[Instrumental]

The murmur of war upon the lips of fiends Clandestine plots grown from subtle seeds Blossomed into amorphophallusesque ignominy Too late to turn back from its lethal reach The tick-tock of the doomsday clock Creeping ever closer to the final stop Harbingers of death vaunt in utter delight As mass fear and panic begin to spread worldwide The incredulous urge us, “Come to the light!” And as the darkest days roll out overhead We mourn in silence upon our tragic end This is not the final countdown we expected to face Empires rise and Empires fool All beneath in droves and even those who rule Either readily or once consumed by greed Self deceit appeals more than reality With heavy heart and enervated sigh We succumb to disquietude before the eternal night Even the incessant Rapturephiles quieten down In a reflective moment before certain death We curse the antiquated past we were unable to shed A flat finale for this series of unfortunate events At the end of days as the fires rained down And decimated ruins were left to smoulder We watched it all burn, crashing down around us Amidst the choking smoke and sulphurous odour And I distinctly remember the last words, you asked: “How did your temperament become so much colder?” And my answer to you? To turn my back and walk away From the apocalypse over my shoulder... The clingers on steadily drop like flies As we near the fiery, fissured finish line A choir of whistling missiles bid us adieu A thickening haze suffocates the world Still we try to place blame whilst our brethren burn This was not how we envisioned our own demise Yet the thunder rumbles on without respite Catastrophic repercussions erupt across fault lines All bridges both figurative and literal burned As time runs out and our fractured planet is hurled Like a vexatious pest swatted from the universe There is reasonable doubt our lesson was ever truly learnt...

Do you remember the time When you and I joined forces on that night? The words we cast tearing through the past To find a way to win the fight And the way our tales entwined Refined the prowess of our tongues Finding a voice, our rallying call Let no fret remain unsung And with that the deed was done The war of the words begun Changing the game with inventive ways to quell our foes Finding the silver lining ‘neath our broken psyches stranglehold The malignant assailed, sniping our opposition from on high A light forged from their darkness gleams in your Autumnal eyes Entrenched in this sardonic romance Two thorny hearts as sharp as glass There was a time when you and I Lay beneath the dreary rain misted skies Replete with words which cut so deep Into the fools that had passed us by Those old foes who chose to oppose our prose Finally faded from our minds Obscured beneath the shadows Now but a mere sneer as we roll our eyes All their vicious work undone The tide of the battle turned Taking our aim we fire into the rotten core of those Immovable forces which had kept us so indisposed Unloading our traumas, shooting down our enemies one by one Whose burns will never heal from the warfare of our tongues Fading away, no longer tearing down our foes Losing the cohesion which had kept our two halves a whole Infused with intrusions from across the enemy line That was the way we finally let the laughter die And so ends this sardonic romance Nothing so glib could truly last...

Bemus and waylaid On a precarious cliff We walk a fine line Above the gaping abyss Tensed clenched fists grasp For a mere sign of hope Finding nothing but razor-sharp winds As we're cast to the jagged rocks below Never before in our lives Were the consequences so high FIGHTING For a future CLAWING To survive Tethered to theses ancient ties Whilst our streets are streaked with blood Striving to leave behind This insidious past where it belongs Bruised and flayed Shattered through and through Thrashed and maimed Yet relentless in our pursuit

With moonlight as the only guide We wander side by side The silence growing deafening I dare not catch your eye The bluish hues surround us Casting shadows on our shame To mask our true expressions… Our journey has led us this far Into the murky dark unknown Casting out the doubts, we hide Together, never more alone Despite our best intentions Every effort remains in vain All the trampled, jagged pieces Can never fit back together again Time rolls ever on regardless of The shards left in our open wounds Winding on through all the noise And the silent ones gone far too soon Memories left, fading away A cruel mockery this mortal game So claim a draw whilst it’s there to breathe Then bury the regrets with the rest of me But until that day dawns it’s final rays We will close that tome on an empty page With moonlight as the only guide We wander side by side The silence growing deafening I dare not catch your eye The bluish hues surround us Casting shadows on our shame To mask our true expressions: Empty, shallow, grave We continue upon this path The far less travelled road Passing by the warning signs, still blind To the destination unknown In spite of our best efforts The outcome remains the same All the fractured, jagged pieces Left in the wake of our mistakes... So little left, traded away For a handful of scars, ancient runes Yet we still convince ourselves in the dead of the night All the lies that we wish would come true The brooding moonlight’s soothing light A spotlight on the scene Of the long dark night of the soulless Succumbing to the need The prose tinted glasses shattered Revealing the endgame Expressionless we walk away Empty, shallow, grave Every dead end diverted Still the sequence remains unbreached Passing by our past mistakes and ties All our vanquished hopes and dreams… Despite our best intentions Every effort remains in vain All the trampled, jagged pieces Can never fit back together again In spite of our best efforts The outcome remains the same All the fractured, jagged pieces Left in the wake of our mistakes...

Secret sects are formed by the power craving kind Fleeing from their failings, finding comfort in denial This benighted growing swarm a cult of the blind leading the blind Flocking into further fantasy converting fools into their tribe… Bow to the King, kiss the ring Bathe in a deeper meaning And thus become a God, the knowledge sought Was always yours for the taking You behold the truth, that so few knew Watch the layers peeling Follow and you will thrive, become the hive A faithful soldier in the making... Throne to the wolves The howls of umbrageous obedience Now bowing to a different master Doused in a fresh coat of ignorance Unsustainable These tall tales, mere whispers on the wind Catching plausibility once in a while You start to see the mounting gaps in between You found out how the product is made Assessed the man behind the curtain And now, betrayed, with a reddened face You’re set free still you remain unchanged To save face with those who warned you away Unable to admit that you were deceived Now bound between a rock and a hard place You double down and bite the hand that feeds... ...YOU! Whilst each “revelation” turns to ash The congregation still bow to pray Hoping it wasn’t all completely for nought That the trust was not misplaced Yet even with the torch extinguished The facts seem unbearable to face The swollen sting of being swindled That plummeting fall from grace! Each time logic thwarts them and belittles their assertions This quicksand cult mentality provides perpetual motion The plague of paranoia spreads with no sign of decline Rearing minacious content within conspiring minds...

It is never far away That stalking, ever creeping dread Embodied by the venomous Cretinous shadow which lies in wait... Peer into my eyes and ponder What goes on inside my mind How the cogs whir counter clockwise And lines are crossed, borders intertwined Where truth meets with pure malice My warped reality gestates Forgoing fact for fallacy The difference soon dissipates The rumour mill keeps churning Rotting from inside Listening intently For the bavardage it seeks They’ll never learn Or see through the disguise Lapping up all falsities The truth despoiler speaks It feeds upon attention That fiendish force of malevolence Engorging itself on tension It is he who tugs upon the thread... Hear me now willing fodder As I lay this long, plotted path of lies A trail that winds deep into the trees With the forest lost to those inside Wherein truth becomes obsolete My deceit is free to manifest Befouling all fact with fallacy For those ensnared within to ingest Don’t… look… into… its eyes Don’t… believe… the fables… the lies Watch... out… for the web… it weaves Choke it... deny it… the putrid air… it breathes...

Pt. I: Staring Into The Void Staring into the void This impenetrable fortress Of solitude forged With defences rarely breached Buried by time and dust The vault long since sealed Sailing blindly into the storm Rudderless, dashed into the depths Of the oceans endless gaping maw Each gasping, hurried breath may be The last grasp of a life quickly slipping Further out of reach... Amidst the murky cold starkness All of time and space stand still There is a peace in this nothingness Until… The ever quaking ache of waking up To the breaking dawns pervasive rays And so begins another weary day Where trepidation pulls tightly upon the reigns The haggard, weathered face is breaking up Every frown a jagged crown of thorns on display And sobered by the cold light of the morning haze The creeping apprehension overtakes All grandiloquence now dulled As the swirling madness grows Uncrowned and dethroned Plummeting further into the vast unknown A sunken vessel wreck Found its final place of rest Stranded and alone This ransacked treasure trove Deeper, deeper, deeper down… --- Pt. II: The View From Here Deep, silent, complete Unlocked and finally free Rid of self, all emotions healed Until I surface, again, then breathe Upon the highest point Overlooking the vast majestic scene Surveying the view from here Such endless beauty Untamed nature at its primal peak Transfixed by the endless zaffre seas The sudden rush of endorphins A wave of madness forming To drown out every memory remaining Blinded in a moment of pure rage An unthinking, reactionary state The panic itching to escape... --- Pt. III: The Great Unravelling Entropy Uncaring, the world goes on Then, now and forever The page must always turn Each new story builds intrigue Text becomes faded and illegible The notes in the margins smeared Flicking through nearing the end Reaching empty chapters The culmination still unpenned Each blank, unwritten verse may be The last glance at a future quickly slipping Forever out of reach... The lone voice in the darkness A cold, phlegmatic speech Warned the struggle would prove fruitless The internal ennui… Succumbing to the truth our time is nearly up The refulgence in the sky, an undeniable blaze Trembling below we shuffle on in our malaise No longer blind to our inevitable fiery fate This bedraggled flesh prison is seizing up Counting down the slipping seconds of every day Humbled by the final morningrise we face The end of our tale together, rewind and erase... All magnificence now dulled As the universe slowly unfolds Unwound and outgrown Plummeting further into the vast unknown This sunken, broken husk Will return to scattered stardust A mere speck in the spectrum Insignificant all we’ve loved and loathed Deeper, bleaker, weaker now… The breaking point A hot white flash sets the scene For the great unravelling entropy The end of beauty As it all begins to fade to grey Mourning those long gone zaffre seas...