girls of effulgence | bts

twenty

The sounds of Pride's footsteps could not deafen the short yet persistent breaths of Sloth as Pride carried him down the hallway like a sack of potatoes. Sloth constantly swung back and forth as Pride walked, growing angrier every time he hit Pride. He gritted his teeth, in fury he could not sleep while being disturbed constantly. He sputtered and swore, but Pride would not put him down.

"Put me down!" Sloth yelled, his cheeks flushed on his pale skin as he huffed onto Pride. Once again, Pride ignored him and gripped him tighter. "I'm sorry Sloth," he started, "but if I let you walk here, we'd be waiting for you to come for a week."

Sloth groaned, but it sounded more like a snore. Behind his back, the sloth rolled his eyes. "It's for the best, Sloth. And don't you hide your eye rolls from me. I'm trickier than you think."

When Pride got no response, he shook around Sloth until he woke up. Outside, rain pattered against the windows, and another thunderbolt pierced the sky, shaking the lights on the walls. The natural disasters made the lights flicker, giving an eerie vibe to the situation while Pride's footsteps swished on the floor. "Do you not hear that?" Pride asked the other sin. "That's Zeus Sloth. Zeus. Do you know why Zeus wishes to enlighten his almighty presence with little mortal-like bodies like us?" He spoke as if he hated the man that controlled lightning, scoffing and giving a dark look for a minute before it went back to its alluring smile.

"Do you think I care Pride?" Sloth slumped down, tired of fighting against Pride. He shut his eyes. "You're scared of some gods? We haven't done anything wrong. In fact..." Sloth slid out of Pride's grip, falling gracefully to the floor. He now lay on his side, his arm resting on his head. Pride rolled his eyes.

"In fact, I bet Zeus is shooting his thunderbolt things because he's proud of us. Wasn't Diligence the last virtue to be changed?"

"Yes, but-"

"There you have it, you sparkly queen. Zeus is proud of us. They are ours!"

Pride sighed and rolled his eyes, then rubbed his temples. "You won't get it, will you?" He looked down at Sloth, who was looking up at him expectantly. He held his hand out like he was begging for money.

"Sloth. The other sins are here to discuss together... Because we have made a terrible mistake." Pride turned and looked out the window and watched the rain pour outside in the dark sky. He saw his reflection - something he saw every day, but as might as well have been someone else because Pride didn't recognize himself.

He looked weary, and his skin was pale, though not as pale as Sloth. There were circles around his eyes that Pride had always had forbidden, but hardly cared about anymore at this moment.

"Then why are you making such a big deal now? Aren't we just going to discuss this during the emergency meeting or whatever?" Sloth put a hand on his chin to rest on and tried to pay attention to Pride. Maybe it wasn't the right time for sleep.

"We will. You just weren't cooperating." Pride waltzed over to Sloth, his glamorous ways not completely gone. His eyes traveled on him, and he bent over until he was at Sloth's level. "You will cooperate now, right? This is deathly important."

Though part of him wanted to not care and fall back asleep, the authoritative version of himself knew he best just follow what Pride wanted, like the good little sheep he was - for this second.

"Yeah, whatever. Carry me, king."

Pride nodded, a smile adorning his face. "I'm glad we are in agreement." And then once again, Sloth was a sack of potatoes jostling with Pride to the meeting of their lives.

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All seven girls sat, and that's all they did.

The room where most of them met for the first time was now occupied again, but it did not have the same feel as it did before. Instead of a happy atmosphere, they all were in empty space. They were all of the planets, all sucked of their oxygen, not able to have life or fathom any living things. The sins were the sun, for that was the reason for their existence. They girls revolved around them now, deprived of their planetarian rights.

There was no talking and no speaking. No smiling or laughing. There was no evidence that seven girls were even in the room. No one was talking to each other, and no one was looking at each other. If the girls were colors, they were anything other than a rainbow right now.

Humility was sitting on the end of the couch, playing her fingertips on the soft petals of a nearby wilted flower. With her newfound talents, Humility thought everything was beautiful. The flower cringed as her fingers continued to pet it and she smirked at its uncomfortableness. Even though Humility thought she was being extremely evil, all she was doing was petting a flower. That's all she'd ever do.

Next to her, was a sleeping beauty. Diligence had been moved from her bed to the virtue room and was sleeping soundly. Naturally, if she had been awake and was still on her rocker, Diligence would not stand to sleep while there were people to talk to and things to connect with, but she was not quite that person anymore. Diligence was a sleeper, but it did not mean she was lazy. She had run through hotels and across lawns, flown through windows. She was tired, and was it really a sin to be tired when she had gone through the things she had gone through?

Generosity wasn't in the mood for sitting, in fact, she moved the most out of everyone. Crouched on the floor, her eyes flickered - never to the girls - in sight of something to simply satisfy her craving needs of something to hold, something tangible to feel in her arms, and call it her own. But that's all she ever did - she sat and waited. The vases she was staring at did not react as she invaded their personal privacy, staring at them constantly. She was just an admirer of a museum of never valuable items.

Patience had her head on her legs, silently shaking. No one bothered to ask what was wrong, but all could guess she was waiting for something or someone. And judging by her recent events, Patience wasn't one to be waiting for something to happen. Her fists clenched and turned red as blood flow through her hands. Definitely not one to silently wait in line like a good girl. Was she even a good girl?

Chastity sat cross-eyed, staring at her lips which were swollen to the point where if she touched them, they may have exploded into tiny pieces of confetti, leaving very empty, flabby skin hanging out. She had just arrived, the last virtue to arrive into the room, and was still getting used to her life. She was no longer full of chastity, it had been stolen in her kiss with Lust. Her first kiss.

Abstinence sat with a bored look on her face, and leaned on a small coffee table, annoyed that someone had moved her chips from her room. Before coming here, Abstinence planned on bringing her heavenly bag of Doritos with her (since Pride had demanded they had moved to a private room immediately), but when she walked into her room, it had vanished. She was hungry no doubt, and as each second ticked by, Abstinence got angrier and angrier. If only she had eaten more at the huge dinner.

In a secluded part of the room, Kindness slouched across an armchair like a sloth with anything but a kind face. She wasn't smiling like she usually was, and her posture inferred that she had ridden herself of her kindness. If she had bothered to talk to anyone, they all would have had the same ideas.

Nothing in the world except the world itself could prepare the world for what had come across as an epidemic. And it was coming.

All of the fun, effulgent energy had been sucked out of the girls by the vacuums of the sins, and they were soulless versions of what they used to be.

And that's all that ever was in the room of the virtues.

They sat.

Silently.

And their world crumbled beneath their feet. They didn't even care.