Page 105 of Vengeful Melodies

"I would’ve taken your place, if I’d known.

Tied myself to the bed, let him think I was the one.

Tell me where it hurts the most—

And I’ll go there. I’ll bleed there. I’ll stay there."

The drums echo his vow, each beat another nail hammered into the dark. His words drag across me like chains, and I feel them settle in my chest where they’ll never leave.

The guitars climb again, trembling, strained, and I let it break me wide open. My voice rips through the silence, walls of paper tearing around me.

"If I could steal back time, I’d gut it open just for you.

Rewrite the story where you’re untouched and new.

Where you never had to survive just to be loved.

Where you never had to run just to be enough."

My throat burns. My chest cracks. I don’t stop it. Not tonight.

Kaiser screams into the final chorus, dragging the words from the bottom of his lungs, shredding himself bare.

"So let the world call us fools or monsters or mad,

I’ll still stand in the fire, hands outstretched, for what we had.

I’ll still choose you in ruin, in shadow, in fear—

Even if you never choose me, I’ll be here."

Then all of us, together. Four voices, one truth.

"We love you like war,

Like peace we never earned,

Like prayers left unanswered,

Like bridges we let burn.

We love you like sinners,

Like saints who never believed,

Like men who finally learned—

What it means to kneel and mean it."

Alix crashes the cymbals, the sound like thunder tearing sky apart. The guitars scream and cut off, sharp as a blade. The last note hits and lingers, echoing through every hollow in me until it dies away.

Then silence.

The crowd doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

But she does.

Dreya shoves her way forward, through hands and bodies, straight to the stage. Her hood falls back, and her face—God, her face—is cracked wide open, wet with tears.