7 Deadly Syns

Pride is where the scene is.

They always are.

Today it’s an observation deck above the Social District, wrapped in one-way glass that turns the city into a reflection until you’re close enough to realize it isn’t. From here, the crowd is abstracted. Movement without individuals. Applause without hands. 'And yea though I walk the alley, in a brush with death. I will fear no easel...for thou art is with me.'

I arrive before I’m announced. Pride notices anyway.

They don’t turn around.

“You know,” Pride says, voice tuned for engagement rather than volume, “if you stood closer to the light, you’d matter more.”

I watch their reflection instead of their face. Perfect posture. Perfect calibration. They are rendered like a promise you’d hope to be worthy of. Someday.

“I matter plenty,” I say. “Just not to them.”

Pride smiles at the glass. “There’s only one God, Envy.”

Below us, the crowd surges. A wave Pride has learned to surf without getting wet. Metrics float in the air between us. Retention curves. Engagement spikes. Little green arrows that mean obedience.

Pride gestures, and a chair materializes beside me. I do not sit.

“Greed says you map flows,” Pride continues. “That you see where value goes when it thinks no one is looking.”

“I see where attention refuses to go,” I reply. “The value follows. Hides there.”

That makes them turn.

Up close, Pride is unsettling. It’s not because they’re beautiful. It’s Because their face adjusts subtly as I look at it, responding to the fluctuation of my pupils, to what I might want to see.

They study me the way performers study silence. With suspicion for improvement.

“You could amplify this,” Pride says, nodding toward the city. “Your paths. Your blind spots. With my reach, nothing would ever be missed again. No opportunity unmagnified.”

I consider it.

The assumption—not the offer.

“You don’t want amplification,” I say. “You want validation.”

Pride laughs softly. The sound is expensive. “And you don’t?”

I think of the bus stop. The sign that lies. “TEMPORARY REROUTE.” The days that stack without consequence.

“I want substance,” I say. “There’s a difference.”

Below us, a player donates more than they can afford. Pride doesn’t look down. They don’t need to. The system tells them everything they believe matters.

“You hide,” Pride says. “That’s your weakness.”

“So do you,” I reply. “In plain sight.”

For the first time, the smile slips — just a hair. Enough to see the math behind it.

“You think if attention ever leaves you,” I continue, “you’ll vanish.”

Pride steps closer. The glass behind them reflects both of us now. One dim. One radiant.

“I think,” Pride says carefully, “if you disappeared, no one would notice.”

The metrics stutter. The system doesn’t like this conversation.

“That’s just it,” I say. “I’ve already practiced being unnoticed.”

No sound. Just subtle movement.

Pride straightens, reclaiming the room by force of habit. “You’re awfully far from your natural habitat, so I’m not sure why you’ve come. However... since you’ve decided to come all this way and abuse my metrics, perhaps we should work together,” they say. “Before someone decides we shouldn’t.”

The veiled threat.

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

I turn to leave. Pride doesn’t object, but I can feel them staring, wondering why I didn’t wait to be dismissed.

As I step out of the observation deck, I feel something settle into place.

Pride needs the crowd to feel witnessed.

The crowd needs Pride to feel salvation. Its possibility. Its promise.

So what’s my biggest fear?

That I don’t fit in anywhere...or that I’m just pretending I don’t.