Rising up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
The will to survive is ingrained in every living creature. It is an innate impulse driving instinctive behaviors to preserve life. To stave off death, mi amigos, is biological.
It is the animalistic driving force that causes man, above all, to get back on his feet and fight to survive.
In my line of work, amigos, I see this instinct every day.
From Zeus himself, with an entire Parthenon tasked with preserving his survival at the peak of the proverbial mountain to the poorest soul of the slums with nothing in this life to call their own.
The survival instinct remains the same.
Rich, poor. Powerful, weak.
That biological urge to survive drives them all.
Ironically, it is that will to survive that leads the lambs to slaughter.
So many times it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
You each fight to stay alive in your own way.
It’s that which led Blacktooth to his first taste of the flesh of man. The same instinct keeps those desperate souls of the slums hanging on Grimskull’s words of enduring pain.
That instinct keeps Narcissa Balenciaga clawing her way back up society’s ladder and saw the Burned Man dragged out of those flames.
It is the will to survive that sees us reach out for the protection of heroes, that sees us vilify agents of death.
It is even the instinct to survive that sees the fear in Damien Wolfe’s and Foley’s eyes when lights flash red.
That instinct… It’s built into the very fiber of man’s being.
And it’s all to easy to manipulate you lambs to the slaughter.
It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
He’s watching us all with the eye of the tiger
You each cling to your chance to be the last survivor, the thrill of the fight, to outlast others for self-preservation.
But in nature, there are only ever two eternal constants, mi amigos.
The first is that like the seasons, change is inevitable.
The second is brought with that change, that death is inevitable.
No matter how much one fights to stave off muerte, your days are ultimately numbered.
I am the beacon of that inevitability.
I fight not out of the desperate will to survive, but of the beauty that is the final breath of life.
When your survival instincts finally give out, and you realise that you are nothing more than a lamb led to slaughter…
Death will welcome you, mi amigos.
Despite how hard you cling to survival, you will fail in the end.
Death’s embrace will always find you.
Your song will cease to play, and mine will have just begun.