Rumored to be haunted by ghosts festering in the shadowed junctures of the home, the sprawling halls and warren-like rooms, garlanded with mournful relics of the past and steeped in fragmented whispers of erstwhile times, captained far more than mere memories lapsed in the ceaseless labyrinth of trivial mortality.

Lurking within the antiquated estate were the venerable, physical embodiments of each sin—Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth—prowling with altruistic goals that clashed with their demonic statures, toiling tirelessly to assist their human “roommate” in a life peddled by work and strewn with the hurdles of temporal hardship.

Oppressed by the dictatorship of nauseating malaise and assaulted by the feverish soldiery of his unyielding affliction, he could no longer discern which accursed sin slashed at the fraying threads of his patience this time.

Whether the infernal specter was a harbinger of astringent relief by medicinal means or a wretched punisher sent to chastise his willful neglect, he craved only its eventual departure.

“I am not in the mood,” Grayson whined, his reedy voice muffled by the blankets that twisted around his torso and swaddled him in their fleecy embrace, akin to a nurturing mother shielding him from a fabled monster—personified by the biting cold outside, whose cruel tendrils clawed relentlessly at the arched windows, reflecting bestial hunger.

“I don’t feel good enough to deal with any of you.” He sank deeper into the swampy abyss of sheets. “If you’re here to bug me, do it when I don’t feel as though I’m about to die.” Sheathing his metaphorical sword, analogous to a valiant knight now waving his white flag to the enemy of labor governed by his tyrannical boss, Grayson closed his eyes.

“Get out.”