LASCAILLE'S SHROUD LYRICS

1. A Child Conspiring With The Stars

A child born to die. An intervention from beyond the stars.

The sounds of the city are a cacophonous wall, an overbearing weight I can feel pressing down on me. I hide in the darkness, afraid to meet the world I never got to know. They are pursuing me, chasing after the things I carry in my blood, things that could undo this world.
I cannot let them have it.
In my wake, I have caught the lives of others, those who have chosen to stay with me. I am unsure if I am fit to protect to them, but it is one more reason I must continue to fight, even when I want nothing more than to give up.
I've been manipulated since the day I was born, my fate designed behind twenty-seven years of a carefully constructed facade. But I am not subject to these designs.
I don't believe in fate anyway.

2. Compass

From beyond the stars, an alien intelligence arrives on this world with the intention to aid and foster progress. A cubic vessel hosts her mind, and contains a nearly infinite source of knowledge on the history of time itself, of many civilizations. Used in order to steer a race slowly damning itself to extinction to a future of prosperity.

Compass.

But those few who know of her existence, conspire to use her technology for more personal gains.

3. Restrain The Child

[The Doctor]
It does not yield - An unceasing wall
Archive of wealth, knowledge and death
Tempting the eager and weaker me
I don't even care to resist

[The Surgical Team:]
Can a child understand this kind of pain?
That inflicting it is really, the only way?
“Strange men surround and bound my limbs
A blur I hope that will end in my death”

[The Doctor:]
Denied the gates to the final frontier
The temptation to supersede prevails
Boundlessly contriving a way to access
The beguiling knowledge deep within

[The Surgical Team:]
Restrain the child and remove her bones
Enhance the mind to withstand the pain
At seven years old we create the slave
Implanted consensus ours to control

[The Doctor:]
A sharp external pain
Penetrates the flesh
“Blood removal process”
Set to begin
Impoverished concepts
Drowned in a haze
Is it so unlikely that she will remember this pain?

Denied the gates to the final frontier
The temptation to supersede prevails
Obsessively plotting to one day possess
The enticing knowledge lying within

[The Surgical Team:]
Restrain the child and remove the veins
Enhance the mind to withstand her pain
At seven years old we create the slave
Implanted consensus ours to control

[Elizabeth North:]
Carbonized skeleton
Cyberized synapse points
Digital camera eyes
Image now realized
Artificial heart and blood
Imbuing life into this one

Awakening to my padded cell
Told to trust the words of these strange men
A terrified and pained little girl
Unable to remember who I am

[Elizabeth & The Doctor:]
In the aftermath of an eternity
I feel something inside
I attempt to suppress
The incommodious in me

[Elizabeth & The Surgical Team:]
My lungs draw air but I do not breathe
My eyes but for moments, ever open
Tired muscles I cannot contract
I have become living death

4. The Neon City, Part 1: Dreams

For twenty years, Elizabeth has lived a life in isolation at the research facility where Compass is held. She has little say in the matter, the technology keeping her alive is too precious, too advance, to allow it to roam the free world.

She has accepted this fate, and spent her life studying and learning from Compass.

But one day, she discovers a plot – set in motion by her father – with a shadowy corporation known as "The Diaspora Initiative", to harvest the technology within her.

Discovering she has been little more than a host for mere tech they wanted to keep for themselves, Elizabeth flees the facility towards the mighty Neon City. Compass, knowing the dangers of the technology within Elizabeth, leaves her vessel behind and travels with her, inside the colony of nanomachines keeping her alive in order to safeguard them.

The cubic vessel it leaves behind is rendered inert, useless to the people who once sought to exploit it.

[Diaspora]
Through the solarsphere and beyond the stars
New frontiers of unending knowledge
Out there beyond our sun
Lies the throne that our race will claim

A fall is a fall, is it not?
When failure is death is this justified?
Peace is peace?
Loss is loss, is it not?
Life is life, is it not?
Sacrifices are made – is that not always the way?

Breaking the skies and leaving this world behind
The trail of our engines will be followed
The path to the heavens is ours to pave
The world will look up and worship us

[Elizabeth]
A fissure across my weakly built
Idea of the world
Fracturing outwards
Reality cracks like glass

A fall is a fall, is it not?
When failure is death is this justified?
Peace is peace, is it not?
When achieved do means concern you at all?
Loss is loss, is it not?
Life is life, is it not?
Sacrifices are made – is that the only way?

[Diaspora]
No more thoughts – no more gods
Unnecessary automatons
No more death – and no more war
Irrelevant pasts expire

They will look up at the sky
Hand over eyes – in awe
Worshiping the trail that we leave
From the inferno of engines

[Elizabeth]
From my prison I can see
The melting lights of the Neon City
Extending a hand, the glass halts my grasp
I must escape, I must run, there is nothing for me here

My first steps onto this world
Endowing me with excitement and fear
But even the dirt beneath my feet
Is urging me to run

[Diaspora]
A fall is a fall, is it not?
When failure is death is this justified?
Peace is peace?
Loss is loss, is it not?
Life is life, is it not?
When achieved do means concern you at all?

[Elizabeth]
Braving the fear of an unknown world
A monstrous gaze that I must meet
All a facade I could not see, blinded by complacency
Into the lights of neon dreams – abandoning all

5. The Roads Leading North

Escaping the city, Elizabeth ends up in a massive sprawl of a city. She exhausts herself reaching it, and on the threshold of the city limits, she passes out only to awaken later in the company of a group of homeless men and women.

For a time, she stays with them, hiding from the people who know pursue her. Mercenaries employed by the mysterious "Diaspora Initiative"

Eventually she is discovered, and one of the homeless, a nineteen year old girl named Szara is caught up in the crossfire. They are both forced to flee, Szara now wanted by association and Elizabeth unwilling to let them have her, as well as any information she might have.

[Elizabeth]
Biting winter winds cutting at my flesh
Head first into the storm, precipice of ends
Spirits start to fray, the burn of the cold
Dragged into the dark, tempting fate again
Running through the night, shadows on my trail
Unrelenting watch – Perpetual gaze
How long can I maintain and match my enemy?
I begin to fear I am full of regret

Slowly drifting in my empty mind
Voices I've never heard beckoning to me
Seconds turn to hours – hours turn to days
Every moment I begin to fade
Lifelessly I can feel my body dragged
Throbbing pain in my head
Sheathed in snow and unable to convey
My confusion and pain I cannot escape

The dancing of flames awakens the eyes
Squinting at the unfamiliar light
Foreign world with foreign eyes
An uncertain sense of whats to come

Confusion and fear widens my gaze
The assault of light
Ridden with loss, robbed of life
Now I am incomplete

[Compass]
Walking without direction
She directs her eyes at nothing
Just her cold feet along
The neon-light sidewalks
A wall of noise envelopes us
But she remains distant
Perpetual indecision and fear crippling

But deep within beyond the fear
We know that we cannot stay
Attached to us like a cancer
Their presence goes, wherever we go

[Elizabeth]
The city calls to me in alluring moans
The night-time begging me to lose myself in its throes

[Compass]
Quietly I watch as her world quickly turns
Questioning I wait as her world quickly burns

To the ground, reduced to ash
All that we know is we have to run
Safety and sanctuary eluding me
Will I be the death of this world?

[Elizabeth]
Months have gone by
Living in filth 'neath neon signs
In the shrouded darkness
Prolonging finality
A collection of broken egos
Clinging to naive optimism
Meandering lifelessly
Down lifeless roads

Biting winter winds cutting at my flesh
Head first into the storm, precipice of ends
Spirits start to fray, the burn of the cold
Dragged into the dark, tempting fate again
Running through the night, shadows on my trail
Unrelenting watch – Perpetual gaze
How long can I maintain and match my enemy?
I begin to fear I am full of regret

Suddenly faced with enormous weight
The burden of life on me
To assume I know where it is I go
I question their faith in me

[Compass]
From lifeless streets to lonely roads
Merely changing our aimlessness
To secure a sense of self
Where do these roads leading North go?

6. Vehemence Drone

The rigors of a life running from these mercenaries begins to take their toll. Elizabeth has always been plagued by odd symptoms from her surgery, the slight disconnect of alien technology and her biology. But they grow worse.

Pain.

But everyday, she must endure the pain if she wants to survive. If she wants both her and Szara to survive.

[Elizabeth]
I am so numbed by the pain
Constant permeation I cannot take
It never relents and never forgets
Scarless assault poisons my body

Invading my dreams, haunting my life
No aspect of me is left untouched
Woundless horror, unseen suffering
Some days I wonder why I endure

Seasons pass by me like afterthoughts
And still I wait, but nothing will change
The paroxysm comes likes waves eroding at my bones
Every step a struggle, every breath with pain

And in spite of the agony
I can still summon my rage
Brief moments uncontrolled
With vehemence I drone

And in spite of my agony
I can feel the world
Uttering disbelief
With vehemence they abhor
And in spite of my agony
I can still summon my rage
Lost moments uncontrolled
In vehemence I drone
Whispering into my ear
Wordless language spoken
Each syllable, a nerve ending torn
Each pause in speech my only relief

Screaming into my ear
Merciless language howled
Each hateful cry, a violent pang
Each breath between, my short relief

7. Sketches Of Madness

In the shadows, there continue to exist those who would use Elizabeth for their own ambitions.

And they approach.

[The Tormentor]
In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that devastate the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision.
God: the title suits me well.

[Elizabeth]
Within the swirling void of existence, I was forced to abandon everything. Everything I was, everything I thought I knew. The universe itself became ashes on my skin, and the way it burned was the natural order of things. Even now, words to describe the agony, the loss I came to know elude me. I found familiarity in the emptiness, a companion in the sea of death I was determined to cross.
I lost friends, I lost hope. But I persevered. The world was spread out before me, and caught in neon glares and constant surveillance I fought. No torture or despair could stand before me, no gods or heroes. I was born as nothing, and in death I will be nothing.
But before that I had to do something, change everything. I would have sooner seen the universe collapse than sit idly by, huddled afraid in some alley. I didn't ask for this. I didn't seek out misfortune, but when it found me, I refused to give in. Just as I know you will, when the fires crawl ever-closer, when the stars themselves shoot holes through the reality you've grown comfortable in, you will stand.
Alone if need be.

8. Unspeakably Defiled

The commotion caused in the escape from the city has gotten Elizabeth the attention of a cultist group who would seek to use her to gain a foothold in advancing their anti-political and anti-war agendas.

Knowing she has some sort of value to the government, they capture her and Szara, and try to forcibly learn whatever they can.

Torture.

Months of torture, but she does not say anything. Eventually, Szara is able to free Elizabeth - but Compass - has other plans than simply escape.

Piloting Elizabeth's body, Compass slaughters everyone. When she reaches the cultists leader, Elizabeth finds herself back in reality, no longer under Compass' control. Elizabeth kills the man, without conscience, for the horrific things he has done.

[Elizabeth]
The endless expanse of the infinite seas
Profoundly unsettles something in me
Feeling pursued by the rolling tides
Begging and pleading to drown in their seas

Cold is the darkness comforting the silence
Semblance of serenity but still at unease
Lying still with you whispering to me
I could almost be content, almost be...

But the dark is not kind, ambivalent the night
When given to the dusk, the filth it comes
From a somber voice I hear him call to me
“You'll never escape, your mind is mine”

“We know who you are”, He explained to me
“I will take your ghost, you'll give me everything”
“No!” I exclaim, “You fail to understand!”
But my words are denied, lashed in bondage

And the day is not kind, malevolent the dawn
Zealotry emerges, a vitriolic boom
I hear him call to me. “You never had a choice”
“You are now but a pawn, my clay to be formed”

Gazing into my captor's eyes
I see no remorse for the hell I'm in
Even with my muffled voice
They know I cry out for death
Gazing into my captors eyes
I see no hesitance in her action
Even though I can no longer cry
They know I scream out for death

Gazing into my captor's eyes
I feel no remorse for the pain I'm in
Even with my stifled voice
My throat bleeds from my screams
Shielding my gaze from captor's eyes
I fear no remorse in their action
Even though I can no longer speak
I still growl against the pain

Bound to my bed and coffin
They force themselves inside
Horrifyingly alien – Ruthlessly violated

I can feel the edge of death
Brimming with a life better than this
My existence discontinued nonexistence forever persistent
Her whispering voice has disappeared
No more comfort, only fear
Left alive to suffer

A haze of momentum attacks me
Blurred eyes see little to discern
I hear the shouts and cries of dying men
Feel the warmth of blood on my hands

Awakening in flickering light
From head to toe – Covered in gore
A pile of bodies lay at my feet
A dying man begging to me
Without conscience I crush his throat
Gurgling noise and cracking bone
A whisper gone now returns
Screaming to me, “Run”

9. Enduring Fugue

The journey add is still long, and with a questionable resolution in sight. Elizabeth and Compass will face decisions that could alter the course of history forever.

I'm lost in a haze, my senses are blurred and fingertips numb. Movement seems impossible, I am anchored in place … anchored in time. I exhale white clouds; the words I forget as soon as I speak them. There is a darkness encroaching – gathering – upon me. And though I am afraid, still I remain.
My identity shifts imperceptibly, and now I fear that I am lost.
I taste the essence of an absolute, and I forget how to fear. The terror does not stop me, though somewhere inside me I know that it should. Breaking my paralysis, I take one step forward and manage only to fall with the storm's rain. I feel cold again.
My identity shifts imperceptibly, and now I fear that I am lost.

10. What Dwells Beneath Her Flesh

The Diaspora Initiative. Elizabeth and Compass finally discover an inkling of their plans. They wish to use the colony of nanomachines for themselves and their own purposes, to give them an unparalleled level of control over both the individual and the masses.

Compass cannot allow this.

She has seen countless people seek to subvert technology in this manner, and none of them have succeeded.

Neither will they.

[Diaspora]
I am an idea, I am not flesh
Born in the mind I fester and thrive
I am knowledge, admonishing faith
Grown in the world I revel and writhe

The throbbing wounds of old injuries
Afflicting the flesh of worlds
A burning sensation we like to numb
All just so that we can forget

The distance between the worlds
The length we've to endure
The time between the stars
The ache we must suffer

Confessor of sins I know that I partook
I cannot stand to be this numb
Torturous in our inaction – Torturous
Agonizing is our indecision

I am not a revolution
I am not upheaval
Power is not my desire
To assure our existence
To assure – I will do anything

We are the distance between the worlds
It is the length we must endure
We are the time between the stars
It is the ache we must suffer
We are the stellar embodied ambition
It is the fate we must capture
We are the starry drive to succeed
What nature says we should not be

Nanoscopic infiltration
DNA embedded subversion
Nanoconstructive seductive coersion
Do not slight the mechanism
Do not question

[Compass]
I have traveled this world
Naive and unaware, painfully ignorant
Of this festering, plague-like idea
You claim to understand

Fated to fail, I've seen this before
I grow tired of this repetitious exchange
Always blinded, organics seem to be
By their own devotion to their own reality

[Elizabeth]
Inside of me – timeless
Pathogens of life
The answer our world has always sought
Dwelling 'neath my flesh and blood

Inside of me – deathless
Machines of life
The answer you have always sought
Dwelling 'neath my flesh and blood

[Compass]
Fundamental misunderstandings
Brazen and arrogant, painfully unaware
Of the festering disease you dare to call
Progress

Against the law and truth of light
What the universe imposed
To expand and proliferate
The insignificant genes of a race

[Elizabeth]
Inside of me – formless
Ideas of life
The answer I never sought
Dwelling 'neath my flesh

[Diaspora]
We are the distance between the worlds
It is the length we must endure
We are the time between the stars
It is the ache we must suffer
We are the stellar embodied ambition
It is the fate we must capture
We are the starry drive to succeed
What nature says we should not be

We are the distance between worlds
We are the time between stars
We are the stellar embodied ambition
We are the starry fire to succeed

11. When Sleep Takes Us

Assaulted by a mech sent out from the mercenaries hunting them, the machine seeks to harvest as much 'material' from her as it can, and incapacitate her so she may be locked up - studied. Even if she must die in the process.

They've fought so far to bring Elizabeth back alive, but now this seems of less concern to them.

The mech makes it so far as to remove an entire organ from Elizabeth, and stitches her backup, awaiting for extraction.

When Elizabeth sees that the mech may kill Szara - someone who has been with her through every moment of this endeavor - She and Compass push the nanomachine colony to the limit, and despite her grievous injuries, managed to dismember the mech.

But, Elizabeth is now on the brink of death. Death will kill not only her, but the nanomachines as well - so maybe this is how it best end? Maybe this is the end she should of sought all along.

As she fades away, the voice of Szara keeps her anchored to reality.

[Elizabeth]
A lapse in the pain, a lull in the chase
A brief freedom from the ache in our bones
Relinquished our guard in a sigh of relief
A woeful breath of cold night air

A tenuous thread about to break
Our lingering, ephemeral joy
A silence in the dark
Would precede the coming of a sudden swarm

An uneasy sense of being watched
Contortions in the distance
A vivid sense of something near
Looking at me

Pressed into the dirt – restraining all my limbs
Before my eyes – a mucus drenched machine
Tears into my gut – spreading out the flesh
Penetrating deep – removing what it needs

The metal beast it shrieks in fetid tone
“Elizabeth North, I've come for you”
Pressure building on my chest
Drowning in my blood

[Szara]
Life withering fast as she crawls away
Digging through the mud, a chance to escape?
She cannot fight – I've left her alone
No hope for this – Torture resumes

The veil of rain disorients
The storm is gaining strength
Cursing her own weakness
Condemning herself in her tears
Condemning herself in tears

In my fading vision I struggle to withstand
If only to witness
The death of my only friend
The death of my only friend

[The Diasporan Mechanism]
Between the ribs the blade I wield
Piercing fast and grazing lungs
From the ground she's lifted
Though these bones they do not break

Trickling blood inside of me for DNA analysis
Target assessed and blood betrays - identity is confirmed
Grasping at the bleeding wound with flailing limbs
Crying out for this to end
Harvesting process will soon begin – it will persist
And death will not be quick
You can fight and you can cry – I acknowledge nothing you do
But your loss is my gain

Sensors flash – something here has changed
A gentle shift inside the eyes too small to see
Too small to see, but still I know
The North I seek is not alone

[Elizabeth]
Drained of all the will in me, I simply can't endure this fight
Suffering in the dark, maybe this is how I die?
All the blood that flows from me and back into this machine
I watch it all slowly run, the tenuous thread broken

Dropping my gaze off to the side
Her defeated eyes lock with mine
What have I done? What have I wrought?
I've dimmed the light of sweet innocence

Edging back from the dark
I lift myself through my blood
Grasping the beast's arm in me
Tear from it all its limbs

[The Diasporan Mechanism]
I am but one, one of a legion
A million minds – endlessly constructed
Into the shadows of your networks
Your world will fall and ours will persist

[Elizabeth]
Thrashing violently without concern
For my life and only hers
The beast resists, I do not relent
I will not stop until its dead

[The Diasporan Mechanism]
Hitting the earth – left to rust
Bleeding wires still attached
From my head she tears the cord
Sever the link between life and death

[Elizabeth]
My limbs have gone numb
I'm fading away, into the ….

Past emerging, my world recedes
Laying still in a pool of my own blood
So close to death, just a heartbeat away
So close to rest, just a breath away

My eyes have grown weary
I'm falling away, down into …

Brought together by desperation
Both of us trying to escape
Terrified of what would happen
If we stopped and looked behind

Embraced for warmth, just to survive
The hunger lingered, the pain remained
But there was solace in our tragic bond
If only for the night we had survived

Clinging to life with naiveté
Fed with the carcass of hope
To see such a smile fade into the darkness
To see such a life so violently denied
Again and again I relive our past
I'd do it all again without hesitance
The only thing I fear, and my only regret
Have I merely brought her here, just so she could die?

Sinking into a place near death
The comfort of the end
I feel her arms wrap around me
Demanding I return to her

[Szara]
Weathered flesh exposed and torn
Laying amid the cold, wet grass
When sleep takes her this night
Will she return?

[Elizabeth]
In my dreams I stand on the shore
Waves gently lapping at my bare feet
Begging me to come drown in their seas
Yearning for something real

In pale moonlight she walked up to me
A face I've known for years, a face I've never seen
Speaking in soft harmonious tones
She asks, “Is that what it is to dream?”

As we slip into the realm beyond life
We are dragged through space and time
I see a painful emptiness

Starless
Lifeless
Deathless
Time

[Szara]
Weathered flesh exposed and torn
Laying amid the cold, dead earth
When sleep takes us this night
We will never return

[Elizabeth]
Our final dream we stand on the shore
Waves gently lapping at our bare feet
Begging us to come drown in their seas
Yearning for something real

12. No Destiny

Barely surviving the endeavor with the mech, Compass and Elizabeth emerge from near-death ... changed.

Compass has embedded herself so deep within the core of the Colony in order to keep her alive, there persona's are nearly completely merged. Separated, but hosted in the same body.

Distant and cold my past and future
Here in this moment, transcend
The cusp of tomorrow, an approaching horizon
My burdens heavy, my body weak
I am me but not “I” – pluralized personality
Segmented and torn – annexed and joined

No destiny
The paths belong to us
No destiny
There is only choice
No destiny
No recognition of fate
This burden is ours
This choice is ours

13. The Neon City, Part 2: Nightmares

Elizabeth and Compass return to the place where they once ran from, seeking to put and end to this once and for all.

They fight their way through a warzone in the Neon City, mercenaries falling left and right, dead.

When she eventually reaches the research facility, she meets the man heading the Diaspora Initiative, a man she has been influence by for far too long.

And kills him.

[Elizabeth]
Facing the pale countenance
Of my neglected past
My nightmares are becoming
Neon lights call out to me

Wandering aimlessly no more
No longer willing to be a victim

[Compass]
Searching endlessly no more
No longer willing to be a witness

[Elizabeth]
Penetrating into the heart of my thralldom
Facing the faceless
Naming the nameless

[Compass]
One by one they fall to her
Soldiers of dystopia
Echoing through the empty streets
Gunfire erupting, a thousand points of light

[Elizabeth]
Eye to eye with the icon of my thralldom
Killing the faceless
Murdering the nameless

[Compass]
The neon city erupts in violence, a storm of gore
An orgy of lights, aconflagration of color and blood
Silent night shattered by the violent assault of gunfire
Bullets rain on the city streets – Utopian wasteland

[Elizabeth]
Emerging from the smoke and haze a glimpse of me the world receives
A blurry image on their screens with unknown visage and intent
And pushing through the fear and pain against the light of death combat
The sudden urge that overwhelms and beckons me into my dreams
And unrelenting, unforgiving is the hatred that I feel
And struggling against the thought of who through this I might become
But there is rage in me that I feel no concern to quell
If I'm to die in doing this then I'll make sure that you have known my hell

Not because that it is right and not because that it is just
And not because that you've deceived and not because the world believed
And not for all the death its wrought and not for all the trauma caused
And not for what you made of me and not for what you've made me do
I am going to end your life for nothing more than but I can
I am going to feel your blood warm and red course down my hands
Everything you've ever built will all come crashing down on you
If I'm to die in doing this then I'll make sure that you have known my hell

[Compass]
The neon city erupts in violence, a storm of gore
An orgy of lights, aconflagration of color and blood
Silent night shattered by the violent assault of gunfire
Bullets rain on the city streets – Utopian wasteland

14. The Disappearance Of Elizabeth North

The facility explodes.

A massive blast unlike any before it. It leaves an entire mountain range in the sea, and sends shockwaves out for thousands of kilometers.

Many questions remained unanswered.

Is Elizabeth dead?
What has happened to Szara?
Where is Elizabeth's father?

Was The Diaspora Initiative part of something bigger?

Time will tell...

[The Narrator]
The sky burned white, we shielded our eyes
The shockwave racing, flattening the land
Glass shatters throughout the city streets
Vision obscured in the seething fury of light

Mountains explode
Cascading into the waters below
A corpse of nature
The sea swallows without a belch

Blooming into the sky
The mushroom cloud looming tall
Ash rains down
The roads leading North end here

Death, is it really a disease?
I'd tremble to know what we'd do
Without that boundary
The horrors that we'd dream

One hundred million take to the streets
Walking through ash, hand over eyes
One hundred kilometers into the sky
The plume rises

They sift through the rubble of their monuments
Walking in the cracks of their monoliths
She has torn them all down, at all cost
In her death she has deprived them

The dust settles over the city
The sky fading white to gray
What really happened that day?
What did we loose to the waves?

Amidst the fallout they search for the body
Desperate for something to call an answer
Digging through the remains of their monuments
They search for North







LASCAILLE'S SHROUD LYRICS