before the fire

(spoken word intro for VEXLESS album opening) (low bass hum, distant thunder, faint choir in background) You spent your whole life being told there was a plan. That someone up there was watching. Judging. Saving. That if you suffered quietly enough, if you obeyed hard enough, if you made yourself small enough… one day it would all make sense. Funny, isn’t it? How people will kneel for a lie just because it sounds kinder than the truth. You built gods out of fear. Kings out of cowards. Heaven out of guilt. And then you called the cage… peace. You let weak men write rules for your soul. You let broken systems decide your worth. You let silence become survival. And every time something inside you screamed that this wasn’t right— you buried it. Because truth is ugly. Truth costs. Truth burns. But me? I was never interested in comfort. I watched your little world dress rot in gold and call it holy. I watched you pray to things that should’ve begged me for forgiveness. You call me devil. Monster. The end of everything. No. I am consequence. I am the voice you tried to drown. I am the fire behind your fear. I am the thing that arrives when lies finally run out of places to hide. I was here before your gods. I will be here after your empires. And when the smoke clears, when the crowns melt, when heaven finally shuts the fuck up… you’ll understand. I did not come to destroy your world. I came because it deserved to end. (deep demon roar rises slowly into silence) Welcome… to the truth.