“A song?” I asked.

“Yes, we have our song,” Anna responded, “Karla found it, and the rest of us like it enough to make it an anthem of our small group.”

“By small group, you mean …”

“Yes, I mean those of us who are present here. We decided on it without you, but now you’re also a part of our small band. That means you have a right to complain about it if you don’t like it, in which case we’ll just pick a different one.”

“Why would she complain about it?” The queen said, leaning on top of my head even harder than before, “It’s a great song for all kinds of people! She’ll find herself in it too.”

“Did someone say a song?” Ira joined us, with the others following close by.

“How about you start first?” Booker told him.

“Umm … I don’t know. You know I’m a shy guy.”

“Hah!” That was all Mun-Hee responded with.

“We all had a close encounter with death, but you,” Anna said, “So it’s only fair that you get to start first. Now Snirba, we aren’t expecting you to sing along this time. After all, you don’t know the words. Just relax and listen.”

“Ok.”

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“How will she know the words when it’s in English?” Ira argued.

“I know! How about we translate the lyrics to timkik tongue as we sing!” The queen offered.

“We don’t know it that well yet. We’d all translate it differently,” Anna said.

“It’s ok. I’ve learned some English by now. I’m not fluent in it yet, but Eric taught me the basics.”

“That’s good enough,” Jens said while putting his hand on my shoulder, “Besides, it’s just a song, it’s nothing special. You’ll learn it eventually. This won’t be the last time you’ll hear it.”

Ira cleared his throat in a rather dramatic and loud manner. Then, he started singing in the deepest voice I’ve ever heard. It was so strange to hear such a deep voice coming out of his mouth.

“We rise … we grow …”

“We walk and we stand tall …”

“We never fall …”

“As big as the sky, as far as the dawn …”

“We walk … and we do not fall …”

Then the others joined him. They were so in tune, all of their voices combined into one.

“We sleeep, we dream …”

“With no time in between …”

“We never stooop …”

“Whistling our chant in the heat of the night …”

“We sing … the spirit is clean …”

“From nooorth and sooouth …”

“We come from east and weeest …”

“Breathing as one …”

“Living in fame, or dying in flame …”

“We laugh … our mission is blessed …”

“We fiiight for youuu …”

“For freedom unforeseeen …”

“Thinking as one …”

“Rolling along to the beat of the drum …”

“We march, the black cross machine …”

“We rise, we grow …”

“We walk and we stand tall …”

“We never fall …”

“As big as the sky, as far as the dawn …”

“We walk, and we never fall …”

Then they started whistling a tune for some time. They stopped whistling it as abruptly as they started.

“We staaand alone …”

“But soon the day will cooome …”

“When freedom riiings …”

“We’ll meet again, now eternally …”

“And walk, once more as one!”

“Welcome to the team, Snirba.”

---

“So … the fuckers survived, huh?”

“Yeah … it looks like we’ll have to change our plans quite a bit …”