The Alfa Romeo breathes its last in the oil and the dust Nineteen-ten, a shattered frame of iron and of rust One perfect shot, a crack of thunder in the morning gray The fuel cans ignite, turning the sky to a funeral display Deafening roar, the world goes black and white We run through the ashes, escaping the claws of the light To the hollow hotel where the ghosts used to sleep Through the corridors dark and the secrets he keeps I look to the ceiling, I look to the walls We are cornered like wolves in these hallowed halls In the Dreams Factory, where the gears never rest We hide in the silence, put our fate to the test Behind the shoji screens of a soldier's design A palace of shadows, where the false walls align It buys us a heartbeat, it buys us a breath Before the iron giants bring the harvest of death A simple soldier's mask, but a prince's hidden room Luxurious whispers in the middle of the doom Ingenuity carves a path through the lath and the stone A sanctuary built for a king on a temporary throne Sliding like silk, the partitions divide While the steel-hearted scouts are hunting outside But no wood can stop the thunder No silk can stop the shell When the tanks begin to hunger They will tear through this velvet hell Strategic retreat From the luxury, to the street In the Dreams Factory, where the gears never rest We hide in the silence, put our fate to the test Behind the shoji screens of a soldier's design A palace of shadows, where the false walls align It buys us a heartbeat, it buys us a breath Before the iron giants bring the harvest of death Just a grain of sand In a world of tanks and lead Find the north of the compass Before the dream is dead