[Intro: Duet, counted]
One for cache. Two for queue.
Three for a host nobody knew.
Four for the same event once more.
Alert number four hundred.

[Verse 1: Female Lead]
Red dot blinking by the tray,
same stale warning, newer day.
Disk at seventy-one percent,
certificate with months unspent.
Backup late by half a beat,
printer missing from a suite.
Sixteen pages, one old flame,
copied rules with different names.

[Pre-Chorus: Duet]
If each candle means a fire,
every nerve becomes a wire.
Pull it taut from wall to wall.
Soon it cannot feel at all.

[Chorus: Duet]
Alert number four hundred,
every nerve is bruised and blunted.
When each bell predicts the end,
no bell tells us where to bend.
Cut the noise before we fall.
Urgent cannot mean them all.

[Verse 2: Alternating Vocals]
TAH-reek clears a hundred three.
LAY-nah tags the same debris.
One rule pages when a page is sent,
then pages for the page event.
An ancient test from twenty-ten
fires the same demand again.
"Critical" stamps each harmless sound
until the word is hollowed out.

[Pre-Chorus: Duet]
If each candle means a fire,
every nerve becomes a wire.
Pull it taut from wall to wall.
Soon it cannot feel at all.

[Chorus: Duet]
Alert number four hundred,
every nerve is bruised and blunted.
When each bell predicts the end,
no bell tells us where to bend.
Cut the noise before we fall.
Urgent cannot mean them all.

[Verse 3: Female Lead]
LAY-nah hears the pager bite,
does not move her chair this time.
Beneath the sandbox, disk, and load,
one payment worker drops its node.
MAH-rah scrolls below the flood:
worker seven, stopped at three.
The one alarm that carried weight
was filed as low priority.

[Drum Break: ascending snare counts, guitars dropping out, pager motif exposed]

[Bridge: Alternating Vocals]
No one chose to miss the call.
Empty warnings spent them all.
Attention bled through harmless noise.
Danger learned to lower its voice.

[Breakdown: Counted Duet]
Four-twelve.
Four-thirteen.
Payment worker,
still unseen.

[Final Chorus: Duet]
Alert number four hundred,
now the real alarm lies stranded.
When each bell predicts the end,
no bell tells us where to bend.
Make the warning rare and clear,
or the worst one disappears.

[Outro: Female Lead]
MAH-rah kills three rules gone stale.
For half a breath, the room goes pale.
Then low disk depth breaks the lull.
Not quiet yet. But one less call.
