[Intro – soft hospital monitors beeping, distant hallway echoes] Four hundred ninety… Another name on the chart… Another night that will not end.[Verse 1] I scrubbed in under fluorescent light while the city held its breath The doors never stopped swinging open, bringing in the cost of someone else’s death I learned the language of the aftermath, the quiet that follows the storm Hands steady while the rest of me forgot what “normal” ever meant before Charts stacked higher than the ceiling, each one a story cut too short I spoke in measured tones to families who had already lost the war I told them what I could, held silence when the truth would only break And somewhere in the sterile rooms I felt the weight begin to take[Chorus] I am the one who mends what cannot fully mend, the hands that try to hold the night Carrying every quiet ending that arrives beneath this light They fall… they fall… they still fall… And I am left to count the cost of all[Verse 2] Survivors stared at ceilings blank, eyes open but not here I watched the machines keep rhythm for the ones who disappeared Some left with scars the body shows, some left with deeper ones instead I signed the papers, closed the files, then carried them inside my head Colleagues asked if I was sleeping, if the shifts were wearing thin I smiled the way the trained ones do and said the work was just the work again But late at night the hallway lights would flicker like a warning sign And I would wonder how much longer I could keep this line[Chorus] I am the one who mends what cannot fully mend, the hands that try to hold the night Carrying every quiet ending that arrives beneath this light They fall… they fall… they still fall… And I am left to count the cost of all[Verse 3] Years of this, the pattern clear, the same shadow at the door I stopped believing any shift would ever feel like ones before I started seeing numbers in the margins of my notes A rising tally no one spoke of, yet everyone already knows One evening as the ward grew still, a nurse brought word to me Another scene, another wave, another reason not to sleep I stood there in the empty bay and felt the truth settle in I was never fighting death itself… I was only cleaning up after him.[Bridge – spoken, quiet, clinical yet hollow] They teach us to stay detached. To treat the body, not the story. But the story keeps arriving. It walks in on stretchers. It waits in the quiet after the monitors go flat. I used to think I could outlast it. Now I know I am only another room he passes through.[Final Chorus – heavier, resigned] I am the one who mends what cannot fully mend, the hands that cannot stop the night Carrying every quiet ending that arrives beneath this light They fall… they fall… they still fall… And my white coat is stained with all of it I will not leave. The work will not let me leave. Even when I know the ending never changes.[Outro – fading monitor tone, a single slow exhale] Four hundred ninety-one… Four hundred ninety-two… The doors open again. The lights stay on. And so do I.The night never ends. And neither does the work.
