“Shadow I Can’t Escape” — Cloud’s Perspective

[Verse I — Hatred] [(soft guitar, tense)] Every road I walk remembers Ash falling like silent snow Your name lives in every nightmare Every place I cannot go They told me monsters have faces Easy lines to draw in blame But yours keeps changing shape Every time I say your name I carried anger like armor Sharp enough to keep me whole Because if I stopped chasing you I would have to face my own [Pre-Chorus] [(strings tighten)] You were the reason I kept moving The answer I refused to doubt If you were only evil… I would have figured myself out [Chorus — Conflict] [(guitars surge)] Sephiroth — shadow I can’t escape Every step I take you follow through I told myself I fought to stop you But maybe I was fighting me too We share a silence I never chose A voice beneath my skin I don’t know where you end anymore Or where I begin [Verse II — Reunion] [(music steadier, conflicted)] Then I saw you standing quietly Not a god, not crowned in flame Just a man holding a child Like you were afraid of her pain That should have made it simple Should have proved the world was wrong But monsters aren’t supposed to change And heroes aren’t this lost for long You don’t look at me like an enemy Not the way I still look at you And somehow that makes it harder To decide what’s true [Pre-Chorus II] [(voice softer)] If Hojo shaped us both the same… Why did we break in different ways? [Chorus — Fracture] [(full emotional intensity)] Sephiroth — I hated what you became Because it justified my fear But seeing you try to live again Makes everything unclear You were my ending once before The fire I survived Now you’re proof a broken weapon Somehow stayed alive [Bridge — Identity] [(music drops to piano)] I chased you across the planet Because I thought that made me strong But maybe I just needed someone Who understood being wrong You lost yourself to answers I lost mine trying to pretend And neither of us chose The lives we were pushed into in the end [Bridge II — Acceptance] [(quiet, hesitant)] I don’t forgive you. Not yet. …but I don’t think I understand you less anymore. [Final Chorus — Parallel Paths] [(hopeful but restrained)] Sephiroth — maybe we’re both survivors Of a war we never saw Two experiments still learning What being human’s for I won’t follow you blindly And I won’t turn away But if you’re really trying to change… I guess I’ll stay [Outro] [(soft guitar fading)] You’re not just the enemy anymore. And that scares me more than anything.