A tarnished badge, a mirror cracked and worn,
The past, a specter, through the office creeps,
In every clue, an old sin is reborn,
The heart, it trembles, the conscience, it leaps.

Tick-tock, the countdown whispers urgent tunes,
Through alleys dim where once I misplaced faith,
Beneath the sickle of a waning moon,
The truth lies buried in a shroud of wraiths.

A maze of selves, each one a guilty plea,
Chasing shadows of the man I've become,
Fingers graze secrets, longing to be free,
My history's pulse 'neath the skin does thrum.

In solving you, my own soul must I brace,
For in the villain, my reflection's face.
© Tiger64X2