Hope Will Return

The record says MIA, but we do not close the page. Across the static, through the ash, we keep one name awake. From broken streets on Earth, to the silence after Reach, we carried every rumor like a flare beyond the breach. Marines still lower their voices when the old reports are read, but no grave can hold a legend that the living carry ahead. Somewhere beyond the black, somewhere past the burn, we keep a beacon lit for the day he will return. Hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. Through the fire and the falling sky, through the dark where the last stars burn, hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. They call him Spartan-117, we call him proof we endured. Not a myth in gold and armor, but a promise still secured. Every child who hears the sirens, every ship that leaves the shore, knows the fight is not forgotten, knows the green will rise once more. If the rings begin to whisper, if the cryo chambers stir, we will hear the distant signal and remember what we were. Hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. Through the fire and the falling sky, through the dark where the last stars burn, hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. We know the weight upon his shoulders, years of war beneath the steel, names he never stopped from carrying, wounds no victory could heal. All the voices lost beside him, all the silence paid in full, one lone soldier, still our memory, still the gravity that pulls. Hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. From the ashes to the open sky, from the fear no heart deserves, hope will return, hope will return, when humanity calls, he returns. Keep the beacon burning, let the signal learn, when humanity calls, he returns. The record says MIA, but we do not say goodbye. Somewhere beyond the signal, hope is still alive.