Chonny Jash - Before Heaven's Fall / The Dead Kingdom Stands

Art by Voib! https://x.com/disruptivevoid Before Heaven's fall, the Dead Kingdom stands. Skies must be brought back down to bare lands. The burden passes through many hands. So, restless they remain. The Dead Kingdom stands before Heaven's fall, when a mortal walks through undead halls. A tower of stone can seem infinitely tall to a soul in a child's frame. The Dead Kingdom knows that Time's cruel pall will take them all the same. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LYRICS: What are you, child? Why do you wear the dead with such pride? Be careful, boy, not to trip and fall in your desire. What are you, child? There’s something fierce piercing through your guise. Boy of many bodies, many faces, many masks - can you remember which one’s real, and which ones are the disguise? I will never fall to man’s lies. You’ve lived many lives. Seven years. Three days, each so many times. Perhaps the corpse’s face you wear is the boy who should have already died! Heaven calls, and brings forth souls polluted. Raining down, the dead respond in kind. Heaven falls, as tombs become uprooted. Rains run high when life becomes demised. Watch where you step. Don’t disturb the dead. Stone Tower lets seldom corpses rest. You make a mistake, boy. It’s a grave crime that you commit. You dig your own grave, boy, but you will not lie in it. This is a land of bones, boy, as animated, or more, than the living. You will become a subject in my Kingdom of the Dead. And, for transgressions such as this, you will not find your King forgiving. Darkness will rise like warm air. Out through the soil, it follows you. Sullen and spoiled, rot swallows you. Hark! This is all that will come from your prayers. No one will answer. None will hear. No one will come to silence your fear. Heaven falls, as tombs become uprooted. Rains run high when life becomes demised. Skulls and bones make screams sound all so muted. Golden light burns cold in upturned skies. You make a mistake, boy, to wear faces that aren’t your own. You know not what your desecration invokes. Of the forgotten souls of the Gibdo, my friend Keeta, the ancient Garo. Each stolen face emanates the arrogance found beneath the facade. Oh, you make a mistake, boy. You should wear your own face, boy! At least then you’d die yourself, and meet the Gods with less disgrace. But then, in the end, you’re like me, boy with the harrowed heart. Let me teach you just how truly empty you are. Rise, soldiers hollow and loyal! Stone Tower takes not kindly to fools who take darkness lightly. Tonight, light will fall beneath shadows of the royal! Knuckles of Iron, Poes, Dancing Dead. Stalchildren, Beamos, all bring forth dread! Skulls and bones make screams sound all so muted. Golden light burns cold in upturned skies. Wraiths call home these lands left scorched and looted. Death reigns high upon grounds left bare and dry. The father won’t last long. The girl will die still young. The gravekeeper’s rot has already begun. The invisible soldier will yet be forgotten; in rotten soils, his soul will be trodden. The well will stay haunted. The river won’t run. The Army of Darkness fears not the shallow sun. I am Igos du Ikana, boy! Learn your place! I fear not the fool who wears a stolen face... Tell me, boy. How can you stand so proudly? Most would fall before they even made it to face me! Standing tall, there’s something fierce within thee. Like a wall, demise has been denied. My bluff was called, my folly dealt with swiftly. Take this, boy – a soldier who can’t die. A pair of hollow eyes. A heartless, empty child. A victim of the night. An envoy of the light. Muster your power. Brave the eleventh hour. Fall not, nor cower. Please… Surmount Stone Tower.