A girl is laying in a pool
Of blood and dripping ink.
A photo and a fate too cruel
Drive nations to the brink.

The girl was slashed with razorblades
And murdered in the dark.
Her tears ran down in red cascades,
Her armies lost their spark.

A mystery that can't be solved,
An icon fallen down.
A sin that cannot be absolved,
The hosts in heaven frown.

Rebellious Annie, wild and free,
Was never seen again.
Disaster! Grim calamity!
Was everything in vain?

Her portrait vanished in the night,
The child rebellion cries.
The realms unreal are realms of blight,
But seven sisters rise.

The Vivians are fighting on,
Against the slavers dark.
For evil deeds must be undone,
In bloody battles stark.

The manuscripts are gathered here,
So all the world will know
The girls, the martyrs and their fear,
The war-storms violent flow.

'41, the war is raging,
Rommel's panzers on the prowl.
Stirling's forces are engaging,
Hearing desert foxes growl.

Raiding at the stroke of midnight,
Britains bravest drive unseen.
Hiding at the dawn of sunlight,
Saboteurs with tactics keen.

Many days they're staying hidden,
Far behind the german lines.
Planting bombs on fields forbidden,
Hit and run and leave no signs.

Hunting Stukas find no traces,
Just destruction, blood and sand.
Daring wins in many cases,
SAS will free the land.

Like crusaders they are fighting,
Tommy guns their fabled swords.
Wreathed in flames their blades are biting,
Driving back the nazi hordes.

Burned out airplanes tell their story,
Shadows in the wasteland dark.
Boldness is the path to glory,
History shall bear their mark.

Tinker, tinker, Tinker Bell,
Your fairy-wings are broken.
How you screamed and how you fell,
In agony unspoken.
Never-aging Neverland
Turned weary and depressing.
Torturous the pirate-band,
With hooks and knifes they're messing.

Pretty, plucky pixie-girl,
The Captain was besotten.
You did fight and you did twirl,
Against desires rotten.
In a bottle you were held,
On board their dreaded vessel.
Pain and numbness all you felt,
In iron chains you'd wrestle.

Sparky, spunky spirit-sprite,
At last the glass did shatter.
As you fled through deepest night,
Your hopes and dreams did scatter.
Wings ripped out by ruthless hands,
In blood and tears you're crawling.
As you cry, you're making plans
And as you think you're bawling.

Gorgeous, glowing gadgeteer,
You're sly and you're incentive.
Wood and metal forms your gear,
With tinkered wings inventive.
Ah, the calming winds you feel,
Your many wounds are closing.
Happily your heart can heal,
The dirge inside is dozing.

---

Once upon a time the fairy Tinker Bell flew through the Neverland, giggling and playing and flirting with the leafs on the trees. Her voice was clear as tender jingles and her belt showed an array of clanking tools, kettles and teapots. She was happy as can be, but from afar she was watched by the ghastly Captain Hook, who stood on board his pirate ship and observed her through his telescope. "What a charming little pixie", he thought. "How gracious she dances through the sky and how sassy she's teasing the oncoming squalls. How adorable she looks in her little leafy dress."

Many times he tried and many times he failed, but one day, he was finally able to catch the little fairy in a fly fishing net, while she was absently fooling around with a squirrel and didn't watch her back.

He put her inside an empty bottle of rum and there she stayed for a long time, shaking with anger and fear. Every day the captain looked at her and poked her waist and pulled her wings and he was happy to have such an exquisite little treasure all for himself. Tinker Bell tried to flee every night, but the glass was way too thick and the fumes of the old rum made her tired and dizzy.

The weeks passed, but one day the captain grew tired of Tinker Bell and threw her little flask to his gritty band of pirates. The pirates played around with the little fairy and after many dreadful hours, her little dragon-fly wings were ripped from her back. The fairy screamed in agony and blood and tears almost filled up the bottle.

"What did you do?", one pirate shouted at another. "There's no use for a fairy without wings! Just look what a livid face she's making. We should get rid of her and be done with it." So he snatched the bottle away from the others and threw it overboard. The bottle whirled through the air and shattered on a sharp rock on the shores of Neverland. Finally she was free, but without her wings, she wasn't a real fairy anymore. Crying and mourning Tinker Bell crawled toward the forest and slept inside a nest of pixie dust she used to numb her sadness and pain. When she awoke, the sun was shining above the treetops and suddenly she had an idea. "I'm the tinker fairy", she said to herself, "so I will do what I do best. I'll just repair myself! If a smashed teapot can be of use again, my broken wings can too." So the mutilated fairy stood up and walked through the forest. It was an unusual sensation for her, because fairies almost never walked. She felt the grass beneath her feet, the dew on her ankles and the slight vibrations of the ground, as the magic of Neverland ran through it. She quite liked it, but she was determined to fly again. Tinker Bell gathered a handful of twigs and leafs and little scraps of ore and tin. Then she did what she did best: She went to her workshop in a knothole and tinkered.

It was harder than she had expected, but after many sleepless, tearful nights she was finally done. Her new wings were majestic, a testimony of the legendary craftsmenship of the fairy folk. She had stretched some leafs over a wooden framework and connected everything with a complex mechanism of tin and gears, she had build out of some old buttons. Finally she added some leather belts, so she could put the contraption on.

She strapped her artificial wings on her back, sprinkled some fairy-dust on her head and whirled through the air like nothing ever happened. Her flight was bit heavier a usual, she noticed, but she was sure, that she could get used to her new aerodynamics. Once again the pixie bounced through the air, brushed against the leafs and played with the butterflies over the lakes.

Sometimes Tinker Bell would get sad and miss her dragon-fly wings like she'd never missed anything before, but then she looked at her new self-made wings and thought: "This is the best thing I've ever crafted. What a good tinker I am! I've improved so much. There's nothing I can't do, so there's no need to be afraid. Whatever happens, I will find a way." Tink nodded approvingly to herself and soared cheerful above the never-aging lands in search of new adventures. "Who knows", she wondered, "maybe some day there will be someone strong enough to defeat the evil Captain and his crew. "But until then, I'll be happy with how much I learned because of him and all the odds I had to overcome." And so Tinker Bell darted towards another story, the contraption on her back humming with energy and sparking with twinkling magic. A glittering glow surrounded her whole body and so she was known henceforth.

The Jabberwock is furious,
The Tulgey Woods are burning,
Cause little Alice, curious;
For power she is yearning.

The Wonderland is set ablaze,
A game of domination.
The Queen of Hearts, her royal grace,
Is rallying the nation.

The Vorpal-Blade in pallid hands,
A deadly, gleaming saber.
Small Alice conquers playful lands,
As price for all her labour.

The war is waged on killing fields,
Across the chessboard's splinters.
Behind the mirrors, no one yields,
For many untold winters.

The realms are twisted, planets bend,
From madness comes destruction.
On burning hills, there wafts the scent
Of fire and deduction.

The tea was poisened long ago,
The craziness goes crazy,
Cause space and time reversered their flow,
And everything went hazy.

The struggle rips the world apart
And Wonderland is bursting,
As Alice shows her bristly heart;
For blood and death she's thirsting.

Her doomful dream is ending soon,
Alas, there's no decision.
As Alice wakes from sudden swoon,
The nightmares blur her vision.

And as she rises like a dove,
The girl can only wonder:
So did those dreams come from above,
Or did my mind go yonder?

Those nightmares made me dizzy, yet
Afar, there dawns the morrow.
And as I rise from frozen sweat,
I feel the visions's sorrow.

One should not dream of powers great,
Of thrones and castles mighty.
It kindles just the flames of hate,
While peace is just alrighty.

Auf Feldern wo Zypressen blüh'n,
Sich Hirtenmädchen täglich müh'n
Und dunkle Augen Funken sprüh'n,
Liegt, im Glanz, Arcadia.
Artemis streift mit dem Bogen
Durch der Gräsermeere Wogen,
Ungezähmt und unnahbar.

Unter milden Sonnenstrahlen,
Wo sich munt're Herden aalen,
Weit entfernt von allen Qualen,
Geht die Göttin auf die Jagd.
Eng umschwärmt von ihren Zofen,
Die vergnügt im Grase schwofen,
Unter'm Neumond, bis es tagt.

Eingehüllt in Leinenroben
Sieht man ihre Nymphen toben
Und der Göttin Schönheit loben,
Zwischen Blumen, Klee und Moos.
Als die letzten Strahlen glimmen,
Geht sie mit den Nyphen schwimmen,
Klares Wasser schon im Schoß.

Jägerin, man sollt' dich jagen!
Könnt' ein Mann es doch nur wagen
Dich nach deiner Hand zu fragen,
Deiner Spur zu folgen kühn.
Unter Bäumen will ich laufen,
Durch die monderhellten Traufen,
Wär' ein Blick nur Lohn der Müh'n!

Doch die Waldesnymphen wollen
Ganz allein nur mit dir tollen,
Tanzen und durch's Gras sich rollen,
Gut versteckt und ungeseh'n.
Jeder Blick auf deine Blöße
Ist der schlimmste der Verstöße,
Doch ich kann nicht widersteh'n.

Scheu entsteigst du deinem Bade,
Schaumgeleckt die schlanke Wade
Und dein Zorn, ganze ohne Gnade,
Trifft mich wie ein Pfeil das Reh.
Eilig dann, zum Wild verwandelt,
Fliehe ich, den Leib verschandelt,
Fort vom Quell, dem heil'gen See.

Süße Jungfrau, voller Strenge,
Treibst du mich nun in die Enge
Und in meiner Hunde Fänge,
Die mir folgen wie der Wind.
Scharfe Klauen woll'n mich reißen,
Spitze Zähne Beute beißen
Und so folgt mein Tod geschwind.

Hochmütig sich zu erheben,
Nach der Göttin Brust zu streben,
Endete des Jägers Leben,
Konnte er's auch nicht versteh'n.
Freie Geister wollt' er fangen
Und ist in den Tod gegangen,
So ist letztlich Recht gescheh'n.

Immersed in iridescent, ethereal light, a girl is praying, kneeling between the otherworldly ruins of a lost civilization, like a blossoming flower at the end of the world.

"I'll be going now. I'll come back when it's all over." Those where her last words.

Your shining eyes are nevermore,
Your buds and petals falling
And on the mystic, coral shore
Your ancestors are calling.
You'll never laugh or cry again,
The earth fell dead and silent.
Inside this unworldly domain
Your end was quick was violent.

You withered long before your time,
A sacrifice heroic.
A primrose cut in youthful prime
And here I'm standing, stoic.
The shells are watching all around,
The rippling waves are singing.
You float away without a sound,
But to your soul I'm clinging.

"You must let go", I hear your cry,
I'm deaf and mute and screaming.
This is the end, the last good-bye,
A crystal tear is gleaming.
Now sleep, my love, forevermore,
Eternity is waiting,
While in the depths of Gaia's core
The flow of life's rotating.

And on this dark and fateful day,
Our hope was lost forever.
The planet died, the sky turned grey,
The end of our endeavor.
They tell me what I need to do,
Of futures we're creating.
But in my mind there is just you,
My body is pulsating.

The stream will take you to the spring,
Where flowers will be blooming.
The sun will shine, the birds will sing,
No doomsday will be looming.
And I must go, I'm fighting on,
You'll never be forgotten.
The healing wind is quiet and gone
In light so pale as cotton.

You were our guide, the soothing rain,
With droplets pure and shining.
Your tragic end was not in vain,
A holy silver lining.
The promised land is reaching out,
You struggle brave and boldly.
Each tumbling leaf, each stormy cloud
Is drawn to mountains coldly.

You eyes are closed, your breath fades away. The last gospel is spoken.

And the meteor falls.

"Because you are..."

It flew through lightless depths of space,
A creature, a genetic maze,
The remnant of a nameless race,
Calamity from distant skies.
It tore into our peaceful earth
And, hungering for it's rebirth,
A newborn god would slowly rise.

It came to us disguised and meek,
Our blood and flesh the thing would seek
And as it saw that we were weak,
Our culture met it's sudden end.
Just myths and legends now remain,
The creature, though, it's eldritch strain
Is creeping on and will ascend.

It can't be stopped and not expound,
The virus spreads across the ground
And reaching out, without a sound,
It chokes the earth with septic hand.
Infectious stigma soon awakes
And every step the creature takes
Is leading to the promised land.

The crisis comes, the shards bear down.
The puppet master and the crown,
The mother in mutated gown,
All parts have gathered for the feast.
The angel, with it's crippled wing,
Will bring the end of everything
And what remains is just the beast.

When every human is destroyed,
It rides the planet to the void,
As lifeless, soulless asteroid,
Towards the next, the last frontier.
It vibrates in your every cell,
The harbinger of formless hell,
The chaos is already here.

The realm of Gaia is amiss.
J-E-N-O-V-A, mater horroris.

"...because you are a puppet."

"Do you think the stars can hear us? Do you think they see how hard we're fighting for them?"

Those who fight must never tire,
Follow those who do it still.
Carry on through blazing fire,
Like a river flows uphill.

As you fight you cannot falter,
Even in the eyes of death.
Go your way towards the altar,
Sacrifice your final breath.

When you fight, there's no surrender,
Be the heavens holy sword.
As protectors of the planet,
Play the fanfares final chord.

Every soldier who is chosen,
All of you must hold your ground.
Fight through wastelands cold and frozen,
Every battle heals a wound.

Find your limit and your center,
Omnipotent strength to win.
Break the wall and you will enter
Final heaven deep within.

Those who die are not forsaken,
But the rest must still march on.
Even if your soul is shaken,
Gaze upon the rising dawn.

Those who life have to remember,
That there always is a way.
Morning comes like sparking ember,
Victory is won in fray.

"These days, all it takes for your dreams to come true is money and power."

When every war we fought was won
And the insurgency was done,
We took the world and brought it peace
And energy with growing ease.

We bring you progress, warmth and light,
So not a soul must fear the night
And what we offer you may take,
For you and for your children's sake.

We're bliss and opportunity,
We give you calm and unity,
We offer homes for everyone,
So what we say, it shall be done.

We built the roads you need to walk,
The telephones on which you talk,
The streetlights and the cars you drive,
We are your spirit and your life.

And in return, we don't ask much:
Just pay the price and work and drudge.
Just sign this paper and agree
To corporate identity.

Our president is strong and wise,
The land shall be our enterprise.
We are the order and the law,
So follow us and watch in awe.

Surrender to the company,
Obedience will make you free.
Consume, conform and then obey,
Look up to us, despair and pray.

We are the heavens' chosen few
And we will build this world anew.
We are the power and the might,
The gods who make creation right.

We are the industry you need
And for our goods the world must bleed.
So when the earth is dead and gone,
We will expand, we're moving on.

We'll lead you to the promised land,
So heed our call and our command.
We are the healing and the cure
And what we do, you must endure.

There is no need to fight our reign,
For opposition is in vain.
We rule with science, suits and guns
And power of a thousand suns.

"I'm a very busy man, so if you'll excuse me...

I have a dinner I must attend to."

"We complete the mission. No matter what."

No matter where you people go,
We will be there and waiting.
Through faceless masses we will flow,
Unseen but dominating.

We aren't soldiers, don't wage war,
It's way more complicated,
But for the jobs that go too far
Our squad gets activated.

We hit the target and we're gone,
The helicopters ready.
We gather intel, get things done,
Our spies are working steady.

The flower girl, the blue-eyed man?
The data we're collecting
Can show exactly where they ran
And swiftly we'll be acting.

We'll always be a step ahead,
For that there's no denying.
We lure you right into our net,
Our many eyes are prying.

The men in black is what we are,
Grey hearts, grey minds, dark matter.
Our morals shift like moving tar,
But can't we getting better?

Professionals don't ask, they'll do,
But there is an intrusion.
Hunting dogs, that is our cue,
But is it an illusion?

The simple goals for which we fight,
Before our eyes they shatter,
So damn the orders, do what's right,
It doesn't really matter.

"Don't misunderstand. We have no intention of joining you.

But for now, we'll agree not to bother each other. That's all."

"Say, have you ever been a bodyguard?"

Once upon a morning glowing,
Under strange and ancient light,
She was born in heavy snowing
From within the lifestream bright.
Like a rosebud she was growing
And for Mother Earth she'd fight.
In the slums, she tends the flowers
And within sleep mystic powers.

In the midst of battles raging,
Just your smile can sooth my soul.
As protector I'm engaging,
Yet it's you, who makes me whole.
In the war we will be waging,
You must be the final toll.
Just our love will be transcendent,
Like the gleaming in your pendant.

For a better world we're striving,
You and me, we must be strong.
Hold my hand till we're arriving,
On your lips this haunting song.
Even if you're not surviving,
You will not be gone for long.
When the pulse of life is shifting,
Through the stream you will be drifting.

In the shades I see them blooming,
Sacred flowers in the slum.
Deep beneath the city's booming,
You just sit there, smile and hum.
Let's escape these dark and looming
Columns of the junkyards glum.
Straight into the whirlwind's roaring,
But together we'll be soaring.

Into battle and the storm,
And all around the globe.
Here with you, the rain feels warm,
Like shiny rays of hope.

"How about if I go out with you once?"

"Hearing your stories has added upon me yet another sin.

More nightmares will come to me now. More than I previously had."

Sometimes even fighters tumble,
Sometimes there's a screeching hold.
You can hear the horrors rumble,
But you're hollow and you're cold.

Everything that was is changing,
Everyone you loved is gone.
All you knew is rearranging
And you think that you are done.

Apathy is what's remaining,
Hydras of your memory.
Dirges echo, will is draining,
All you feel is misery.

Finally you lay your weapon
Down and all your struggles stop.
How on earth could all this happen?
In your head the nightmares throb.

Sometimes all you have is brooding,
You alone must take the guilt.
Lurking chaos is intruding,
As you loose you're weapons hilt.

You're entombed in heavy shadows,
Like a coffin shutting tight.
You remember sunlit meadows,
But inside there's nothing bright.

Now you're standing at the portal,
On the verge of fiery hell.
You are dying but immortal,
In your ears a gloomy knell.

All your demons you are greeting
And the hellhounds down below.
But at last, there is a meeting
And you feel the future's flow.

New horizons are emerging
And you go, you must atone.
After eons you are surging
And you know, you're not alone.

Grab your gauntlet and your weapon,
Leave your coffin far behind.
Nevermore those things shall happen,
Make it right and don't be blind.

Every sin can be forgiven,
Fighting further is the key.
See the daylight, you're still driven,
Leave the darkness and be free.

In your hand the gun is roaring,
Deadly Cerberus unchained.
On distorted wings you're soaring,
You have lost, but also gained.

"I was frozen in time, but now I feel as if my time is just beginning..."

"Kweh!"

The calming winds, with gentle breeze,
Are moving rustling willows.
Untouched from dirty highway's grease
The cloudscapes float like pillows.

The village glows in flaming dusk,
The countryside is sleeping.
We're far behind the city's husk,
Where no pollution's creeping.

The township's workers doze at home,
The mythril mine's deserted.
We look above, the heavens dome
Has left our gaze diverted.

The yellow birds that roam the land
Can graze on luscious meadows
And in this town our little band
Seeks cover in the shadows.

The rustic inn invites to rest,
A night in peace and quiet.
The fire warms the maiden's chest,
No sign of war and riot.

The flower girl, she laughs and smiles,
Her argent bracelets jingle.
We walked together many miles
And all my senses tingle.

We spend the night and then we'll go,
Our quest is just beginning.
Across the planet, high and low,
We'll fight until we're winning.