s are revealed
Connections between the deaths are made
Somewhere in the chain from factory to shelf
The capsules were tainted

We must question the motive of a killer
Who kills without vengeance, without apparent reason
And leaves death upon the innocent
Was it hatred for the entire human race
Or an attempt to destroy a corporation?

The small bottle of relief - the discolored capsules
The acrid odor of bitter almonds
Goes unnoticed into the body
It is soon absorbed into the blood
And destroys the human system
The victim falls to the floor
And dies in a matter of seconds

The search begins as the shelves are cleared
The horror spreads through the press
The murderer will most likely escape discovery -
And perhaps strike again!


2. The Eldritch

Twilight undisturbed - a formidable silence
The mind rampant in its solitary depression
Vacuous feelings - the sudden strike of fear
Drawn into the nocturnal empire

A shadow strikes in the absence of light
And molds the terror into insanity
Hands claw at familiar faces - running from the unknown
Is there now something real?

Resist the unseen - the obscure
Resist the panic - painful foreshadowing
Destroy yourself - inflicted apprehension
Awaken subconscious to the primal fear!

Intrusive misery - the darkness closes in
Frantic fit of self-preservation
Impulsive action - screaming confusion
Imagination overpowers reason


3. Mayday In Kiev

"The unleashed power of the atom changed everything
save our mode of thinking, and we thus drift toward
unparalleled catastrophes." [- Albert Einstein]

In a nation for a dangerous penchant for secrecy
A dread disaster at Chernobyl was concealed

As a poisoning cloud spread over the Eastern Bloc
Alarming information was reluctantly revealed
An explosion in Reactor Four - a fire refusing to cease

No containment walls preventing radioactive release
Evidence that peaceful technology had gone awry
More catastrophically than Windscale or TMI

Alert - Celebration in Kiev
Under glowing skies - Soviet lies
Alert - In nearby Poland
A shower of radiation
Children iodized
Mayday - A day of rejoice
A cry of distress

Severe political fallout - toxic exchange of words
Soviet obscurantism under verbal attack
Abroad, outraged countries appeal for information

Met with grudging riposte, hesitant placation
At home, TASS reports no danger - nothing to fear
As deadly elemental isotopes spew into the biosphere

"The unleashed power of the atom..." - A warning from the past
The benefits of technology are reversed by careless human error
Science, once a saviour, now an effective destroyer
We must apply our knowledge with care

Entombed in concrete, Chernobyl will forever remain
A monument to the chilling effects of negligence


4. The Fall Of Reason

There's a man of conviction who's all too ready for war
There's a man with a number who cannot commit murder
And a fallen idea soon becomes suicide
Fallen by a decision made without reason
We soon see that war is much too real
We soon find that reality is war
War of the senses, war of emotion
We soon fail to realize - or do we realize too soon?

An idea is fallen
A face frozen with fear
We sacrifice unity
We sacrifice safety

By agreement we fail
So by murder we swear
By a bitter mentality
The onset of war
Is the fall of reason...

War - dehumanized
War - we are fighting machines
War - attack by command
War - we fall for no reason
War - what am I fighting for?
War - what am I killing for?
War - what am I dying for?
War - why am I dying?

For a government of deception
For a country run by madmen

For the wealth of tyranny
For the safety of those who condemn

The fall of reason
Is the end of existence
The fall of reason
Is the end of existence
Is the end...


5. Control And Resistance

Human influence shapes human thought
Few question, few answer, praising innovation
Society seeking conformity
Society thriving on regulation
Observe and repeat, observe and repeat
Maintain the standard
Life is simulation, revision and impulse
Absence through presence

Still there is crime, still there is defiance
Conscious and manner scream for diversion
Controlled by confusion, confused by control
Control and Resistance

Control and Resistance
Control and Resistance

At an early age you were forced into submission
By your elders and school administration
By your peers you are pressed to Resist
And pressed into rebellion and indecision
Now you are food for the mental machine
Breeding acts of ignorance and despair
Men plotting their own demise
Through oblivion, through greed, through hypocrisy
Some of us are blind, some of us are frightened
And some cynical

Contradiction, revolution, controversy, centumacy
Self-preservation and malevolence
Feed the fear of death
Law and resistance in accordance with uniformity
In the thick of the fray
Yet violence and change by privacy
By freedom, we must Resist


6. Hidden Instincts

Maintaining a safe social order
Is one of our system's greatest chores
We're afraid to walk the streets alone at night
Our society sleeps behind locked doors
Lurking beneath the shadow's surface
Hiding under exterior silence
There exists in every individual
The potential for criminal violence
Crime after crime - conditioned criminality
Timed after time - randomized brutality
Reminds us we must live in fear

As we are held prisoner by the fear of assault

Our freedoms are compromised
As we are held prisoner by the fear of attack
Our freedoms are victimized
A psychopathic killer
A common teenage vandal
Both victims of instincts
They cannot handle

A fearful population rests
On the brink of insanity
An unfortunate aspect of human nature
Crime will exist as long as humanity

Some find they must resort
To predatory ways to survive
Some find they must kill
In order to stay alive


7. Life Cycles

One moment's pause
One moments retreat
Away from the heat...

The silent surroundings
The black of the predawn sky
The chilled air of night
All give meaning to the sunrise
Without darkness
What would we know of light?

Day turns to night turns to day
A cycle that rules our lives
The darkness of night seems distant
When the daylight arrives

Two steps forward, one step back
It's an unbeaten path we tread
Sometimes we get blown off track

Sometimes we get blown ahead
Life's declines precede life's highs
Like the lines on a biorhythmic chart
Between the lows the beauty lies
Don't take your failure to heart

We may be dealt some cruel blows
By fate's implacable hands
Changing the future - changing our goals
Laying waste to all of our plans

No promises, no guarantees
Of a rose-colored existence
Progress comes slowly - always met with
A measure of ruthless Resistance

Whether it's the pleasure of success
Or the pain of rejection
Life doesn't travel just one way
In either direction

Bitter cold December
Spirits - and time - seem as frozen
As the icy ground
But time will soon fall
And march inevitably ahead
The world keeps spinning...

Season come, seasons go
As we helplessly watch them fly by
But life has cycles we can Control
In our own hands our destinies lie


8. Dangerous Toy

Can a device read your mind?
To be accused of misinformation
Is the subject clean, and machine
Guilty of distorted imagination?

A psychological change
Assumes relation to the act of deceit
Not legally accepted
Human judgement is considered

A pleading man Resists malicious observation
The electric chair misinterprets lies detected
A voluntarily accepted examination
His freedoms, rights, and privacy neglected

Could a dangerous toy be infallible?
An assembly in a state of suspense

Why should we account for its mistakes
And suffer the consequence?

A question of Control
Will produce the fear of anxiety
Further abuse of security
We ignore implications for a free society

The slightest glitch proves fatal - if swallowed
Calculated emotions and expressions
Claims of accuracy diminish
Inconclusive evidence left to its discretion