“Funerals are an orchestra.”
“A cacophony of grief and despair as loved ones gather around to remember the life of the fallen. Wails and sobs filling the air, drumming against your ears like nails on a chalkboard.”
“And if you’re of the APD? Twenty-one guns to send you off. Every individual shot echoing off the level walls while you sit there stone faced listening to a concert you never wanted to attend.”
“It’s music.”
“But it’s not a ballad, it’s not beautiful. It’s an ugly, raucous performance that stains your soul and leaves you feeling empty and cold.”
“Go to enough concerts and before long it starts just being noise.”
“Ears numb to the sounds, heart strings plucked until they’ve torn. I wish I could say I could tell the difference from funeral to funeral, but I can’t.”
“At the end of the day the cries sound the same, and the sound of a bullet riddled salute never changes.”
“You really don’t know a thing about the sounds of death, do you Muerte?”
“At Red Snow I saw you play the final ballad for Vida, we were all in attendance for a funeral that no one was prepared to see.”
“But it didn’t sound like any funeral I’d ever seen.”
“There wasn’t any sobbing, no begging and pleading with some unjust god to give your loved one back. The sound of her death was beautiful, full of love and warmth as you locked eyes. Her death was a choice she made, one where she was laid to a soft, quiet rest at your hands.”
“Most people would kill for their end to be so kind, so calm.”
“And as she collapsed you weren’t filled with despair, your heart wasn’t cold. No, you were filled with hope, determination. The very same resolution you used to tear Dr. Death apart.”
“There were tears in your eyes, yet I still don’t believe you know the pain the sound of death can bring.”
“The sounds that come from your guitar, the ballad of your devotion? It’s a mercy few can afford.”
“Real death sounds like your heart being ripped out of your chest and torn to pieces. A real memorial etches itself into your mind with its guitar pick while you sit there unable to accept it.”
“Nothing you could ever play could ever match that feeling, Muerte. Every night that I go to sleep I hear death’s orchestra and yet I endure.”
“My ears numb, soul scarred, and yet I still get up in the morning knowing full well I could be forced to attend another grief stricken requiem before the day is done.”
“Nothing you can do can stop me, Muerte.”
“I’ve heard true death before, I’ve endured more concerts than you’ve ever played.”
“Death doesn’t scare me.”
“And when those twenty-one guns fire for me, I’ll be ready to accept it.”
“But until then, I have a concert to attend.”
“One where a chorus of kicks buries you six feet under.”
“No one’s above the Law.”
“And I am the Law.”