[SCENE: MAELSTROM FUNERAL PARLOR - KABUKI SUBLEVEL 3]
[SOUND: SINGLE BELL TOLL. LOW DRONE. SMELL OF OZONE AND INCENSE.]
---
[VERSE 1 - spoken, exhausted]
I've been seeing the future for seven songs now.
It looks exactly like the past.
Same chrome. Same begging. Same flatline choir humming in the walls.
The gutter prophet sold me back my own eyes.
The rust sermon baptized me in hydraulic fluid.
The Creep stood outside my door for three days.
And the doll? The doll just looked at me and said:
---
[CHORUS - clean, then building]
"There is no surgery for this."
So stop cutting.
"There is no resurrection."
So stop kneeling.
"There is no god in the machine."
So stop praying to your own reflection.
---
[VERSE 2 - more urgent, cracking]
I cracked my spine for scripture I already knew.
I sang the flatline hymn until my voice split in two.
I watched the gutter prophet tip his cart and laugh.
I felt the Creep's breath and I didn't look back.
This isn't defeat.
This isn't surrender.
This is the only honest ending for a chrome-plated bender.
---
[BRIDGE - slow, ceremonial drums]
The casket is cold.
It's supposed to be.
The optics inside it?
They all belonged to me.
Every eye I ever installed.
Every mistake I ever called a vision.
They're all here.
Lining the lid.
Watching me make the final decision.
---
[BREAKDOWN - all instruments drop except bass and a single flatline beep]
[Whispered, one voice per line]
"The flesh forgets." [(Rust Sermon)]
"But the steel does not forgive." [(Spine Bible)]
"I just wanted one night off the leash." [(Doll's Lament)]
"Frame skip. Frame skip." [(Optical Chaos)]
"The Creep was patient." [(The Creep)]
"The cat's still watching." [(Spine Bible)]
"...stack overflow." [(Flatline Choir)]
"...stack overflow." [(Flatline Choir)]
"...stack over—" [(silence)]
---
[FINAL CHORUS - full band, crushing, half-speed]
Chrome casket.
Chrome kingdom.
No gears turn.
No lungs burn.
No more begging.
No more learning.
Chrome casket.
Chrome womb.
Chrome.
Casket.
Tomb.
---
[OUTRO - single voice, protagonist, calm for the first time]
I climb in.
The optics on the lid go dark one by one.
[Someone — the prophet? the doll? the cat? — says:]
"See you on the other side of the flatline."
[The lid closes.]
[*CLANK.*]
[Silence.]
[...then, soft, barely audible:]
"...oh. it's quiet here."
[FLATLINE BEEP. SINGLE. SUSTAINED.]
[HUM OF CRYO-POD POWERING DOWN.]
[SILENCE FOR 15 SECONDS.]
[END OF ALBUM.]
AsheTheHyena