A bed of stone
To wake upon
To a world long dead

May this sight strike me blind
Lest I envy the dead
Let my bones melt to earth
To cease and forget

In brittled cloth
A grave of rock
Above the world's remains

[Qorban:]
"I broke the surface of a lifetime of sleep,
or so I felt. For minutes I couldn't will my aching bones to move,
to rise from my bed of stone, or my gaze to bend from the tomb of rock above me.
I willed my body over the edge and crushed to the floor below.
Through a mist of pain I started to see: I was imprisoned.
A forboding fright dawned in me, as I slowly struggled to free myself from my own grave.
It seemed my limbs would burst before I was free,
but finally at the very end of my strength I could see the world beyond,
and to my horror - It was no more!"

I have lost to sleep
Man's final days
Now to awake
Just to be tortured by grief

[Qorban:]
"Through blood and thorns I wandered,
freezing, aching, bound for a ruined cathedral below.
All is dead, look! Only rust, and debris,
and shells of stone remain, drowning in ashes, a
s if we had never been. Everyone I had ever known.
Everyone I'd ever meet.
Everyone I ever loved.
Gone with the centuries, lost under a sea of ashes."

Only now when every chance
To belong
Is bitterly gone
I feel I do

For the very first time
I understand
The gift we had
Now forever gone

All I ever knew lie dead
And their epitaphs the ashes guard
Must I live to mourn the world
Or find reunion once the ashes part

For I am chosen
To speak
At the open grave
Of each and everyone

How can I mourn
For every man?
May I soon
Lie with them

[Qorban:]
"How can I go on, when all I have is a grave?
When one place is as good as another,
to lie down and belatedly join where I belong. Let it end here, with me."

This unearthly knell
A deadly gale, or
A grace of life?

Come here
Sink into
The chant of moon

To lose
A face
As earth turned moon

We are the altar
On which the world was slain

You're born
For us
Atone for us

Be the one
Or become
The sacrifice

[Bakar:]
"Come closer, newborn.
Good that you have put the robes we have provided for you.
You are now one of us.
I can see you are afraid? You don't need to fear us.
We are everything. We are your brothers and sisters,
newborn! We are your destiny, and your place is among us."

[Qorban (to himself):]
"Why do I fear their faceless hoods more than death itself?
What is this supernatural terror washing over me,
as they come slowly closer and closer? I...I cannot let them get me. I must flee!"

Fly now
To no avail
Thy fate is drawn
You will return

I reached the core
Once the peak of life
The bleeding eyes
Of empty shells

A shattered vision
The failure that was man
Higher spires
Deeper
Graves

Graveyard horizon
Whence my eyes can't flee
Every ruin
Is convicting me
They all, as one

Her voice foremost
Too dead to bear
Fingers damn
Then crumble to dust
Their touch is stone
The present past
Passed away
As life is lost

[Qorban:]
"In the dead city, only the echoes of my steps are alive.
Like in a dream, I entered a shattered and half-buried house through its gaping eyeholes.
Inside a body of rags and ashes, she's long dead, unknown, forgotten.
I wipe the dirt from my wet eyes but I can hardly see.
Look! A brittle newspaper! This...cannot be,
it's all a mad...unending nightmare!
These voices...I did nothing! Nothing, you hear me? Leave me alone!"

You live
Where we are doomed
To die
You must reveal
Our secret bane

Ancient rust on black
Scarlet curve of wrath
Spill a bleak revenge
In Gethsemane

I will make you pay,
Bleed your scarlet guilt
To reconquer day
From filth

And they fall like leaves
Brittle to the touch
Where blood is only grey
Only grey

[Bakar:]
"We are the Moonkult. I am Bakar, the First. You see, brother,
the world that was is dead. It was foul, teeming with sin.
As mankind made its final discovery, the end of the patience of God,
the experiment was ended. The world was returned into the shape of moon,
a clean state. Only when aeons of penitence have passed,
befitting the crime, and mankind has forgotten sin, desire, rebellion,
only then will the world be born anew. A perfect, newborn world."

Stay away
Bleed away
Fall like statues
Mute like sleep

And to the end of day
I will run from your lies
If there is sanctuary
I shall find it or cease

[Bakar:]
"You, my son, are the sacrifice to die for our sins, until we'll finally be forgiven."

Too far I came
And nothing changed
No reason to search on
Is to be found

The ruin too vast
All is nowhere
And every way
Is leading here

Every step I lost a bit
Now I'm almost gone
Devived
I'm lost by life
Too deep in dust
Made of yesterday

Release me
From despair
That is my everywhere

[Qorban:]
"Unending ashes are the ocean to drown me,
to douse any spasm of life remaining in this treading corpse,
where every step is bringing me deeper into this wasted,
bottomless world uttering 'you don't belong here,
you are life and the time of life has passed'.
And I do think my body is slowly and surely giving in,
when every mile gives birth to more ruin,
an endless sea of monotony.
Despite myself, I watch my knees caving in, sinking into my grave,
welcomed by earth, shrouded by storm.
And I am too drained to ride, too battered, too devived..."

My eyes are veiled
A final time
Yet summoned by a distant glow,
Am I to be born anew?

[Solitude Aeturnus cover]

In a blackened blur of crowding clouds
I dropped my sorrow among the leaves
I took my place as wise men do
As the storm prepared its release

Through raging winds and weeping skies
I sat in the loneliness of solitude
I washed my eyes in growing streams
Earth's resistance
True magnitude

As black sky faded to blue
And again the Earth felt the sunrise
A silver mirror stood before me
Bequeath of the silent rainbow
A beautiful mirror of radiant splendor
As ominous as the autumn moon
It brought upon me endless wonder
Yet spoke of some unknown doom

And the reflection punished me
No words could ever tell...
In the end of the world,
I could only see myself

I surrender
Too weak to carry on
My bones struggle
Towards the soil

I know the end
I know all's in place
For my departure
My sacrifice

I am the end
The bane of yore
Yet bridge to a dawn beyond

I am the end
The sacrifice
Hope's frail seed my legacy

Pathetic host
Bear me like a saint
With bloodletting eyes
To slaughter

Familiar cross
In hatred divine
I welcome you
In wedlock

[Qorban:]
"The ropes bit into my flesh,
the rough wood scraped my back.
A silence of awe fell on the throng,
as my arms were spread out,
falling gently against the rusty nails protruding from the arms of the cross.
I lost understanding of where I am.
Nothing mattered anymore.
I had done what I think I was born for.
I had planted a seed to grow and tear down the sins of my blood.
But I was born from guilt and I was to return the same way.
My mind left me and the infernal pain behind,
as my flesh and the nails united.
There was a scream somewhere,
and my cross was raised against the muted twilight moon."

[Epilogue:]
Throughout man's rise and fall, stone would hardly change.
The cave in the mountains would see them wake again,
and again, unmoved. This time, something changed.
Carven into the rock above a bed of stone,
these words would meet the Newborn: "Brother, this is my legacy. I woke as you have,
torn from his flesh, as you are.
I tried to stop them as you will.
I failed, but you will prevail. And here is how..."