The Morning Hymn

Date: 09.29.2224

Location: St. Joseph's Catholic Church & Cemetery, Rayne, Louisiana
Status: Rest Complete | Morning Observations

Morning arrived quietly.

The rain had moved on.

Water still clung to the stained-glass windows, turning the first light into scattered colors across the cracked floor.

For the first time in days...

the world wasn't shouting.

It was listening.

I woke to a sound I hadn't expected.

Not footsteps.

Not gunfire.

Not the creaking of old buildings settling into another century.

A hymn.

Soft.

Almost lost beneath the wind.

I followed it into the sanctuary.

Clancy was already there.

The former Enclave lieutenant knelt before what remained of the altar.

His rifle rested against a pew.

His helmet lay on the floor beside it.

For a little while...

he wasn't a soldier.

He was just a man praying.

I stood near the back until the hymn faded.

Then I spoke.

"Do you believe?"

Clancy looked over his shoulder.

His expression tightened before he recognized me.

"Move."

Pinball immediately drifted between us.

Its central eye focused on Clancy.

"Observation: vocal response indicates unnecessary hostility."

Clancy sighed.

"It's not him."

His eyes stayed on me.

"It's... personal."

The church settled back into silence.

I walked closer.

"I asked if you believed."

He looked toward the cross hanging above the altar.

One arm had broken away years ago.

The figure still remained.

"So much of my life," he said quietly, "was spent believing we were better than everyone else."

His hand rested against the worn wood of the pew.

"I watched good people become monsters because they thought history had chosen them."

A long pause.

"I'm still here."

Another.

"I don't think that's an accident."

"I understand," I said.

He looked at me.

"You do?"

"I believe too."

For the first time since we'd met...

Clancy looked surprised.

Before he could answer, Larry's voice drifted through the sanctuary.

"That's good for both of you."

He leaned against a broken pew with his arms folded.

"But I don't buy any of it."

No one interrupted him.

"My parents believed."

"My grandparents believed."

"They prayed."

"They worked."

"They tried to do right."

He looked around the empty church.

"They still died."

The room grew quiet again.

Even Pinball stopped humming.

Its optics shifted from Larry...

to the broken stained glass...

to the altar.

"I have reviewed multiple religious texts," it said after a long pause.

"They contain many questions."

Larry folded his arms tighter.

"And?"

Pinball looked back at him.

"They also contain people who kept asking them."

Nobody answered.

The old hymn had ended.

Only rainwater fell from the damaged roof.

Drop...

after drop...

after drop.

Larry looked toward the altar.

"So that's it?"

Pinball's eye dimmed for a moment.

"I am still learning."

Another pause.

"I suspect everyone else is too."

Clancy smiled.

Not because anyone had won.

Because no one was trying to.

The conversation ended where it began.

Not with certainty.

With people sitting inside an old church...

still willing to ask questions.

Outside, the cemetery rested beneath the morning mist.

Crosses leaned with age.

Names faded into stone.

The people buried there had once argued, believed, doubted, hoped, and prayed.

Now the church carried those conversations for them.

I picked up my pack.

Pinball floated beside me.

Clancy reclaimed his rifle.

Larry pushed himself away from the pew.

No one convinced anyone.

Some mornings aren't meant for conclusions.

Only company.

We stepped back into the Louisiana morning.

The road east was waiting.

— Big Chief