He carefully crawled into the vestibule of the venerable church as the silent saints watched with sad eyes. His sins had surreptitiously sucked at his soul, searing a hole that brightly burned with the fiendish fires of garroting guilt. The vestiges of a vindictive vendetta, passed to him vicariously by the virtue of a vilifying vow, seeming so stupidly silly now with the bright blood of various victims staining his hands here in these hallowed halls.

Candles burned brightly, a beacon to which he desperately dragged his beaten beleaguered body. Tears trailing down his tanned and torn visage, he felt vulnerable in the face of the vestal Virgin guarding the flickering flames. He knelt, bowing his head before her beatific beauty. Could she grant him benediction for the bevy of lives he had so viciously vivisected?

Bells boomed from the belfry, a balm to his broken soul. They spoke of salvation, soothing his sadness for a short second.

Offering his harrowed heart to the heavens, he prayed for peace.