The Place of the First Note thrummed with a vitality that was now its own. The garden was no longer a patch but a field, a sprawling tapestry of green against the grey. The pump-song was a complex, layered piece of music, its rhythms dictating the flow of work and rest. The people, with their new names and defined purposes, moved with a confidence that had been unthinkable months before. They were not just surviving; they were building a civilization.
This new stability brought with it a new kind of energy: curiosity. For so long, every ounce of will had been focused inward, on the immediate struggle against silence and starvation. Now, with full bellies and resonant souls, they began to look up. They looked at the barren ridges that encircled them, not as the walls of a prison, but as a horizon.
