Alesana – Annabel lyrics

"The Artist is stabbed in his side with a dagger and finds himself in a room with Annabel holding a dagger in hand. From here on the story's point of view switches from The Artist to Annabel where she explains that The Artist had slowly been sinking into madness all this while, as he became more and more withdrawn and his sketches more and more violent. Though she loved him, in the end she had to take his life in the attempt to defend herself from him."

"and now the dream is over, annabel enters.
How could I have been so blind? He was becoming insane since the beginning, but I never thought it would be this horrible. It started with the sketches. I should have seen it.
He spent more time on them and anytime he made a mistake he went ballistic and just started cursing at the artwork. Then he became more violent, ripping his canvases and knocking over his bottles of paint and pencils.
Around the same time he begins to talk to himself and then speaks of the thespian ruining our relationship. Who was the thespian? I knew no one of that name. It wasn't until the end that I found out he wasn't even real, just another demented figment of his imagination. I didn't know what to do with him.
He had lost his mind, which had cause me to slowly loose my love for him more and more. And I began to despise him. The last days I spent with him I just watched silently and worried as he drew more and more sketches, not even looking or speaking to me anymore.
Then he had reached his highest and most deadliest point of insanity.
It was dawn and I was resting in bed when I realized he wasn't there. I got up and looked for him. As I crept down the dark hall way with just a candle in my hand I saw him. He looked crazed and he held a dagger in his hand.
"oh annabel, sweet beautiful annabel. " he said in a low and croaky voice "it's all your fault for making me into this, you and the damn thespian. So all i have to say is that i handed you a knife and my heart, and it's time to die. " he smiled and lunged after me with the dagger.
But luckily at that moment I was quick. When he was about a foot away from my I threw the candle in my hand at his and it hit him. He screamed and dropped the dagger.
I ran to get it and I pushed him to the floor. "stop annabel please! " he yelled as he fell to the floor on his side. I had tears in my eyes as I knelt down beside him. He started to weep and looked up at me. Never have I seen him look so psychotic but so scared in my seven years knowing him.
"sweetheart, darling, look, it's me, listen to my voice. Everything is going to be okay, my love. Everything is going to be fine. " I held the dagger to his throat.
He just continued to look up at me not even resisting, as if he knew there was nothing he can do now but to accept his fate. I pressed it further into his throat and said in the clearest and bitterest whisper I could muster "it's all over now. "
He shut his eyes as I slit his throat. He was no longer the psychotic artist that I had once loved but now a lifeless body. I stroked his hair and began to sob. "i'm sorry. But now the dream is over. " I said a choked voice. "it really is over. "
"the emptiness has haunted you. ".

The artist, or otherwise known as the narrator up to a certain point, finally catches up with the thespian in the previous song. It talks about the stage being set, and metal clashing against metal, however futile for the thespian prevails. As the artist lies there dying he blacks out, to open his eyes and find him staring in a mirror, annabel behind him, knife if his side. The entire song "annabel", is from annabel's point of view. However she is not talking to the artist directly, however to the madman that replaced him; hence "before you left, before he came". Towards the middle, "oh, is it my fault? Should i blame you, in the end? " is annabel wondering whether killing him was the right thing, whether he himself knew that he was going mad, and whether or not she could've saved him simply by loving him more.