**Verse 1**
Me and Malik used to ride the same bike,
Two little kids on the same street lights.
Shared school lunches, shared broken dreams,
Never knew life wasn't what it seemed.
We grew up fast when the bills got late,
Watching grown men gamble with fate.
Thought we found a way when the money came,
Never seeing the cost of the game.
We swore an oath underneath those stars,
Said we'd make it out, buy matching cars.
Said no matter what, we'd stay the same,
But pressure changes every name.
**Chorus**
Then the case came down like thunder in June,
Everybody singing a different tune.
Phones went silent, eyes turned cold,
Trust got traded for survival and gold.
We were brothers once, everybody knew,
Till fear made me doubt you, and fear made you doubt me too.
**Verse 2**
News spread fast through the neighborhood,
Federal agents asking who knew who.
Every knock at the door felt like war,
Every friend looked different than before.
People started whispering behind closed walls,
Saying somebody talked, somebody called.
Nobody knew what was true anymore,
But suspicion kicked open every door.
I looked at you and saw questions instead,
Every conversation filling my head.
You looked at me with the same damn stare,
Two childhood friends trapped in a nightmare.
**Chorus**
Then the case came down like thunder in June,
Everybody singing a different tune.
Phones went silent, eyes turned cold,
Trust got traded for survival and gold.
We were brothers once, everybody knew,
Till fear made me doubt you, and fear made you doubt me too.
**Bridge**
Ain't it crazy how the streets can lie?
How loyalty slowly starts to die?
Nobody needed proof, just rumors and smoke,
And years of friendship finally broke.
The bond was gone before either one fell,
Paranoia built its own private hell.
Neither of us could see the truth,
We were fighting ghosts from our youth.
**Final Verse**
One rainy night it all reached the end,
No more brother, no more friend.
Just two scared souls carrying old scars,
Standing miles apart though we weren't that far.
The city woke to another sad headline,
Another tragedy people forget with time.
Two names carved beside each other in stone,
Two boys who started together, dying alone.
Their mothers cried beneath gray skies,
As old friends struggled to explain why.
But everybody there knew the truth:
The case didn't kill them.
The rumors didn't kill them.
The fear did.
**Outro**
Now the old block still remembers their names,
And the kids still running those same old lanes.
A lesson written where the streetlights glow—
When trust dies first,
Sometimes nobody survives after.
HbKeed