Road of Bones

Thrown into a driving snowstorm
My eyes fill with darkness
I spoke against my country
And paid the price
Before me, foul Kolyma
Hungry maw swallows thousands
Feed her with the poor, the innocent
To work the mines

Ride, ride, ride on the road of bones
Die, die, die on the road of bones

Desolation does surround me
Permafrost is my cold bed
I'm a zombie of the Gulag
Dying slowly and living dead

Forty degrees below the redline
The purga blizzards howl
I curl up in my tent
To count my final days
Who I was no longer matters
I am nothing; I am no one
Just a tooth on this grinding gear
To break and be cast away

Ride, ride, ride on the road of bones
Die, die, die on the road of bones

Dread Vorkuta, whore of torture
Spreads her foul hands across the plain
In her clutches, Russia's children
Pray for death to end the pain

Discovered in this land of solitude
A message scratched into a frozen stone:
"We died here, our skin a frozen blue.
Remember us, the forgotten and alone."

On a day when the sun rose darkly
Body broken, spirit fled
The wind, it blew so hard,
My wounds scarcely bled.
Now I join the countless millions
Who in toil have died before me
Their bones ground into dust
To pave this road to hell

Ride, ride, ride on the road of bones
Die, die, die on the road of bones