Riley's Box

Part 23

The next time my eyes fluttered open, I glanced around at a blur of colourful figures. I was dreaming. I had to be. 

However, the blur slowly went away and the colourful figures became much clearer. They looked like people, but they also really didn't look like people, if that made any sense. 

They were much more vibrant- their eyes were an assortment of different colours and their skin tones were similar, too. 

"We're going to have to talk to her, Avidicci," one of the figures seemed to say. "She touched the box, which means she's one of the only ones that can see us." 

I turned to look at the figure who had spoken to observe that he was short and fat, with brown hair and brown eyes, the irises of which looked almost like chocolate buttons.

At that thought, my stomach gurgled again. I really was going to need to eat something sooner rather than later. 

Not right now, though. 

Too many questions were going through my head, and I was determined to get answers for them. 

I took a moment to glanced around at the beings again to realise that there were seven of them. 

As I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling dry, I managed to say something. 

"Who-" I cut off. 

"Yes. Spit it out," one of the beings, who appeared to be female, spoke. She had vibrant green eyes and similarly coloured hair. 

"Who are you?" I said, successfully completing my question. 

Yes, who were they? More importantly still, what were they doing in my bedroom cupboard? 

"Yay!" the fat one said then. "She asked it. I love it when they ask that!"

They? This wasn't the first time that they had been introduced to a human? 

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," the tallest of the group said- the one with golden hair. Avidicci, if I remembered correctly. He seemed a little more confident than the others, as though he spoke for the group. "We are the Seven Deadly Sins." 

It was times like these, when you really did just have to give a friendly smile and hope that things would start to make sense soon. 

"Who?" I asked again. 

"Are you an owl?" the one with green eyes asked me. 

I chose to ignore her. 

My phone then buzzed in my pocket again, probably with another text from April. 

While I was glad that she felt that she could talk to me, now was really not the best time to do so. 

"Don't be silly, Invidia. She's obviously a pig," the brown-eyed one said. "All pink and soft." 

A line etched between Invidia's eyebrows, then. 

"No, Guttur, you absolute idiot. That's you. You're the pig," she said. 

"Hey! Now wait a moment, just because I'm a glutton, doesn't mean that you can offend me in this way-" he cut off then, as Avidicci cleared his throat again. 

"Can someone please answer my question?" I asked then, surprised to find my voice amongst all the confusion. 

Avidicci turned to me with the bare resemblance of a smile. 

"I can indeed," he said. "I'm Avidicci, you may have heard me called the sin of greed." 

"The Seven Deadly Sins," I whispered to myself, then. 

I had to be dreaming. There was no way this was happening. 

"Hey, Pig, do you have any snacks?" the gluttonous one, Guttur, asked. 

Invidia gave a shake of her head, in disapproval of him. 

"I...I have some popcorn," I managed to answer his question. 

"You do? Excellent! Where is it?" he asked. 

"This is exhausting," a new voice said, then. "What are we even doing here?" he asked. 

Well, it seemed that he and I were asking the same questions, here. 

"Otius, that will all make sense soon enough. I promise," Avidicci said. "Do you have any gold?" he continued. 

"Only this golden box- that's what you came out of," I said. 

Avidicci turned to eye the box then and his eyes narrowed slightly. 

"Hm. So it is," he said, "That must mean that the Devil has a task for us." 

"The Devil?" I asked then. 

The answer was a nod. 

"You mean the little red guy who lives in H.E.L.L?" I asked. 

"Why'd she spell it out like that?" Guttur asked, with an expression of confusion. 

"My grandmother is a Christian. We're not supposed to talk about Hell or sins-" I swiftly placed a hand to my mouth, as I realised what I had said. "But she's not here, so I suppose we can talk about those things." 

Avidicci smiled again, then. A more sincere smile than last time. 

"Good. Anyway, I'm Avidicci, the speaker for the group. Though, you'll realise soon enough, that they can speak plenty for themselves." 

At that statement, he chuckled. 

The others nodded in agreement. 

"I'm Riley," I managed to say. "And...who are the rest of you?" I asked. 

"Hey Riley! I think I'll call you Pig. I'm Guttur Sin- the sin of gluttony." 

He grinned, as he found some old candy in the cupboard and started to chew on it. 

I frowned. That must have been at least three months expired by now. 

"I'm Invidia Fire- the sin of envy," she said. 

I turned to her with a friendly smile, but she did not return it. 

"Uh...are you all okay?" I asked. I was surprised by my ability to be compassionate for a group of random beings that had arrived in my bedroom cupboard, but my options were limited. I needed to find out what they wanted, and then I needed to get rid of them. "What are you here for?" I asked. More importantly, why were they here, now? 

"We have been sent to Earth to collect the bad souls- otherwise known as shadow spirits- of people that need to go to Hell. Murderers, mostly. Very, very, evil and twisted people. On occasion, some of the shadow spirits manage to escape Hell. Don't ask me how it happens. It's an incredibly rare occurrence," Avidicci Sin said, with a grave expression.