Wrath & Reverb—Volume Up / Systems Down:
The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails
Let’s begin here:
There was a time when we looked at the blood on the ground and said, something did this. Not someone. Something. A beast. A curse. A creature that slipped through the cracks of the world and feasted on the innocent. We made up stories because the truth was too unbearable:
That it was us. That it was always us.
We carved fangs into the face of cruelty and called it a vampire, because we couldn’t accept that a neighbor might feed off a child’s trust and leave nothing behind but silence. We howled at the moon and blamed the transformation, because it was easier than admitting some people don’t need full moons to become monsters—they just need permission. Or a locked door. Or a look the wrong way.
Changelings? Demons? Witches?
We needed them.
Because what are you supposed to do with the knowing—that a child’s light can vanish, not by magic, but by the hands of someone who smiled at them that morning?
The myths weren’t delusions.
They were a shield. A mercy. A desperate reach for order in a world where horror wore human skin and walked upright.
And now, in this late age of reason and rot, we pretend we’ve outgrown such tales. We have science. We have motive. We have names for the disorders and mugshots for the accused.
But still—we look at the cruelty unfolding in the open, and we flinch.
We still want it to be something else.
We still whisper: That can’t be us. That’s not who we are.
We reach, unconsciously, for fangs, for fur, for hoofprints—because the alternative is worse:
That the monster is the mirror.
That the thing we’re running from is human—and always has been.
We used to invent monsters because the truth was too unbearable.
Now, they invent monsters because the truth is too inconvenient.
They tell us the danger is drag queen bingo.
That queer teens are a contagion.
That Black history is an infection.
That librarians, teachers, and trans people are somehow the enemy.
They give us demons in rainbow flags and call it defense.
They burn books and call it protection.
And while we were watching that theater, reaching for pitchforks and crosses,
the real monsters walked through the front door.
Not in shadows—but in spotlights.
In fundraisers.
In boardrooms.
In statehouses stacked with Christian dominionists and corporate gold.
In billionaires too bloated for guilt and too insulated for consequence.
In the hands that sign the laws.
In the courts that bless the burnings.
They didn’t lie to protect you.
They lied to protect themselves.
And they are still lying.
Every sermon.
Every headline.
Every flag waved above a silenced scream.
The monsters they give you now aren’t meant to frighten.
They’re meant to distract.
To keep you chasing phantoms,
burning witches that were never there,
while the real ones—the ones in suits, uniforms, and branded hoodies—tighten the leash,
build the gallows,
and name it salvation.
And when a real monster stands trial—
when the mask slips and the blood’s still wet—
they buy him a softer sentence.
A press tour.
A yacht.
A rebrand.
Cosby walked.
R. Kelly still charts.
Diddy bought time, not truth.
Weinstein still rotting—but the system keeps reaching for a way out.
Epstein died—but the doors stayed locked.
The client list? Never existed.
Just like justice.
Because the laws were never written to stop them.
They were written to stop you.
To keep you hungry.
To keep you afraid.
To keep you convinced that the monster was in your mirror—
not theirs.
The monsters they feed you are a lie.
The real ones don’t skulk.
They sponsor.
They govern.
They host the fucking gala.
So what do we do?
We tear off their masks.
We ruin the illusion.
We say their names with the same fire they fear in courtrooms.
We whisper the truth in places they thought were too dark to reach.
We make their legacy rot before their body does.
And we stop pretending they’re untouchable—
because they only survive when we treat them like gods.
But they’re just humans.
Rotting, desperate humans.
And it’s time the reckoning came for them.
Because it doesn’t take the handiwork of the supernatural
to make the worst thing imaginable.
It’s been us all along.
No summoning circle.
No blood pact.
No need to hail Satan or drink adrenochrome.
Just a signature.
A budget cut.
A shrug from someone who’s never gone without.
They don’t need to be evil in the way you were taught—
they just need to lack a conscience.
And they will take the wheelchair.
They will take the food.
They will take the last lifeline from a disabled child
and still sleep soundly,
wrapped in the illusion of “fiscal responsibility.”
That’s the real horror.
Not the beast in the woods.
Not the demon in the dark.
But the smiling human holding the pen
And the system that teaches them—
that this is normal.
That this is necessary.
That this is good.