It was as if the breath had been sucked out of Patience.
When the doctors had taken her to their lair, she knew her life had changed. Her life had been driving on the highway and then crashed. Twice. She had no idea how the doctor's reasons were, but whatever they were, they thought she was criminal. It had started because of her outburst that had led to her ultimate downfall, but was it really a sin? A misdemeanor?
No, it wasn't any of those in the slightest. In the reporters' eyes, it was a felony. A criminal she was in the public's eyes. But for what? She supposed it was pretty bad to have an outburst in the middle of the meeting of her life but to claim to have seen demons? Dark matter? That was insane, and even Patience knew that. It would generate lots of talk within the population of South Korea, so it was perfect.
So the doctors whisked her off assuming she was mentally ill because apparently someone that had "hallucinations" was mentally screwed. She was now living the horrid life that Chastity had. The doctors were not friendly, nor kind. Tests, tests, and more tests on her, to the point where she felt like she was a guinea pig in all of their schemes - But then again, she might as well have been. Her rights had been taken away, and Patience was truly fed up.
She had lost her patience.
During the few hours she had to herself in bed, she had sneaked her phone out and typed her name and Chastity. She was horrified by the results. Her name appeared on every news team with an awful caption tagged onto her name. She skimmed through a few of the more democratic-looking sights, the ones with the ugly titles.
After moving on, she found a lighter website that shipped Chastity and Patience. Chastened. Really? She remembered slamming her phone down on her bedside table and curling up into her thin blankets in bed. It wasn't that she didn't approve of the ship, it was that she didn't like all the attention she was getting. Was that all the media was, a word-twisting company? Her words were pretzel dough and people fed money to get her words twisted into something delightful to their eye, dashing on whatever was needed to satisfy the customer, taking in no account of the bread. What if the bread didn't want to be on display for everyone to see? What if it didn't like being tanned in the oven?
But at that moment Patience realized it didn't matter. She was sold, and no longer in charge of her own body. While lying in her bed, she realized she would be eaten up. She was the pretzel. And soon, the consumer wouldn't even remember her. So why was it even worth being tested on? She was fad food, all of the rages in public for a limited time, and then discarded to a trash can, never to be thought of again.
Patience didn't want to be a psychologist.
Patience didn't want to be in the hospital.
Patience didn't like any of this one bit.
And as she lay in bed, a new emotion crept onto her like a slow spider sneaking up on its prey. Finally, it thought. It is time for my reign.
She remained quiet as her body became loud. Things were just too quiet, even though her mind was playing a bullhorn. She felt sucked up, up, up and away like a hot air balloon, and went straight up to the stratosphere.
The spider continued to climb and gain more momentum as she kept gaining height, higher and higher, faster and faster, weaker and weaker. The spider inflated to a gigantic balloon, bigger and bigger, towering over Patience like a demon cackling over its trembling prey, and just like that, swallowed her up from her bed, never to be thought of again.
For the spider had erased her from existence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wrath had seriously been minding his own business. He really had been. He was writing furiously on a piece of paper, letting his messy handwriting flood the page. He wasn't even really writing, even. His brain worked extremely fast because he was always enraged, so writing was the same. He wrote very fast. The thing was, he wrote random words to keep his temper down. The other sins had criticized him countless times for breaking a door - or a wall because his brain could not handle how smart he was. But really, he was minding his own business.
So he had seriously no idea what wizard he had irritated when he found a girl lying on his bed, sleeping there like she had been there the whole time.
At first, he didn't recognize her. At first, Wrath actually thought some old guy dropped her off in his room and dissolved away, just like that dude in that one book did.
Just to make sure he wasn't dreaming, he went over and poked her to make sure she wasn't some stuffed girl pillow that Lust would have found hilarious for him to have. She shifted over, revealing her face, and that's when it hit Wrath (much like the truck hit him).
It was Patience. The girl he had been chastised for loosing, the girl that he had been so desperately needing. And now she was just sleeping in his bed. Right there.
Things couldn't have gone any better unless she had a lightning bolt scar on her forehead, which Wrath gratefully did not find.
His victim had walked right to him without him lifting a finger - a middle finger. That was Wrath's favorite, he usually used it when he was mad.
After staring at her for a minute, Wrath skipped over to the edge of his room, nearly tripping over his trash can in doing so. "Hey, erm, Pride?" he called out into the hallway. "Is it normal to have a girl sleeping in your bed unexpectedly?"
"Duh," Lust's voice echoed through the hall and Wrath felt his blood boiling. Out of all of the sins, Lust was his least favorite. "Ladies just line up to get a hold of-"
"Lust?" Pride suddenly spoke, his regal voice overpowering his dirty friend.
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Pride then appeared in the hallway, his perfect brown hair swept into an easy, yet messy hairstyle. He briskly walked down the hallway toward Wrath, slamming Lust's door along the way. "Now what is this about a girl, Wrath?" Pride's eyes surveyed Wrath like he was skimming a new outfit, when suddenly he gasped, causing Wrath to freak out slightly. No one ever liked when Pride lost his sense of cool.
"Wrath," he gasped. "Your gem is glowing!"
Surprised, Wrath looked down at the red gem that sat around his neck. Pride was right. Instead of its normal red, rusty color, it glowed like the very pits of hell were exploding out of his chest in hues of red.
His eyes widened, wondering why this was happening. His gem had never glowed in his life - but then again, he had never found his matching virtue either. Were the two connected?
"Yeah, Pride I noticed. But that's the thing. Patience is in my room, in my bed, sleeping. Right now."
It was Pride's turn to do a double take. "What do you mean she's in your bed?" He hissed. "Did Lust-"
"No," Wrath quickly cut him off, blushing a crimson. Wrath opened his mouth to explain what had happened, but then quickly closed it. He had a better idea.
"I mean," Wrath said smugly, smiling and showing his gleaming teeth. "I used my gem to locate her - and from that, I transported her to my bed. Just like that. I just didn't know exactly where she was going to be. That's why I've been locked in my room all day. Doing that. Yeah."
In truth, Wrath locked himself in his room to get away from all the other sins, who all ticked him off to some degree. It was very easy to get him ticked off, not surprisingly. Sloth never listened to him when he was ranting, Greed ranted with him, and Lust always popped in dirty jokes even when the topic was nowhere near that. Pride had been mad at him not obtaining Patience, so why should he tell the truth when he could make himself look good and lie?
Pride looked conflicted, and for a second, Wrath thought he saw right through him like he was glass. His eyebrows were up, and the lines on his forehead were tightened. He had his arms folded across his chest like he was a judge deciding an internal verdict.
Finally, he sighed and placed his hand on Wrath's shoulder. "You're not totally stupid Wrath. I'm proud of you."
Wrath yelped with excitement and pumped his fist in the air. "YEAH!" He shouted a bit too loud, but then covered his mouth. He didn't want to wake Patience. "You want to see her?" He asked Pride, gesturing toward his door, being giddy like a little kid.
Pride shrugged. "Sure."
Wrath slowly opened the door and peaked his head through like he was a father checking on his baby. He sighed with relief, Patience was still sleeping. He half expected Patience to be gone - things always seemed to go wrong for him. He was a bad luck charm, and it angered him. It would have been just karma if she had actually escaped somehow. Wrath just hoped this good luck would stay.
"So, this is Patience-"
"YO! GIRL WAKE UP!"
Wrath freaked out and slapped Pride. He saw that Patience was getting up, WHY did he wake her up?! "Why did you yell?!" Wrath thundered, clenching his fists. "She's going to be so scared once she sees us, I was going to let this sink in quietly!" Wrath's vein in his head popped as he crushed Pride into the wall. "WHY?!"
Pride lost his breath when he was slammed into the wall but quickly redeemed it. "She needs to get to know us now, stupid! If you let her sleep in there, Sloth will scoop her up. Now let me go." He shoved Wrath off of him, who was now emitting steam from his head.
"Wah?"
Slowly, both boys turned to face a sleepy Patience. They exchanged glances, Pride looking suspicious and Wrath looking like he was about to tear the whole house down because of Pride.
"How'd I get here?" Patience was still sleepy, but that didn't take any of her common sense. She shuffled around on the bed, staring at the pillows. "This isn't my bed." She then looked up at Wrath and screamed.
"Great," Wrath muttered. "I get to listen to an opera now."
"IT'S YOU!" She shrieked, pointing a guilty finger at Wrath, who rolled his eyes. Sensing the tension, Pride exited the room like a phantom.
"DON'T YOU ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME, HULK!" She was bright red, the same color as Wrath's gem. "You ruined my life! You made me look like I was loco!"
"To be honest," Wrath started, looking warily at the floor, "it was your reaction to me, I didn't make you do anything."
"Then why the heck is I in a bed?! YOUR bed!" She picked up a pillow and threw it at him, but missed. "You must have drugged me," she suddenly said, and Wrath began to shake his head rapidly. "You're some trafficker or something! WELL GET OUT!" She stood up, and Wrath's heartbeat increased.
"No!" He shouted, stopping her from moving. "Please don't go!"
She put her arms on her hips. "Why should I listen to you?"
Wrath opened his mouth to speak but got stuck. He hadn't expected to get so far with her. In fact, he had never gotten this far in a conversation with anyone.
What was Wrath supposed to do? Explain to her that he was some magical being that controlled the angered feelings of every human being on the planet? And to somehow tell her she had similar powers? Now Wrath was the one that sounded psychotic.
But to his luck, which had been going great that day, his gem spoke for him. It had been glowing the whole time since Patience had arrived, but now it seemed to be going insane.
Suddenly, the gem exploded.
The gem exploded.
A bright red light exploded out of the necklace, covering the entire room, Wrath and Patience included, with a murky red.
"Is this some part of your job?!" Patience screamed, looking around wildly at the red light everywhere and the necklace.
C'mon necklace, Wrath though. Do something, you're scaring me!
And suddenly, as if on cue, the gem stopped. Wrath looked up at Patience, his heart still racing from his gem's sudden act. He thought it was just a necklace - until now.
Patience was not looking at him. She was looking at the floor, clenching her fists - exactly a thing Wrath would do.
"You know what," she started, "I hate red. I hate the color red." Wrath looked at her confusingly, like she was a difficult math problem. "I HATE IT!" She suddenly screamed in rage. "WHY DID YOUR STUPID GEM DO THAT?! I DON'T GET IT! IT'S NOT SCIENCE!"
She stomped her feet around in a rage, gnashing her teeth and furrowing her eyebrows. Is that what Wrath looked like when he was ranting? She looked pretty silly, after all, it was a color. Just a color.
But then it clicked, like a lock and key. Wrath's thoughts drifted back to when Pride was boasting his successful "conversion" of Humility. He remembered sitting around the table next to Gluttony and Envy, bored to death as Pride drowned on and on about her.
Did he just do that to Patience? Without lifting a finger?
She seemed extremely angry and got set off by the littlest of things. She was Patience, right? She should be calm all of the time. But his necklace...
Wrath drifted back and smiled at his girl with a sickening expression.
Maybe his luck was good.
3 down, 4 to go...