[Intro - 2 bars] [Verse 1 - restrained low baritone] Rain on the iron, black on the stone. Same road every year, same walk alone. Candles burn lower deep in the nave. I count every toll and whisper your name. One through nine. Then ten. Then you. [Pre-Chorus - brief] For one breath, the whole world goes still. I tell myself you're somewhere here still. [Chorus - immediate full ensemble, strict 11/8] The eleventh bell still calls your name. Through empty halls, through cold and rain. The eleventh bell, I hear you there. One more sound and you're almost here. [Verse 2 - restrained] Your coat on the chair. Rain on the glass. Half of a sentence still hanging in the room. I remember your hand. I remember the door. I remember saying, “I can't do this anymore.” All these years I heard— “Don't leave me.” But now it sounds like— “Go.” [Bridge - brief, sparse] You never called me back. You never asked me to live inside that night. You were gone. And I— I never left. Year after year, beneath this bell, I waited for a ghost that had already let me go. [Final Chorus - full ensemble, concise] The eleventh bell was calling my name. Through all these years, through all this rain. The eleventh bell, I hear it clear. Not asking me to keep you here. So ring one final time. The eleventh bell was calling my name. And this time— I leave. [Outro - 2 bars, end immediately] Eleven bells. Then silence. Then morning. I don't turn around.
