The acoustic hall felt different when we entered after breakfast.
The folding screens—our separators, our training wheels—were gone.
The piano had been moved to the center of the space.
Eight music stands formed a semicircle around it.
On each stand sat a copy of Eight Letters.
But something was wrong.
I picked up my score.
Every singer number had been blanked out.
Where Singer 1 should have been, there was only a penciled bracket.
Singer 2 through 8—all blank.
The lyrics remained. The notes remained.
But the assignments?
Erased.
Trainer Song entered carrying his own score and a piece of chalk.
He sat at the piano without preamble.
"You've spent two days learning how to hear each other."
His fingers tested a chord progression.
"Now I'm deciding where each of you belongs."
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
Yesterday we'd laughed around a barbecue, trading childhood stories and terrible jokes.
Today?
Every line mattered.
Every choice determined survival.
