The Screamer in the Vents

Verse 1

There’s scratching behind the ceiling tiles again

They say it’s just rats — but rats don’t scream like men

I hear her crawl at 3:03

She’s singing lullabies backwards just for me

Pre-Chorus

She begs me to listen, she rattles the grate

She knows every secret I locked in that crate

Chorus

She’s the screamer in the vents, clawing through my brain

No one else believes me — they just up my meds again

She’s whispering my name in the rattle of the pipes

And I swear I saw her shadow in the flicker of the lights

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Verse 2

The nurses turn the volume up when I try to sleep

But silence doesn’t help when she’s inside too deep

Her fingernails tap like a metronome curse

Each second I breathe in just makes the scream worse

Pre-Chorus

She knows what I did, she hums it in code

She’s waiting for me in the vent by the stove

Chorus

She’s the screamer in the vents, crawling through my skin

Laughing through the ductwork — I let the voices in

She sings me little stories about what I used to hide

And I think I saw her crawling when I opened up my eyes

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Bridge (music breaks down into industrial chaos)

“You put me here…”

“You locked the door.”

“But I remember.”

“And I. Will. Scream. Forever.”

(explodes back into chorus)

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Final Chorus

She’s the screamer in the vents, chewing through my spine

No one else can hear her — they say I’ll be fine

She’s not a dream, she’s not regret

She’s the echo that you never quite forget