By Colin Ahern  — Opinions Editor 

Soaring arches and spires of brick and stone. Low chanting hymns rake my conscience. Perhaps I paid too little for my sins. Perhaps I paid too much. I hear the dragging claws against the architecture and feel the eyes of Mephistopheles on me. Perhaps I have yet to pay.

I see my reflection in this dirty mirror but am not convinced that it is my own. The man who apes my movements seems filthy and half-starved. He sits on a chair by the desk, casting accusatory glares at me. He seems to blame me for his fate. The ill man who has stolen my reflection will soon be dead. He is utterly helpless.

Slapping feet against the cobbles, deep in the bowels of these catacombs. The stench of decay surrounds and assails me. The splint for my leg is shoddy and must be fixed every few minutes. Do not go to the inner cloister.