Once upon a mid-day dreary,
while I studied, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the library door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at the library door—
Only this and nothing more".
But it was something more . . . a visitor strode into the library, with offerings of food and drink to lure me to a “fate worse than death”. The visitor was dressed in black from head to toe and gestured with a gloved hand. Heedless of the otherworldly nature of the visitor whose blazing eyes bored into the soul, I rose and followed mutely. In disbelief and amazement, I was led to the catacombs of Bartlett Academy. A trap door beneath the science lab was standing open with a ladder leading to the lower pit Torches illuminated the grotesque scene littered with the bones of teachers and the discarded tomes of ages past. A mirthless cackle rumbled from the masked visitor and an ominous voice growled that just like Fortunato I would be trapped within the tombs unless my knowledge of
Edgar Allan Poe and the Cask of Amontillado saved me.
These facts and nothing more to save me or leave to rot forevermore.