Shadow of Redemption

[Intro] Lay me down where the name is gone Past the iron gate past the last cold stone To the resting place where the ground remembers where the breath goes thin and the dark gets tender No prayer in my mouth just the weight of years No lamp for the road just the taste of fears If I fall asleep let the silence keep me Let the broken earth hold what made me [Verse 1] I walked the aethereal planes with my ribs like glass I walked the void where the drowned ones pass Monsters in the distance beasts with ember eyes Demons at the edges and the damned in lines Despair on my tongue agony in my hands Every step forward through the wasteland sands I kept going deeper through the darkest realms Til I found a crack in the iron hell I dug myself out through the frozen rain From an unmarked grave forgotten again Mud on my skin and blood in my teeth I rose from the pit but I lost my speech [Pre-Chorus] And I forgot how to be human I wore my shame like a second skin I watched the living with hollow eyes Saw their sins and their self-made lies [Chorus] I am the shadow I am the shadow But I still stand up when the night says no I am the shadow I am the shadow Still reaching upward through the undertow [Verse 2] Now I walk among them feeling the dark Reading the hatred that they hide in sparks Self-loathing burning behind their smiles I hear the poison when they speak in piles I kept to the corners of a towering cathedral Stone saints staring cold and medieval Only one mercy in the blackened air A priest who said son, all wounds are there He knew the truth that I needed to hear Thou shalt not judge another man here Not for the way that he broke apart Not for the sin that carved out his heart [Pre-Chorus] And the longer I stayed in the shadowed nave The more it fed on the life I gave But something in me began to call A cracked-out pulse through the hallowed walls [Chorus] I am the shadow I am the shadow But I still stand up when the night says no I am the shadow I am the shadow Still reaching upward through the undertow [Bridge] Then I saw a child and the hands of a brute And every old chain in my bones went mute I stepped from the dark like a blade from stone And I stopped that man I stood my ground alone That was my first step into the light Not clean, not holy but burning bright Then I gave my bread to the ones on the curb Piece by piece I let grief uncurb [Instrumental Break] [Guitar and drum electronic solo] Glitch fire and thunder skin Twin kicks hammering the wire within Lead guitar screaming through the rain-soaked air Tom hits falling like a funeral prayer [Final Chorus] I am the shadow I am the shadow But I still stand up when the night says no I am the shadow I am the shadow Still reaching upward through the undertow I felt the grief leave bone by bone The agony loosen then fade to stone Though the shadow remains it will not own What I became when I chose to go wrong to right to one to light