Empathy or Death?
Lyrics
[Intro - eerie synthwave pads, distant static, low bass pulse, whispered deep vocals]
Neon ghosts in the walls tonight
A life in fragments, lit by hospital light
I don’t know if I’m waking or falling apart
But something old is clawing through my heart
[Verse 1 - half-spoken deep vocal rap, cold electric guitars, trap hi-hats, heavy subs]
I grew up with a hole where the answers should live
With a smile that forgot all the pain it was given to give
Middle-aged hands, but a child in the dark
Still carrying ashes I can’t place in my heart
They told me “you’re fine,” but I learned how to hide
How to swallow the storm and keep it alive
Every room I have entered has felt like a lie
Like my life had a lock and I lost the key inside
[Pre-Chorus - tension rising, layered cleans and harsh backing screams, toms building]
Then the chair, then the voice, then the light in my mind
A door I had buried too deep to find
And the floor split open, and the past came alive
Now I’m staring at shadows that shouldn’t survive
[Chorus - explosive metalcore, massive drums, distorted guitars, screamed and sung harmonies]
Was it real? Was I burned? Was I saved by her hands?
Was my sister a shield in that hell where I stand?
My mother was fire, my father was stone
And I’ve been living my whole life not knowing my home
Was it real? Or a wound my mind dressed in disguise?
I’m a stranger to memory, a ghost in my eyes
I can’t tell the truth from the smoke in my head
I’m alive, I’m alive, but I feel like the dead
[Verse 2 - darker synthwave under distorted guitars, deep rap flow, painful melodic phrases]
My sister was nine, I was three in the blaze
She threw her small body through the furnace and flames
Her hair turned to cinders, she held me so tight
Pushing out fire with the last of her light
And I forgot it all, like a name in the rain
Like a scream sealed shut in the back of my brain
Years turned to medicine, therapy, sleep
But the wound had been breathing too deep to keep
My father said nothing, just carried the night
Like a house with no windows, no sun, no light
Then I told him the nightmare, the part I recovered
And he looked at the floor like he’d finally uncovered
[Pre-Chorus - bigger, more desperate, layered screams, synth risers, snare roll]
The thing we all buried came crawling back out
Now every old silence is shaking with doubt
If my life was a story, who wrote all the scars?
Who lit up the past and left ashes in jars?
[Chorus - even heavier, gang shouts, crushing breakdown groove, synth lead screaming above]
Was it real? Was I burned? Was I saved by her hands?
Was my sister a shield in that hell where I stand?
My mother was fire, my father was stone
And I’ve been living my whole life not knowing my home
Was it real? Or a wound my mind dressed in disguise?
I’m a stranger to memory, a ghost in my eyes
I can’t tell the truth from the smoke in my head
I’m alive, I’m alive, but I feel like the dead
[Bridge - stripped-back piano and cold synth, clean vocals breaking into guttural screams, unresolved guitar solo]
If I scream into silence, will it answer me back?
If I trace every fracture, will it show me the crack?
My sister, my savior, my burning white light
Tell me why I was spared from the worst of that night
Father, why were you silent? Why leave me alone?
With a house full of ashes and a heart made of stone
I see flames when I close both my eyes
And I don’t know if I’m healing or learning to die
[Guitar Solo - soaring, mournful, unresolved, feedback trailing into chaos]
[Final Chorus - full band, double-kick drums, synthwave lead, screamed lows and broken cleans]
Was it real? Was I burned? Was I saved by her hands?
Was my sister a shield in that hell where I stand?
My mother was fire, my father was stone
And I’ve been living my whole life not knowing my home
Was it real? Or a wound my mind dressed in disguise?
I’m a stranger to memory, a ghost in my eyes
I can’t tell the truth from the smoke in my head
I’m alive, I’m alive