For the sake of all that is good and pure in this world, do not buy a subscription to The Economist.

I used to be like you. A young, naive, second-year student. Perhaps a chip on his shoulder: ‘I’m two years into my PPE degree, and I feel like I know fuck all. Deep in my heart I know I need to engage with world events. But I don’t give a shit about anything. When I close my eyes, I see RCT matrices… I must improve… I need to be able to bring up tidbits at the dinner table. Anything! Any sort of basic analysis. Perhaps a few retrospectives on key economic events. I don’t even know where Saudi Arabia is.’

I was just like you. ‘If only there were a fortnightly pamphlet, some kind of mass-produced informational text. Glossy paged, graphs, perhaps even an infographic’, I thought. ‘Surely, this would bolster my intellect.’

The cry of their siren song – ‘12 weeks for 90 percent off’ – led me into a daze. A dozen issues for a mere 20 silvers, the fruits of a brief conversation with Papa. A good deal. Perhaps too good… I floated upwards, divorced from my middling body, observing my form take a Blood Oath ­– a Faustian pact with the Red Shirted Devil. To be enlightened, there must be sacrifice.

A free book that I would never read was thrown in to close the sale. The iPad signup form glowed a piercing green, imbued with the power of the Ancient One – my unending master. The fine print, alas, I did not read.

It was but 84 nights later that I awoke in a sweat. Not in my room, no, but trapped in a Wall Street bathroom mirror. The subscription was automatically renewed on the eve of a Blood Moon, forming the catalyst for a Soul Snare, a vile transmission of my Life Essence into an inanimate object: doomed forever to reflect on my hubris.

I am but a ghost to those checking their ties – my screams they cannot hear. If you can read this: I beg you, kill me. Smash the mirrors – smash them all. Who knows how many others have fallen victim to this hex. Avenge me.

I beg you, help me. Help.