Envy: Creative Text

 Envy

“We couldn’t have found somebody more perfect,” a man whispered behind the door. I was waiting with arms folded over my chest and leant against a wall. The two long queues in Limbo stretched into the distance and shuffled forwards bit by bit. I stood on my toes and tried to pinpoint the back of the line but it was useless. Had it been that long when I’d been standing in it? It had only seemed like a few minutes before I’d-

The door opened, jolting me from my thoughts. A man walked out and sent a smile my way. “You can go in now.”

                I returned his smile as I walked through the door, avoiding the fat that levitated off him. His eyes were covered with two half-moon circles that caught the light of every lamp in Limbo and sat upon a nose that sat upon a moustache that could indeed have been mistaken for a caterpillar. He closed the door behind me and I turned around, surprised to be standing in what looked like, to some extent, a normal room.

                “Good day to you, Mister Gray,” said someone sitting behind a huge oak desk. It was hard to discern whether the cloaked figure was a man or a woman or a human of any sort. It was just a black hooded cloak filled with air. Two gloved hands reached for a quill sitting in an inkwell on the desk. I noticed they had a humorous pattern of skeleton hands on them.

                I soon occupied the chair opposite.

                “I have the pleasure of informing you that you just met Gluttony,” the hood echoed. “A nice chap.”

                “Yeah,” I said. “Very jolly.”

                “In another life, he might have been Santa Claus,” the figure joked. The quill was pointed at a sheet of parchment. “May I ask how you died?”

                “I was in a plane crash. Had a heart attack before we hit the ground.”

                The quill scratched the information onto the paper and then was placed back into the inkwell. The cloaked arms crossed and the figure leant back. “I think you know I’m Death.”

                “I assumed so.”

                Death laughed. “I decided to go with the stereotypical look a few hundred years back. Got fed up with people asking and wanted them to figure it out for themselves. Now, I have a proposition for you.”

                I leant forwards in anticipation.

                “I want to offer you the position of Envy.”

                I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “Of envy?”

                The figure nodded. “We’ve needed someone for about a year, ever since the old Envy moved on. I’ve got to say, you’d be the perfect person for it. That’s why we pushed you to the front of the queue.”

                That explained why my time in Limbo had passed in a flash. But I was still confused. “You want me to be Envy?”

                “One of the seven sins. Yes.”

                “I don’t understand. I’m not an envious kind of person.”

                “Exactly. That’s why I want you to do this. You don’t have a single jealous bone in your body.”

                I gripped my head and shook it. “How does that help?”

                “Well, if you were an envious person, you might take things out on those you envied. Whereas with Gluttony, for example, his sin doesn’t impact anyone but himself so we found someone who was quite gluttonous in life.”

                “I suppose that makes sense,” I said, still not quite understanding.

                Death picked the quill up again and set it against another piece of paper. “So, you’ll take it?”

                “Are you presuming I will?”

                “I do have a habit of doing such things,” Death said, chuckling.

                I laughed with him.  “Then I’ll do it. No reason why not.”

                “Great,” the figure said. “Well, I’ll give the others a call and have them meet you in the waiting room. I’ll send your paperwork down to you once I’ve sorted it out.”

                “Down to me?”

                “All the sins live on the floor below Limbo. Ask Sloth to show you around when you meet her.” The cloak bent down and went back to doing paperwork so I turned to leave. “Oh, one more thing, Mister Gray.” I paused with my hand on the door knob. “After a while, you’ll get used to the way we do things here. The old Envy couldn’t. But you will.”

                I had a feeling that there was a command in that statement somewhere and bowed my head at the superiority I felt Death hold over me.

                “I understand.”

Standing in the waiting room, I was aware of the multitude of eyes peering from over shoulders and around arms from the queue of people waiting to check in. I had the overwhelming desire to become invisible.

                It wasn’t too long before I was joined by someone else however. I mistook him for Wrath at first with the deep frown on his lips and a crease between his eyebrows. He looked at me like he couldn’t be bothered to deal with me and then went back to staring at the papers on a clipboard he was holding.

                “Hi,” I said, deciding to talk since it was obvious he wasn’t going to. He huffed at me as though to agree with my thoughts. I held out my hand anyway. “I’m the new Envy.”

                He barked out a laugh that knocked his glasses down his nose. He pushed them back up as he ignored my hand and spoke. “That much was obvious,” he said. “I’m Greed.”

                I tried to hide my surprise but an “oh” popped out and he rolled his eyes at me before looking back down at the clipboard.

                “You can guarantee the others will be a while,” he muttered. “They’re late for everything.”

                I got the feeling that Greed wouldn’t be an easy person to talk to. “So, what is it you do?” I asked after a brief but awkward silence.

                He sighed. “I do all of the accounting. You wouldn’t expect there to be much of it up here in Limbo but, hey, people need to be paid. And then I do the same ground floor stuff as everyone else.”

                “Ground floor stuff?”

                He glared at me and I could almost see a headache forming behind his eyes. “Ground floor is Earth. I just deal with some of the greedy folk down there.”

                I paused, wondering if I should ask the question on my mind. “Were you greedy in life?”

                He tapped his pen against his chin as he thought. “No,” he answered after the long hesitation. “I worked hard for the things I wanted. I wanted to be rich. That doesn’t make you greedy.” I didn’t believe him in the slightest. “I think it was my finance skills Death was after.”

                I hummed and turned my attention to Limbo’s long corridor, on the south side of the waiting room, opposite the enormous queues. It was a shadowless white like the rest of Limbo and only discernible from the small tables with lights on places in corners and against walls. After a while, a woman appeared out of nowhere and started to walk towards us. She looked a lot more tired and a lot less well dressed than Greed did but she had a smile on her face which made her appear friendlier.

                She held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Sloth,” she said.

                “You can just tell, can’t you?” Greed said under his breathe, not even looking up to greet her.

                Sloth glared at the top of his bowed head. “I sleep less than you do, Greed. And do more work. So fuck off.”

                I wasn’t sure if this was to be reprimanded or if this was normal behaviour for the two. Thankfully, somebody showed up before I could decide.

                “Oh, try not to argue, you two,” said the woman. She looked stunning and for a moment I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The moment ended when she turned to me with an exasperated look. “It’s rude to stare, darling.”

                I coughed in embarrassment and looked away. It was obvious that this was Lust. She turned back to the others.

                “I was just telling Greed that not all of us are replications of our names,” Sloth said, hitting out at the man again.

                Greed looked as though he was going to retort but Lust spoke first. “He’s just upset that you’re more likable than he is.”

                Sloth smiled a little in amusement and glanced down at the clipboard she held on her arm. “What can I schedule you each for?”

                “I’ll do Wednesday,” Greed said.

                “Thursday,” Lust said a split second after. She looked down at her red coloured nails. “I don’t understand why you ask. We always pick the same days.”

                “Erm-“ I started, about to ask what they were talking about but unable to get the words out fast enough.

                “Just in case anyone changes their minds,” Sloth said, writing down the dates on her clipboard.

                They all turned their heads towards me and I stayed silent for a while, expecting someone to explain what was going on. But no one did.

                “What is the appointment for?”

                “Death didn’t tell him anything,” Greed muttered, his face still buried within the papers on the clipboards.

                Sloth narrowed her eyes at him before settling them on me with a softer expression. “They’re just to check that everyone’s okay and for you all to talk things out. I need to figure out who needs a break.”

                “Kind of like a shrink,” Greed inserted.

                I ignored him. “Who do you speak to?”

                Greed laughed at this, shaking his head. I gritted my teeth. “She doesn’t talk to anyone. She’s a fucking psychopath.”

                Both Lust and Sloth turned to him and looked like they were biting their tongues, trying not to retort. Sloth went back to scribbling down notes and Lust looked up. I followed her gaze and saw a tall man walking down the hallway in an old fashioned suit. His face was clean shaven and his hair was styled in a way that made it look like it belonged to a marble angel. He walked with a straight back and a smirk on his face. He approached me and shook my hand.

                “Hello, my dear fellow. You must be the new Envy. I’m Pride.”

                “Nice to meet you,” I said, standing aside so he could join the small circle that was forming. He stood between Lust and I.

                “You’re looking handsome as ever,” Lust said, fluttering her eyelids at him.

                He smiled down at her. “As I’m sure.” He turned to Sloth. “I’ll do Friday.”

                Sloth jotted that down and then looked up at me. “Monday, I guess.”

                Everyone in the group paused at that before the silence was made clear with the scratching of Sloth’s pen against paper. I searched each of their faces for a clue as to what was happening.

                “What is it?” I asked.

                Lust coughed into her hand. “Nothing. Just that the old Envy would have chosen Monday too.”

                I frowned. Was that such a big deal? “I can choose another date if you want?”

                Sloth shook her head. “No, it’s fine. One of the perks of the job is thinking in similar ways to your predecessors.”

                “Of course you’d think it was a perk,” Greed said.

                “Shut up,” someone said from behind Lust. The tall woman stepped aside to let Gluttony and an angry looking woman join the circle. Everyone fell silent just as she’d demanded and I noticed Gluttony make himself as small as possible while standing next to her. I guessed this was Wrath. “We don’t need arguing. We’re supposed to be working together.”

                She sounded like she’d pulled the words from a place of calm buried under layers of stress, anger and annoyance. I felt my own shoulders raise higher, intimidated by the authority in her voice.

                Sloth met her eyes, which I thought was rather brave. “Do you want Sunday?”

                Wrath relaxed a little. “Of course,” she said.

                “I’ll have Tuesday,” Gluttony said, picking up on what Sloth was asking straight away.

                It was then that Wrath’s eyes landed on me. I felt her picking me apart, from my hair down to my shoes. My back hunched, making me smaller.

                “You’re the new Envy?” she said.

                I bowed my head, feeling insecure. “Yes.”

                She huffed. “Good luck with that job.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the rest of the circle. “So, we’re all here. Let’s get to it. I assume Death told you why the old Envy left?”

                I frowned and shook my head. “He told me that he couldn’t handle Limbo but that was it.”

                “Well, that’s pretty much the extent of what happened,” Greed said, rolling his eyes like I’d annoyed him. “He didn’t want to be here so he was removed.”

                “Removed?”

                Sloth sighed. “Don’t be so overdramatic,” she told Greed. She turned to me. “Death told him to take a break and then he quit.”

                “Okay,” Wrath said, interrupting with a wrinkle in her brow. “Enough of this.” Sloth started scratching at the paper with her pen again, looking like she was going to ignore everything else that was said. “Envy, what you’ll be doing is controlling the flow of jealousy on the ground floor. You also need to help out those who died with an intense amount of Envy and help out with a few surgeries.”

                “Surgeries?” I said, shocked that I’d have to partake in such a thing.

                “In some cases,” Wrath said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “You’ll get used to doing them but, until you do, Doc will stay with you and teach you everything he knows.”

                I felt a little overwhelmed.

                “Before you meet him,” Sloth started, showing that she had indeed been paying attention and passing me a file, “you need to fill in this form. It’s nothing much. I just need to know some questions about your life so I know what type of person you are.”

                “I bet you he doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body,” Greed sneered.

                “That’s what Death said,” I said, smiling in his direction. He gave me a disgusted look and I coughed to diffuse the awkwardness. “So, do I tell any of you my real name?”

                “No,” Wrath said. “We are not people like those on the ground floor or immortals like those on the top. We’re the walking dead. Our real names don’t stay with us.”

                Sloth gave her a frustrated look and then directed her eyes at me. “If they,” she indicated towards the queues with a dip of her head, “don’t think of us as people, they will tell us more about their lives. It just makes the job easier.”

The group dispersed and I followed Sloth to a door with the name Envy on it, just a few paces away from where we’d been standing.

“This is your office,” she said. “I’d show you around it but it’s getting quite late and I have work to do. So, I’ll just show you to your room.”

                My shoulders slouched but I understood that she had work to do and so followed her further down the hall. She surprised me by stopping in front of an empty wall and then pushing against one part of it to reveal a stairwell.

                “A hidden door,” I mused, looking upwards as we entered the tall room. The stairs seemed to go on forever.

                “Yes,” she said, walking downwards. “Limbo’s a strange place. The lower floors don’t have any hidden doors and they’re all decorated better than what you’ve currently seen.”

                “What about the upper floors?” I asked, my eyes still guided upwards and searching for some end to the spiral staircase.

                Sloth glanced at me. “We don’t go up there."

                The put an end to the conversation and a walk that should have taken five minutes felt like hours. Eventually, Sloth pushed open a door and guided me into a long corridor that looked like it belonged in a hotel. There were small plants standing next to the walls and paintings of the sea hung up everywhere. And everything was painted in normal colours, not white.

                Sloth walked down the hallway and stopped outside another door. “This is your room.”

                She opened the door and I walked into something that looked like a penthouse apartment. There were floor to ceiling windows that showed a city during night-time. There was white furniture everywhere and a flat screen TV was pinned above a fireplace. The whole living area was open floor and I could see my black kitchen and a dining table to the left of it. I turned back to Sloth.

                “This is amazing.”

                She smiled. “We do our best.”

                “How long did it take to put all of this together?” I asked, dragging my hands across the soft fabric of the sofas.

                She paused, thinking. “Only an hour or two. Things get done fast down here.”

                “It’s perfect,” I said, grinning as I sat down. There was a silence that filled the air. I broke it with something I thought was a rude question as soon as it left my mouth. “How did you die?”

                Sloth widened her eyes and I could tell she was shocked I’d asked. I wondered if it was unusual to be curious about such a thing. But her eyes softened after a moment.

                “I was poisoned.”

                I jolted upright. “You were murdered?”

                She paused again. “I suppose you could say that, yes.” She raised her clipboard. “I need to talk with you about meeting Doc. Would you like to meet him next Sunday?”

                “I guess so. Erm… What day is it?”

                “Oh.” Sloth reached down into the pocket of her joggers and handed me a watch. “I need to give you this. It’s already calibrated and everything.”

                I strapped it to my wrist and saw it was one of those fancy ones with the date and the temperature on it. I was surprised to see it read that it was July 31^st, a full two months after my plane crash.

                “Best not to think on it too much,” Sloth said, reading my mind. “About the watch, don’t be an idiot and give it to anyone. It’s just for you, understand?”

                I nodded.

                “Great,” she smiled. “Now, make yourself at home and I’ll see you on Monday.”

                I held up my hand in farewell and she left. I checked all of the doors, first encountering a bathroom on the right side of the apartment near the inner wall. But I found my room right next to it and saw it had the same view of night time in the window and the one in the living area. I closed the curtains, noticing the small pixels that decorated the glass, and collapsed into my bed.

My office had the distinct smell of bleach smothered by apples and strawberries. It made me wrinkle my nose as I stepped in. I put the small booklet of papers Sloth had given me on my desk and saw down. It was clear this office had used to belong to someone else. The leather chair was wrinkled and all the books had cracks down their spines. The old Envy had been here. I couldn’t help but wonder how his first days had been.

                On the cover of the small booklet I now focused my eyes on was my real name, Miles Gray. I knew that I’d never hear it spoken aloud again and, before I could get nostalgic about life, I flipped the page. There were a series of questions, all focused on how I had lived my life and what I had achieved. I tried to fill every question as much as possible, believing that the more I wrote would show how accomplished I was in life. By the end of the day I had completed half of the booklet.

                I walked out and tried to find the door to the stairwell.

                “Having trouble, are you?” a voice boomed down the corridor. I looked over my shoulder to see Gluttony laughing and walking towards me. “A bit of advice for you, my friend. Count the steps from your office to the door. Otherwise you’ll never find it.”

                He pushed against a spot that was just inches away from where I’d been standing and it pushed open. I flushed from embarrassment.

                “Thank you,” I said.

                “It’s fine. I struggled a lot when I was first here too. I think everyone did, if you don’t count Pride’s lies.”

                I smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

                He laughed like the jolly man he was and walked through the door to the stairwell. I let it swing shut behind him and took heed to his words. I counted thirteen steps between the door and my office. And then I went to bed.

I sat with the booklet at my dining table. It was strange to see the kitchen right next to me but have no use for it whatsoever. But wherever I thought about food, the act of eating it wasn’t something I could comprehend. It’s like I’d forgotten what food was important for.

                My head sunk into my hands and part of the booklet before me remained blank. It was asking about what my daily routine in life had been. But I couldn’t remember. It hadn’t seemed important back then and during the last year, I had lived like I was in another person’s body. And the last few days before I’d died had been unusual, getting ready for my journey.

                I decided to write what I imagined was normal; waking up, eating, watching TV, working, and sleeping. After, the booklet was done and I made my way towards my office.

                I met Gluttony at the stairs and, as usual, he had a smile. “Going up?”

                I waved at him and we ascended the stairs, the booklet swinging in my hand.

                “I can take that to Sloth, if you like?” he said. “I’m going to see her for my appointment anyway.”

                “That would be great,” I said, smiling. “I don’t know where her office is.”

                He laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. How have you found the first couple of days?”

                I shrugged. “It’s been okay. I haven’t really done anything yet.”

                He pushed open the door and let me through first. I heard him breathing a little heavier after the walk up the stairs. “You’ll regret sating that soon enough,” he laughed, wheezing. “How much do you miss food?”

                “Not at all,” I said, smiling at him as we stopped outside the door and he gained his breathe back. “I mostly just want a pack of fags.”

                He laughed again and it echoed down the creepy corridor of Limbo. “We all have our vices,” he said. “And we should know that better than anyone, eh?”

                I noticed his eyes drift over my shoulder.

                “I’ve never understood,” he started, “why we can’t talk to them.”

                “I guess it’s what Sloth said; getting to know them makes fixing them harder.”

                “You ever do that in life?” Gluttony said. I noticed his smile had faded and he had gained a more serious expression. “Divide yourself from your clients?”

                “Kind of. There was this one job I had near the end. Would have been harder to do if I knew everyone there with me.”

                “I talked to people,” he said, eyes still on the queue. “I owned a chain of restaurants in the sixties. Talked to everyone who walked through the doors.” He must have realised the dejected and embarrassed look on my face. I felt as though he were judging me. “You seem like a nice enough guy, though,” he rushed. “Maybe we can be friends if they’re out of bounds. Anyway, have a good day.”

                “Same to you,” I said, smiling.

                We walked in our opposite directions and I stared at the queues as I approached my office. I understood what both Sloth and Gluttony were saying. We needed to distance ourselves but, at the same time, wasn’t it strange to only be friends with the same six people? I was already sure I wasn’t going to be the best of friends with a few of them.

                The smell as I opened my office door jolted me out of my thoughts and I held my sleeve to my nose. I already hated the smell of strawberries without it attempting to cover up something that smelt even more disgusting. It did my best to get used to it next to the door before walking all the way in and sitting down in the worn leather chair. I wasn’t sure what to do. Yesterday my time had been filled by the booklet. There was nothing else for me to do today.

                I pulled open the drawers and started to rifle through them. The top one contained pens and the bottom drawer was empty. I tried to find something to entertain myself and found a pen with a small rubber duck floating at the top of it. I turned it over and watched as the duck bobbed to the top again. I was smiling at it when Wrath walked in. I put it down.

                “How can I help you?” I said, making my voice deeper to make up for the embarrassing position I’d just found myself in.

                She walked in and closed the door. She sat across from me with her arms folded and, despite this being my office, she seemed to command the entire room. “Sloth’s busy so I’m here to show you the ropes.”

                I cleared my throat to make room for some words. “Okay.” It came out as a squeak and I ducked my head in embarrassment. She didn’t seem to notice.  

                “First, I need you to deal with the people who died feeling jealous. Unfortunately, if you die with strong emotions, it’s hard to get over in death without any help.”

                “Is that what happened with you?”

                That was the wrong thing to say.

                “Excuse me?”

                I coughed. “Nothing.

                She held my eyes with a glare that didn’t dissipate as she moved onto the next topic. “Anyway… You need to be sympathetic with the poor sods since they’ve just died and they’ve been waiting in the queue for longer than should be allowed. If you come across any annoying ones, though, you’re still entitled to voice your opinion.”

                I assumed she’d come across a few annoying people in her time.

                “They’ll fill out their forms and hand them to the sentry’s,” Wrath continued. “If they’re fine, they get sent to the top without needing to see anyone. But if the sentry thinks they need to see one of us or the Doc, he’ll put the form through one of those… and then they’ll be scheduled for a meeting with us. There’s normally just a few people per day that you have to deal with. Most people just die feeling at peace or scared. I’ll show you to your room and sit with you for a few people. Then you should be able to work through them on your own.”

                I stood when she stood and followed her out of the room into the disconcerting world of Limbo. She led me down to the waiting room, past Death’s door and down a small corridor right next to the entity’s office. I felt the eyes of the queue on my back and my cheeks reddened. As soon as we were out of their view, I gave a sigh of relief and soon Wrath pushed through a door with ‘Envy’s Waiting Room’ written on it.

                Five people were waiting inside, all of whom had anxious expressions on their faces. I studied each of their faces as we walked to the door on the other side of the room and decided that no one there had anything to be envious about in terms of looks. None of them were bad looking. They didn’t look like Lust or Pride but I doubted anyone did.

                Wrath held open the door and I walked through. This office had a more pleasant smell and looked a lot less used than my other office. I sat down on the chair behind the desk and heard the reassuring squeak of a new leather chair. Wrath pulled a chair up next to me and sat.

                “Okay,” she said. “There are speakers in the waiting room. All you need to do is speak into here,” she pointed to a microphone, “and wait for someone to come in. The list of names should be on… on this.”

                This was the computer in front of me and Wrath was waving her hands at it with a disgusted expression on her face. I wondered how she dealt with her own patients when she was from a time without computers. I turned the screen on and was surprised to see five bars of Wi-Fi show up in the corner. I was tempted to browse the internet but instead opened a folder with ‘Patients’ written below it. I read through the single document within it.

                “Who do I pick first?”

                “Pick the one you’d like help with,” Wrath said, like it was obvious.

                I looked down the list again and decided on Evette Stone, a middle aged woman who had been so jealous of those around her, she had taken her own life. I called her name into the microphone and about five seconds later there was a knock at the door.

                “Come in,” Wrath called out, and she looked at me in a way that made me think I should have done the calling.

                The woman who entered was plain. She was well dressed (I was well aware that one kept their clothes after death and wondered who she’d expected to find her body) and walked with a straight back. She sat down in front of us and her eyes switched between each of our faces.

                “What am I doing here?” she asked, settling them on me. “Why can’t I just go straight up with the rest of them?”

                Wrath answered before I got the chance. “I’m afraid we just need to talk some things out with you before you go upstairs. We don’t want you feeling anything that could impact your own happiness.”

                “It says Envy on the door,” she started, looking over her shoulder. I imagined this was how I looked during my meeting with Death.

                “Yes, that’s me,” I said. “Like my colleague”- I didn’t want to confuse her by saying Wrath- “said, we just want to make you feel better about yourself before going up. Clearly, you were upset when you died.”

                “Is this about how I died?” she asked, glancing down at the hands in her lap.

                I paused. Wrath saw I was struggling and took the question. “That has something to do with it,” she said. “Listen, you’re a wonderful person and there is no one here you should envy. We are all equals.”

                “I just-“

                “You can do whatever you want here,” Wrath continued, refusing to let the woman argue. “You can achieve anything you want. You can make friends, paint, write, and eat to your heart’s content. Whatever you want is yours. So there’s no reason to be jealous of anyone. Envy doesn’t belong in heaven.”

The next couple of days passed in a rush. My training with Wrath had finished and I was able to deal with the patients on my own. Often, I wanted to check up on them and see how they were doing but Wrath made it clear that once they were in heaven, they were out of bounds.

                At the end of a long day on Sunday, I yawned into my hand. There was still paperwork to be filled out. It was all just so that Death could see who needed more help and who could be sent up top. I had been informed that Sloth dealt with anybody I’d not been able to help and, if she wasn’t available, Death would take over. They seemed competent at their jobs so I didn’t tell any lies when it came to my patients. When I’d finished all the paperwork, I walked ten steps past Gluttony’s door to the staff room. I opened the door to one of the pigeon holes Wrath had shown me and was surprised to see the amount of paperwork that had piled up in there. I pulled all of the papers out and started to organise them.

                I found something. It was just a single piece of torn paper amongst the dozens of folders I sorted through. But it had a rushed message on it that would have scared me to death if I weren’t already there.

                Dear Envy,

                                I have come to the decision that I must do something. That means you’re now in charge. Don’t trust them. None of them. Help all those you can and forget about those you can’t. If I fail, you will get this message.

                All the best, Envy

I didn’t tell anyone about the message. I wasn’t sure why but I trusted in the old Envy’s warnings and my curiosity about his disappearance had grown over the last day. He had, most likely, failed in whatever he’d planned on doing otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the message. I had no idea what it was about but it seemed foreboding enough for me to pay attention to.

                I was walking down the thin corridor of Limbo with a couple of folders held between my crossed arms and my chest. I got to my office door and stood outside looking at it whilst I thought.

                His name was now mine. It was disconcerting. I felt like I’d somehow stolen his identity, that my personality had sunk in line with his and I would commit the same mistakes as he did.

                My stomach turned over and summersaulted as I opened my office door. The smell settled on the tip of my tongue, giving me something to taste that no food would be able to rid me of.

                I pushed through it. Feeling nauseous and a headache coming on, I collapsed into my chair. I placed the folders on my desk and read over the name on the top one. ‘Miles Gray.’ The second folder was pulled out from under it and hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk. I didn’t want to believe I had it.

                I opened my folder and saw little notes next to the form I had completed upon my arrival to Limbo. I had trouble reading her handwriting but managed to gather the general message that she believed I had been tormented in life. I frowned at that. Despite the little I had accomplished and the lack of energy I’d displayed in life, I’d been happy. I thought that was all that mattered. And, up until my last few days, I was pleased with what I’d done.

                There was a knock on the door before I could turn the page and Sloth walked in with a clipboard in hand before I could invite her.

                “Did you forget it’s Monday?” she asked.

                It took me a moment to understand what she was talking about. “I was supposed to have my appointment. Sorry. I forgot.”

                She smiled at me and then looked down at the folder I was trying to hide. She chuckled.

                “Don’t worry, I did the same thing when I got here and I’m sure the rest did as well. Although I don’t think Pride would admit it.” She sat in the chair opposite me. “I had to steal mine from right under Death’s nose. I mean, if Death has a nose.”

                “I just wanted to see my life from someone else’s perspective,” I said, smiling sheepishly.

                She didn’t blink an eyelid. “You mean like your death?”

                I dropped my eyes. “So, you know about that?”

                “Yeah but I don’t care as long as you do a good job here. Make up for your mistakes.” She stopped talking for a moment to look down at the clipboard. “Do you want to just do your interview here?”

                “Sure.”

                She lifted a pen from behind her ear and started to write down some notes. I straightened my back a little to see if I could read them but it was pointless. She lifted her head and smiled at me when she’d finished.

                “First question. How did you feel when you first arrived here?”

                I paused. That wasn’t the kind of question I expected and I thought on it before I answered. “A little confused. Didn’t know there was an afterlife and had kind of prepared for nothingness when I stepped onto that plane.”

                “So you were shocked?”

                “At first. But the shock of Limbo was replaced with meeting Death. After that, everything else seemed relatively normal.”

                She laughed. “Do you still feel that way?”

                I ignored the tingling feeling in the back of my mind and the tip of my tongue begging to say something about the old Envy’s note. “No. It’s a little weird but I’m okay with it.”

                She studied me for a moment and I had a feeling that she knew I was lying but she scribbled whatever she needed to down. This continued, question after question with me answering. She soon left me alone and I looked down at the folder in front of me.

                There was another folder in the bottom drawer. With a name on it just like mine. Sloth had talked to the old Envy in the same way she had just talked to me. And, if not her, then whoever was Sloth before. I had a sickening feeling in my stomach that whatever was happening now had all happened before.

                I took out the other folder and stared down at it. Then I read it.

                He’d done the same things as me. In life he had lived a small and simple life with no friends or family to speak of. He’d had a boring life and an exciting death that filled him with guilt. It all sounded very familiar and filled me with a sense of dread.

                My face paled as I turned to the last page and saw a near reflection of myself in his face. Dark and sullen eyes. A frown on his lips that looked near constant enough to cause slight wrinkles under his cheeks. Buzz cut. I hugged my chest and shivered. Bile was rising up my throat and my head spun in circles.

                I closed the folder, not wanting to look at the face anymore. I put it back in my desk drawer and left my office. As I walked down the spiralled staircase to the lower floor, I felt like I was falling into the same pitfalls the old Envy had fallen into.

“Envy, nice to meet you. I’m Doc.”

                I smiled and reached out to shake the big man’s hand. He looked like he’d been a bouncer in life and I hand to hold in a whimper as he squeezed me hand in a shake.

                “You’re smaller than the old one,” he laughed. He sat down behind his desk and gestured for me to take the seat opposite him. I looked around his office once I’d sat down. It was white, like a lot of Limbo, but there were shadows in the corners and shelves on the walls that made it look like an ordinary everyday doctor’s office.

                “We’re going to perform surgery on a woman who was in a car crash,” Doc said, staring into the screen of his computer. “She can’t fill out her paperwork so we’ll have to wait for her information until after she wakes up.”

                “So is this plastic surgery?”

                Doc raised his shoulders. “Kind of. We just add materials and mould them into shape.” He finished off on the computer and stood up. “Do you want to come through with me?”

                I felt as though I had no choice and so agreed, following him through a door that connected his office to a medical theatre. I didn’t look at the woman as I entered the room as Doc turned around, pointed to his eyes and then pointed to the floor. I just looked at my feet as he spoke to the woman.

                “Are you ready to go to sleep?” he asked.

                I heard her head shift as she consented and then the press of a button. After a few seconds, the doctor patter me on the shoulder and I looked up.

                “You can look at her now.”

                I hesitated before lifting my head and looking at the face of the woman. She was covered in horrific scars from head to toe and both of her hands were missing, replaced with bloody stumps. I guessed that was why she couldn’t fill out the forms. Half of her nose was missing and I could see straight through her skull and into the worm pink brain.

                I looked away.

                The doctor laughed. “It takes a while getting used to,” he said. “I can start you out with some smaller stuff if you like?”

                “Like what?” I said, risking a glance at the woman again and turning away as bile rose in my throat.

                “Minor injuries. A missing toe, finger, or eye. Nothing like this.”

                “I’d prefer that.”

                He laughed again. “Fair enough. Just see yourself out. I’ll send you one of those email things and schedule you in for a different surgery.”

                I left the room as fast as possible and headed past all of the other waiting rooms until I got to mine. I stepped through the door, glancing at the sleeping faces of all my patients, and walked into my office. I took all the paperwork and then headed back into Limbo, down the stairs, and towards my apartment.

                Lust was coming up the stairs as I walked down. “Done for the day?” she asked.

                I looked down at my watch. “Aren’t you? It’s almost midnight.”

                She shrugged. “Pride and I were going to take a trip to the ground floor.”

                “The ground floor?”

                “Earth.”

                I frowned. “How do you get to Earth?”

                She had a sly smile on her face. “We have our ways.” She could see that I was going to ask what those ways were because she answered the question without it needing to be said. “We move through bodies.”

                My frown deepened. “I thought only Death could do that.” I’d asked Death how it was possible to get down to Earth and had been replied with a firm statement that what Death could do was something nobody else should do.

                “Only Death is allowed to do it,” Lust said. She started to walk upwards again. “See you tomorrow, Envy.”

“Elle Green.”

                I released the button of the microphone and brought up a form on the computer that I could fill out whilst the patient was talking to me. I had pushed all of my reasonable paranoia to the back of my head and decided that that was where it would stay until the end of time.

                There was a small knock at the door and soon after it was pushed open. A beautiful woman walked through it and I wondered what she was envious about. A glance at the computer screen made her much less attractive.

                “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked, after smiling at her and waving her towards the chair opposite me.

                “Because of the way I died?” she said, dragging out the sentence and letting her sarcasm hang in the air. I gritted my teeth. I’d dealt with several patients like this, who much rather would go upstairs in a bad mood than talk it out with someone.

                I turned towards the screen. “Yes. It says here that you broke into a bank vault and killed several hostages before being shot by the police. Is that right?”

                She hummed and I thought she looked far too relaxed in the chair for my liking, more so after admitting to a crime like that. I wondered if she’d stood in the queue with the people she’d killed.

                “You aren’t allowed to go upstairs with feelings of jealousy,” I said, shrugging at her and trying to ignore the nagging feeling that I’d forgotten something I shouldn’t have.

                “Well, there’s no reason to be jealous here,” she muttered, seeming bored. “No one has any money here.”

                “I guess that’s a good enough excuse. You can go then.”

                I started to fill out her form for Death. At least people like her were easier to report. A simple envious feeling for money wasn’t hard to explain. I looked back at her still sitting in the chair as I sent off the form.

                “You can go if you want,” I said. “I have more patients coming in so-“

                “There was something else I wanted to talk about,” she said, interrupting me. I looked down at my watch and saw the day was almost up.

                “Can this wait until tomorrow morning?” I asked, my eyes softening as I met hers. Her confident expression had faded and now she appeared to be troubled by something.

                “That’s fine,” she said. She got up to leave but turned around when she got to the door. “Erm… How do I tell the time in this place?”

                I smiled. “If you just wait in the next room, I’ll see you in the morning.”

                She frowned. “I actually need to meet Death after this. I’m going to be shown some things.”

                I wondered what it was Death was going to show her. I saw that she’d already seen Greed when I’d finished off the form. So she should just be able to go straight upstairs. I shrugged it off and sighed.

                “Are you going to leave Limbo?”

                She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

                I slipped my wristwatch off. “Okay. If you’re not going anywhere, you can take this. But you need to bring it straight back tomorrow.”

                She nodded and took it. “Thanks.”

                I held down the button to the microphone as she left the room. “Benjamin Taylor.”

I had a panic attack as I walked through the door of my waiting room the next morning and found that Elle wasn’t there. I walked straight up to Gluttony’s office and knocked on the door. He seemed like the friendliest person I’d met so far and I hoped he’d be able to help me.

                He opened the door. “Hey, Envy. What can I do for you?”

                I squeezed past him and stood with him in his office as he closed the door, suspicious of what I was up to. “What happens if you give your watch to someone?”

                His face dropped from a suspicious smile to a frown. “Didn’t Sloth tell you not to give it to anyone?”

                “Well, yes, but… I gave it to one of my patients. I thought she’d come back but she hasn’t. I told her not to leave Limbo-“

                “It doesn’t matter,” Gluttony said, sighing. I felt upset that he was disappointed in me. “You shouldn’t give the watch to anyone. If your patient takes it upstairs, there will be time up there. And there can’t be time in heaven.”

                “Why not?”

                “Because then people will start dying.” He groaned to himself and seemed to look around the office for a way to explain. “Listen, we’re all dead down here. That’s why we can live in time without aging, or eating, or whatever. But upstairs, they’re immortals because there’s no time for them to be altered in. They’re not alive but they’re not dead. Understand?”

                “I think so.”

                “So you need to get that watch back.”

                I paused. “How, exactly?”

                Gluttony sighed. “I don’t know. Search Limbo for her and if she’s not here, she’s likely up top.”

                I got the feeling that Gluttony was struggling between being a good friend and protecting himself. So I just agreed with him and then left the room, not wanting him to be in any more trouble than I’d already placed him in.

               

Elle wasn’t in Limbo. I had gone around all the waiting rooms and asked everyone I’d seen if they’d spotted a tall blonde anywhere but everything had failed. My last hope had been Greed but he didn’t answer when I knocked on his office door and he had pinned a note outside of his apartment telling everyone that Sloth thought it best he take a holiday.

                So that left up top. And getting there was already far more difficult than I’d thought it would be. I knew that we were forbidden from going up but until now I hadn’t realised just how serious Death was about it. Guards stood outside of the stairwell for the dead to get from Limbo to heaven. I felt them stare back at me through their clear visors. I turned away and bit at my thumb nail, thinking about some other way of getting upstairs.

                I went to the stairwell between my office and Gluttony’s and looked upwards. The stairs led upwards for a floor. I had a feeling Death wouldn’t put such temptation for all of the sins in the well leading to their apartments if it led to heaven.

                But I climbed the stairs, placing one foot in front of the other and feeling my thigh muscles strain the further I got. After a much longer time than I’d thought would take to climb one floor had passed, I got to a locked door.

                I held the rusted padlock in my hand. I was pretty sure I would be able to break it but didn’t want to create an echo down the stairwell when any one of the sins could enter the well at any minute. So, I took off my cardigan to muffle the sound and secured a tight grip on the lock before pulling on it. I heard it creak but my arms gave in and I gasped for breathe before it broke. I waited a moment, regaining myself and straightening up, before trying again. The lock snapped and I bumped into the banister on the stairs, hissing as it bruised my side.

                I rubbed away the pain and put my cardigan back on, placing the lock inside one of my pockets before entering the door.

                The corridor before me was, in so many ways, much worse than the stretched corridors and the waiting room of Limbo. I had seen optical illusions that looked a lot like this corridor; black and then white and then black and then white. Over and over, for an eternity. I rubbed my eyes as I stepped further inside. My head tumbled and nausea hit me hard. I felt hungover and dizziness occupied all of my senses. I swayed and hit one of the walls, sinking down it and to the floor. I felt tears start to fill my eyes and a sense of numbness; despite the exit being right next to me, I didn’t want to move towards it. I didn’t want to move anywhere.

                But I did. I crawled down the corridor and towards one of the doors that had been placed inside one of the black stripes on the wall. I pushed it open, not caring if anyone was inside, and saw an abandoned office. The carpet had peeled up from the corners and had taken on a brown colour I doubted had been the original design. The red wallpaper had taken on scratches and black marks. The shelves pinned to the wall were either half hanging down or had bowed in the middle from the stacks of books upon them. The ceiling had a yellow hue.

                I felt disgusted to be here but there was at least something of use to me. In the corner of the office was a desk and a chair had been placed on it. It was all up against an open vent near the ceiling. I climbed onto the desk and the chair and then stood on my toes to look into the opening. I knew from a glance that it was too small for me to climb through and I wouldn’t be able to find a way of getting up there anyway.

                I left the room and got back onto my hands and knees, shuffling across the white and black floor below me and checking every single room that I passed. The next two looked the same as the previous one. And so did the forth. And the fifth.

                I paused then and peered back out of the doorway and down the long corridor. I turned the other way and saw the door through which I had entered was a couple of meters away from me. And this was the first room in the hallway.

                I stared at it for a while. That open door that led to the winding stairwell. And then I walked towards it, keeping my eyes pinned to it so that I didn’t get sick with all the black and white around me. When I got to the stairwell, I looked back. Only the first doorway in the long corridor filled with doorways was open. I shook my head and decided the last hour or two had been pointless. I wasn’t going to go through a loop like that again. I trudged down the stairs.

                Death was waiting for me on Limbo’s floor.

                “What were you doing?”

                I glanced up the stairs and realised that this looked a little suspicious. “I was curious,” I said, passing it off with a shrug of my shoulders.

                I felt an eyebrow being raised in my direction. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your missing watch, would it?”

                I frowned. “How do you-“

                “I make it my job to know things,” Death said before reaching a hand into one of the large black pockets in the robe. “Here it is.” I took my watch from one of the gloved hands and looked up with a confused expression.

                “How did you get this?”

                “I have my ways of doing things.”

                Death turned to go but I ran to push the door shut so I could continue the conversation. “Where is Elle?” I asked.

                “Who?”

                “Elle Green? The woman who had my watch.”

                Death raised cloaked shoulders. “I don’t know. And you needn’t concern yourself with the dead, Envy. Not after you’ve finished treating them.”

                “But-“

                “I need to do some work,” Death said, an annoyed tone passing through the already dark voice. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving.”

                I moved out of the way and watched the entity leave.

I had been staring at my watch for over an hour whilst thinking about what had happened to Elle. Whilst the problem of there being time upstairs had now been resolved, my paranoia had bubbled to the surface and now, in my head, Elle’s disappearance couldn’t help but be linked with whatever had happened to the old Envy.

                I made the decision to force myself from the chair and head down the corridor of offices in Limbo. Lust’s office was opposite Gluttony’s and it was the first place I called for. However, five minutes of waiting and multiple knocks led to nothing and so I moved onto the next office. Pride’s.

                The door opened straight away.

                “How can I help you?” Lust asked and I saw Pride smirking from behind her shoulder.

                “I need to talk to you. I want to know how you move through bodies.”

                Pride straightened up and walked over to place a hand on Lust’s waist and guide her out of the room. “Nope. I’m sorry. I will not be in the room whilst you discuss such things.”

                I frowned and Lust rolled her eyes. Pride looked a little hurt.

                “I will not be punished by Death,” he said, and then he shut the door.

                Lust walked with me to her office.           

                “You know it’s against the rules?” she said, sitting behind her desk and indicating that I should sit in the chair opposite her. “Technically, Death is the only one who should be able to move through bodies.”

                “Then how do you do it?” I asked.

                Lust sighed and leant forwards, arms folded on the desk. “Are you sure you want to do this? Why are you even asking?”

                I paused. Should I tell her? “I’m worried about what happened to one of my patients. I’m just going to check and then I’ll leave it be.”

                “Okay, the first thing you need to know is that this is a lot like what happens when you die. Both your physical and mental body become unconscious and then you move your mental body into something new. Understand?”

                “Yes.” Sloth had explained a little of what happened after death to me. She told me about the reason we were able to walk about in Limbo was due to the duplicated bodies created here. They couldn’t just bring dead bodies up after all.

                “This is like that but before you lose consciousness you think of the person you want to be. That’s why everyone here looks a little better than they did in life.”

                I smiled. “Yeah, I guessed.”

                Lust smiled back but it sank like a weight and was replaced with a serious expression. “While you’re gone, your body in Limbo will be dead. So you need to be smart about where you put it.”

                “Okay,” I said. “How do I lose consciousness?”

                Lust raised an eyebrow. “You die, of course.”

               

She had given me a potion she used and told me to take it somewhere I was sure I wouldn’t be found and where my body wouldn’t ache afterwards from falling over or something. So, I chose my bed. I locked my apartment door and kept the key in the lock. Then I locked my bedroom door too, for good measure.

                I drank the potion and, whilst waiting for it to work, thought about Elle. My thoughts didn’t stay on her for long though and soon drifted to my predecessor. This would be the perfect opportunity to find out where he was and what had happened to him whilst he was on Limbo.

                I started coughing and felt my lungs dry up. I was a little thankful that I hadn’t been poisoned in life like Sloth because the feeling was horrible. It caused my toes to curl and my hands to clench, causing cramps in my feet and fingers. It didn’t last long though. Soon enough, I blacked out.

I opened my eyes and the first thing I thought was that I was a little taller. The second thing I thought was to curse at myself. Death was standing right in front of me.

                “-upset but isn’t he your friend?” Death said. I realised he was talking to the old Envy, not me.    

                I just stared at the shadow in the hood

                Death must have confused my stare of ignorance for one of annoyance because a sigh escaped the darkness. “Well, you both deserve to be down here. It makes me sad that you decided to betray me but maybe it’s for the best. The two new guys upstairs are perfect for the jobs.”

                I kept my face straight and didn’t say anything.

                “I’ll be going now.” At that, the cloaked figure turned to walk away and then faded into thin air.

                I looked around and knew in an instant where I was. Hell. Like Limbo, there was no end to the scale of the room I stood in but I knew it was a room from the horrid red carpet beneath my feet and the destroyed furniture that lay in stacks around me. It was a dark place, the only light coming from the occasional crack in the floor through which molten lava lay.

                There were people everywhere, in a lot more of a disordered manner than in Limbo. They were either hacking at large boulders with blunt pickaxes or pulling on the said large boulders with thick pieces of rope. I had a feeling the large stones had been placed there just for their torture.

                I recognized a couple of their faces.

                “Evette?” I said, walking up to one of the women dressed in some baggy sweats and a vest. She lifted her axe and brought it down against the stone where it did nothing but bounce right back off. She didn’t seem to hear me.

                Next to her was Benjamin and next to him was Tiffany. All of them were patients I had treated in the few weeks I’d been Envy. They looked miserable and I knew that didn’t deserve to be here.

                “They won’t hear you,” a voice said in my ear. “All they can hear now is the sound of cogs spinning away.”

                I looked around and saw no one behind me.

                “I’m in your head,” the voice said. “Or, in my head, I suppose.”

                “You’re the old Envy?” I asked, keeping my voice low as I felt a little self-conscious speaking to someone in my head.

                “Yes,” was the reply. “I guess you’re wondering what’s going on here?”

                I didn’t even have to say anything before he started to explain.

                “Well, anyone who is sent to us is sent here,” the old Envy said, sounding depressed in every sense of the word. “Death claims it’s because there’s little space up top.”

                “What do you think it is?” I asked, assuming he wasn’t finished speaking or saying what he wanted to say.

                He paused for a moment. “I think Death is devouring their souls. Multiple souls would allow you to be in many different places at once, it would mean you could never be killed and it would require you to not have a body. Remind you of somebody?”

                I tried to nod again but realised the old Envy had regained control over his body and was now walking in random paths about the place.

                “Why can’t I trust anyone in Limbo?” I asked, deciding to make the most of my time here.

                He sighed. “I’m convinced some of them are in on it. Or in on something. I don’t know. But there are some things I’ve seen that had proven they’re deceitful.”

                “What things?”

                The old Envy looked over his shoulder and I saw Greed approaching. I wondered why he was down here for a moment.

                “Just be careful, okay?” the old Envy said. “You’re the only one who can do anything about this now. Think about yourself.”

                I paused. What was that supposed to mean? And then the old Envy jumped into one of the cracks of lava and I screamed out, feeling my skin melt from my bones and my blood boil. My hair singed from my scalp and I attempted to grip the floor out of the crack above me. The current of the lava pulled me down and I felt an itch all over, like a million red ants crawling over my body.

                Within moments, it was over.