No sun breaks through this canopy of steel

Here in the concrete, only power is real

I walk through the ruins of the bridges I burned

Ignoring the lessons I ought to have learned.

A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye

We scream at the silence, we fight and we die

The predator prowls in the back of my mind

Leaving the carcass of mercy behind.

I built a fortress to keep them at bay

But the walls closed in, and they blocked out the day.

Now the silence is loud, and the cold is profound

There’s no devil below... he is here, on the ground.

We are drowning in Substance Number Ten

The winter of souls, the cage of men.

It’s the Killing Principle taking the throne

Where every heart beats for itself alone.

Welcome to Hell—it’s not fire and pitch

It’s the poor man’s envy, the greed of the rich.

It’s the sphere of unhappiness, dark and deep

Where we sow the storm... and the whirlwind we reap.

I threw out a sword, and it circled the sky

Now it returns to the one who let fly.

This pain in my chest, this fear in my breath

Is the echo of how I have dealt out death.

Not just with weapons, but with words like knives

I’ve slashed through the fabric of other men’s lives.

Now the mirror is polished, the reflection is true

The suffering I gave... is the pain I go through.

But wait...

If the darkness is absolute, why do I feel?

Why does this wound teach me how to heal?

How could I know what the light really means

Without these nightmares? Without these scenes?

The gold is refined in the hottest of fires

The human is born on the funeral pyres

Of the beast I was...

Of the beast I am!

I am burning in Substance Number Ten

But this is the place where I start again.

The Killing Principle has to run dry

Before I can hear a brother’s cry.

It’s the school of misery, the heavy cost

To find the compassion that I had lost.

Hell is the teacher, stern and severe

To wipe away... every future tear.

Let the winter freeze.

Let the darkness bite.

I had to know the dark...

To long for the light.

Substance Ten.

My enemy.

My savior.