[Intro – spoken tired, voice rough from too many nights awake] I used to think sleep was a weakness. A pause button for people who didn’t want answers badly enough. I was wrong. [Verse 1 – spoken with clinical calm, barely holding together] I measured dreams once. Mapped them. Logged their decay. I told myself nightmares were malfunctions. Errors in the system. Things that could be corrected if you stayed awake long enough. So I did. [Verse 2 – spoken lower, guilt seeping in] That’s when I saw her. Not as a queen. Not as a monster. As a constant. Umbra was already there when my equations stopped balancing. When the machines hummed like they were afraid to be turned off. She didn’t interrupt my work. She watched to see what I would become. [Interlude – spoken quietly, almost ashamed] I didn’t summon her. I made a world loud enough that she had to answer. [Verse 3 – spoken with rising unease] People think nightmares are born from fear. They’re wrong. They’re born from refusal. From problems left unslept. From grief denied its rest. I gave the world infinite wakefulness and called it progress. Umbra called it cruelty. [Verse 4 – spoken with dawning horror, still restrained] When no one could sleep, she didn’t rage. She organized. Miss Loneliness found the abandoned. The Duke questioned the unexamined. Stage Fright clung to those about to disappear under light. She didn’t invade the world. She adapted to it. [Final Warning – spoken steady, exhausted, honest] If you’re listening to this and you’re still awake, still chasing one more answer… Don’t mistake her patience for mercy. Umbra does not punish those who dream. She corrects those who refuse to rest. And once she starts fixing the world, she does not stop until something finally sleeps.
