[Intro – 20 seconds of guitar + harmonium drone] [Verse 1 (soft, hushed delivery):] They came when the hush was deepest, Where the moonlight used to rest. Doorframes leaned like tired watchers When the last of hope confessed. No footsteps marked their passing, No breath betrayed their name— Just a shifting in the corners Where the dark forgot its shame. [Refrain (low harmony, fiddle enters):] And we whispered, Don’t look twice, Don’t let them find you staring. They wear our faces wrong, And all their smiles are wearing. [Verse 2 (narrative tone, subtle percussion):] Old men said they were echoes Of the ones the night refused, Others claimed they were promises That the void had once abused. Lanterns flickered to attention Like they knew a judge had come, And the silence turned to language No living tongue could hum. [Chorus (mournful, layered voices):] They stand where the edges fray, Where the light is thin as breath. They knock like memory on the doorframe And call you softly to your death. Oh, the shadow people wait, And they do not come alone— They wear the names we buried Like flesh over the bone. [Bridge 1 (whispered chant, bowed bass):] Hold your tongue, Hide the flame, They remember everyone. When they knock, Say no name— Or the night will claim you undone. [Verse 3 (melodic, fiddle prominent):] First was the boy on Miller Street Who swore he heard his mother sing— But she’d been ash two winters now, And dead tongues shouldn’t ring. Then Maribel from the river camp Let one inside to speak— By dawn her bed was empty, Her footprints thin and weak. [Chorus 2 (rising intensity, three-part harmony):] They live where the silence bends, Where the hum forgets to fade. They trace the shape of longing Like a debt that can’t be paid. Oh, the shadow people know Every door we ever barred— And the ones who grant them shelter Never wander very far. [Bridge 2 (instrumental, fiddle and harmonium swell)] [Verse 4 (quiet again, voice cracking slightly):] We burned the locks and boarded walls, We slept with knives in hand, But they seeped through radios Like a plague across the land. They ask for warmth and water, For a place to rest their sigh— But a shadow fed by mercy Is a mouth you can’t deny. [Final Chorus (soft, resigned, fading instrumentation):] They wait where the dawn won’t go, Where the ash becomes a guide. They press their hands through circuits Just to beckon us outside. Oh, the shadow people sing In the chambers of the past— And the ones who dare to answer Never die, but never last. [Outro (whispered, harmonium + distant fiddle):] Do not name them. Do not listen. The dark remembers who you are. [Final note trails for 15 seconds, then fades into silence.]
