deal with it. Lead us away from the temptation to kill other people for mana. Lead us away from temptations we haven’t even thought of yet, because we’ve never been in such serious circumstances before.”

  “And deliver us from evil,” Cassy said. “Rescue us from evil people who want to murder and don’t care who. And from the devil. And from mutant mana-monsters! We need a lot of delivering right now!”

  “We do,” Danielle agreed. “But we know that you are still king over all creation, Inside and Outside, low mana and high, and you have the power to deliver us from all the evils that come after us. So we pray all these things in Jesus name, and may we bring glory to him forever. Amen.”

  “Amen.” “Amen,” the others echoed.

  Danielle had never actually closed her eyes, but she had been looking mostly at the fire. Just after they said amen, however, she heard two doors close almost at the same time, and glanced up. To her surprise, there were easily a dozen people on the second and third floor balconies. A few were walking along to their rooms, but a few more were standing on the part of the balcony walkways that wrapped around the end of the building, talking to each other; and a few more were standing in that same area, looking down at the three of them around their campfire.

  “Did we actually develop an audience?” She asked the others, very quietly.

  “Some of them came out while we were singing,” Akari said.

  “Why are they still up there?” Cassy almost whispered. “We’re all newly advanced, they can’t all have hearing traits already.”

  “We might have been talking louder than you thought,” Akari said.

  “Do you think we’re OK?” Danielle asked nervously. “I heard some people moving around up there, but it didn’t occur to me until just now that someone might take exception to us doing our thing down here.”

  “Nobody looks angry, I don’t think,” Cassy whispered.

  “I think a couple people got annoyed at their roommates for wanting to stay, and kind of stormed off, but that’s the only people I saw that seemed upset,” Akari said.

  “So what now?” Cassy asked, still in a whisper.

  “Now, Danielle and I drink some water, because we’re supposed to be getting extra hydration today,” Akari said at a perfectly normal volume.

  “Oh – right. We really need to do that.” Danielle got a canteen out of her bag and took a long drink. “But after that, do you think it’s late enough to start cooking?”

  “Not really. The fire is still too high, and if we want this to be dinner, then the sun’s too high, too. You’re the one with the watch! What time is it?” Akari asked.

  “Oh, right.” Danielle looked at her watch. “Not quite three o’clock.”

  “We need something to put the meat on, anyway,” Akari pointed out. “How about you go get Sadie and Heather and those long skewers you brought, and we do some stretching, and start toasting the rabbit in an hour?”

  “OK.” Danielle got up, not without a suppressed groan as her sore muscles objected to the change of position. “I’ll try, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to convince Heather.” She took another long drink from the canteen

  “Just remind her it’ll make it hurt less tomorrow,” Akari said. “If that doesn’t convince her, then it’s on her.”

  Danielle stretched her back, then chuckled. “All right, so I know I needed a good stretch. I’ll see what I can do.” She walked over to the walkway and jumped down, rather than walking all the way around to the front again. Then she paused at the door to their room and drank the rest of the canteen she’d been working on

  Opening the door, she was immediately struck by how dark it seemed compared to out in the sun. The day was a little cloudy, but with puffy, patchy clouds and plenty of blue sky visible between them.

  “Hey you two,” she called. “Are you getting through your water?”

  “I’m ready for a refill on this one,” Heather said, holding up a canteen.

  “I’m pretty close,” Sadie added. “I’m also realizing I need to get up and get a notebook, and I made a mana token I should put away, but like you said after breakfast, that seems like it would require standing up.”

  “Well, you should consider standing up anyway,” Danielle said. “It’s sunny and nice outside, and you’re sitting in a concrete box where you can’t enjoy it at all. Akari wanted me to convince you to come out and do those stretching exercises she’s convinced will make it hurt less, but as soon as I walked in, I realized getting out in the sun while we have time to enjoy it is an even better reason to come out.”

  “We do kind of need to study our books, though,” Sadie said. “It’s all well and good to say study after dark, but it stays light pretty late out here, and we need the information.”

  “How about this. I’ll get the hot dog skewers I picked up at the necessities store, and four of those composition books we found in the scavenged gear, and the books that Akari and I were reading. Oh, and Heather’s refill. Then you two bring your canteens and the books you’re reading, and we all go back outside and read in the sun,” Danielle proposed.

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