"The rules are quite simple," she said, her hands entwined together. "Complete the test, and you can go on to the next. Fail the test," she looked straight at Henry, "and you will not." She smiled to herself, and then repeated, "Simple. You may help each other if you wish on some occasions, but on others you must compete. This is different from other...game shows."

"How so?" I asked.

"If you fail a test, you don't go home."

I was about to ask what happened to us, but Pride cut me off, saying, "You are out of your mind!"

She glared at him, but composed herself. "Your first test will commence soon. Be ready." She then turned and walked into the trees, blending in and then disappearing altogether.

I looked into the circle, fear in my eyes, to see Jonas running towards me.

"This is crazy," he said. "But we should stick together. If it has anything to do with strength you're doomed."

I shrugged. He was right. "Okay, then where are we going to go?" I asked.

"I don't know, but it's getting dark and anywhere but here will be cold without a fire."

Just as he finished his sentence, the torches went out and it got dark. And he was right; it immediately got cold. I hugged myself, looking around.

"These trees are so close together," Envy complained. I had already forgotten her name. I heard footsteps and the sound of someone entering the trees, but it was too dark to see exactly who it was.

Jonas grabbed my arm. "Come on, we need to stay warm."

"Um, maybe we should all stick together in one big group," I said loudly so that the people in the trees could hear.

"She's right, you know," came a girl's voice.

"Then they should come this way," said Richard, which would mean the girl was Envy.

"No, we should stay in the Ring," Envy argued.

"We're going this way," Richard said loudly, "Alright? Where are you going, Maecy? Stop!"

Maecy emerged from the trees again, Richard stalking behind her. I looked at Jonas with my eyebrow raised, only to see Haley standing very close to him.

"Lay off, Lust," Jonas said, moving away from her. "Let's all make a fire here. Someone find wood, someone find dry grass or something. Wynn, since you probably can't do any of that, you can make a place to start the fire, preferably not in the Ring."

"Stop giving us orders, Greed. If anyone should lead us, it should be me," said Pride.

"Omg, stop trying to be the bigger man, Pride," said Haley. "Greed obviously knows what he's talking about. You should give other people a chance."

Pride glared at her. "Don't tell me what to do. I can do everything myself." Pride stomped into the trees.

"Jeez."

"Alright everyone, let's go find the stuff," said Maecy. They grouped up and headed into the jungle.

Henry sidestepped towards me. "I'll help make a place for the fire."

I scanned the ground. The reality of it being dark finally fully set in. "Well this is going to be harder than I thought," I commented.

Henry nodded. "That lady is kind of a jerk. She didn't even tell us what we had to do to pass the test."

"Unfortunately, I think that's the point." I stepped out of the Ring and got onto my hands and knees, searching for rocks. "Could you help me find rocks? We need to make a little circle of them so the fire can't spread. And I'll gather up some grass to use."

I heard Henry cross the Ring. Scratching my arm, I gathered up all the rocks I could find. They weren't very big, but I hoped they would work. It wouldn't be too big of a fire.

Henry came over beside me and dropped a ton of rocks that were about the size of my fists put together onto the ground. They were almost two times the size of the ones I had found. "Are these okay?" he asked.

"Wow. Yeah, they're perfect." We placed them in a circle, then pulled up a couple handfuls of lush, green grass and put them in the middle. "Now we wait for the others to get back." I sat down beside the circle of rocks, playing with my laces. Henry sat beside me.

"It's kind of obvious that you're Sloth," he said. "You got me to find the rocks."

"Hey, I was looking for rocks too but you found ones that were a better size."

"That's because I went looking around more. You stayed in one place. Try looking around more next time."

I crossed my arms over my chest, trying not to retaliate, as it was also obvious that he was Gluttony. I tried my best not to stick my tongue out at him.

There was a crashing in the trees to my left, and two people holding what looked like a few logs entered the circle. I got up to help them bring the logs over to the circle of rocks Henry and I had made, just to prove him wrong. I'm not that lazy. As I got closer, I could see that it was Jonas and Maecy. Maecy was actually carrying more.

"Let me help," I suggested to her. "We made a place over there, by Henry." I pointed towards where Henry was standing, and Maecy and Jonas both walked over there without letting me help. At least I'd offered, I guess.

"Hey Wynn, come over here, will you?" asked Jonas.

I walked back over to the pit, where Maecy and Jonas had set up the logs. "So are we just going to rub two sticks together?"

"No, Maecy found flint, so we can use that."

Maecy took the flint out of her pockets and struck them against each other, but nothing happened. Her brow furrowed and she tried again, swiping them together with more force. Still no spark. She threw the flint at the ground.

Jonas picked them up. "Here," he said as he passed the two flat rocks to me, "Maybe you should try. Just hit them across each other until you get a spark, and I'll blow on it to make the fire."

I swiped them against each other sharply, and when a spark flew from the rocks Jonas bent down, put his hand around one side of the spark, and blew softly, until the spark became a small, flickering, orange flame that grew more as it devoured the grass, until the tongues licked at the logs.

"This should do. Good job, Wynn." Jonas patted me on the back and I saw Maecy look at me enviously.

"That was cool," I said, as two more people emerged from the bush. It was Richard and Haley, who were coming back from their mission to obtain more wood. I saw that they were successful.

"Hey, you made a fire!" Haley said with excitement. Richard was carrying a few small sticks, while Haley was empty handed.

"You could have yelled or something to let us know you made it," Richard said angrily.

"We need sticks anyway," Jonas said as he walked up to Richard and took the sticks out of his hands. He placed a few in the fire, leaning them against the logs. "Now we can relax."

"But what about Pride?" asked Haley. He must have really caught her eye. I had forgotten about him.

"He's on his own now," Richard said. "If he doesn't want to do group work, he might as well just stay in the woods."

"But what if he gets hurt?"

"We can't exactly help him if he doesn't want us to," said Jonas, which was a really good point. "We don't even know where he is."

"We need to find him, he could be hurt!" Haley exclaimed.

Maecy rolled her eyes. "I'm jealous of him right now, I'd rather not have to deal with her."

"Either way it's too dark to go looking for him," I added, "so we should wait until morning to look."

"Okay," she mumbled, though she didn't seem to like the idea.

Without warning, someone came crashing through the brush, wielding a hog.

"Pride!" Haley exclaimed. "You found us food!"

The hog, about the size of my torso, was pouring blood, covering Pride from head to toe in red. It was running down his face and matting his hair. His once white shirt was a deep red colour, along with his fancy-looking dress pants. It looked like it was dripping into his mouth, and I gagged.

"Pride," Jonas said shortly, nodding once towards him. "Nice to see you again."

Pride dropped the hog onto the ground and wiped his hands on his pants. "I see you made a fire. What a coincidence."

"Hey now, if we hadn't made the fire how would you even cook your darn hog?" I asked him. I was getting really fed up with this guy and his attitude.

"Listen you, I could have died catching this thing."

"So why didn't you want help? Don't brag to me about nearly dying when you would have set yourself up for it." I crossed my arms over my chest. I would rather he stayed away. "You didn't even want to listen to Jonas, you don't want to work as a team...what is this to you? Because it seems like you think it's a game."

"But isn't that what it is?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, but the goal of the game is to overcome your sin, not use it! You're not going to win if you keep being so...so...prideful!"

"Stop arguing!" Haley said, covering her ears with her hands.

We both stopped talking to look at her.

I clenched my jaw. Pride sighed.

"Do you want the hog or not, Sloth? Because if you don't then there's more for us."

"I'll have some of your pig! But just because you insist and I refuse to starve to death on this stupid island."

"Then it's settled. Someone cook that hog." Pride then sat down on the ground, reclining against a tree at the edge of the clearing.

"I think Pride should cook it," I suggested.

"Just be quiet, Wynn. Enough banter," Jonas said to me. "Instead, how about we ask who wants to cook it?"

Haley jumped up and down, waving her hand in the air. "Oh, I'll cook it! I like cooking!"

"Okay. Lust will cook the meat." Jonas took two sticks that looked like Ys and stuck them in the ground on either side of the fire, then broke another stick off of a tree and shoved it into the hogs mouth, all the way through until it popped back out the other end with a spurt of blood and flesh. Then he lifted it up by the stick and rested it on the two Y-shaped sticks. "Rotisserie pork," he said, holding his hands out as if to say 'voila.'

"Wonderful," I said, a grimace on my face.

Haley looked like she was going to throw up all over the fire.

I heard Pride sigh loudly from his place behind me. "Fine! I'll do it. But that weak stomach is going to cause you problems, Lust." Pride got up to stand by the fire, placing one hand on the stick to turn the hog in regular intervals.

I raised my eyebrow, but decided to stay quiet. Instead, I sat on the ground and Jonas sat beside me.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"A little," I said as my stomach growled.

"Sounds like more than a little," he said, eyebrows furrowed into a worried expression.

"Hey, don't worry about me. The food will be done eventually, and then we can all eat." I paused, looking at my feet. "We should really thank Pride. He helped us."

"But he was boasting about it. He needs to learn what humility is," Jonas said as he pulled up a handful of grass.

"Stop being so grudgy. If he hadn't brought us food we'd be going hungry tonight. He deserves some recognition." I looked over to see Pride staring at the hog. "Hey Pride, what's your real name?"

"I prefer being called Pride. It reminds me of why I'm here. Once I don't deserve to be called Pride anymore, you can ask again."

"That's a good idea," said Maecy, who was sitting against a tree closer to the fire. "It'll help us get over our sins. It'll help us win the game."

"So should we just call everyone by their sin then?"

"Everyone in favour, say aye," suggested Jonas.

Everyone said "Aye," except for one person.

Henry.

"I'd prefer not to be called fat whenever you talk about me."

"Come on, everyone is going to call me lazy!"

"And me full of lust!"

"I'll be jealous!"

"I'll be greedy."

"I'd be angry all the time," Wrath shrugged.

"And I'll be overly boastful. We can all live with it."

"Fine." Gluttony crossed his arm and kicked at the dirt.

I got up and stood in front of the fire, holding my hand out over top of it and feeling the heat warm my hand. Jon—Greed stood beside me and put his hand over mine. He nodded at me. Lust and Envy did the same, making a nearly complete circle around the fire—and hog. Gluttony sighed and stood beside Envy, followed by Wrath, and Pride took his place in between me and Wrath, placing his hand on the very top.

"On three, we yell out our sins. One, two, three."

We all yelled out our sins up towards the sky. I laughed as I looked at all the faces around me.

"Now we're all in this together," said Lust. "We help each other, and we don't let anyone fail a test."

We all wooed, and Pride turned the hog once more.

* * *

All of us were in a circle around the fire, Pride turning the hog every once in awhile. Greed was on my right, while Pride was on my left, and Wrath was beside Pride, and beside him was Gluttony, and Envy, and Lust, who was on Greed's right side. We had been talking about our life before we woke up on this dreaded island.

Greed had been the son of a wealthy family, and he was protective and selfish about his belongings. Lust was the daughter of a single mother who was only sixteen years older than Lust, a one-night-stand who slept around just for fun. Envy was the daughter of the average family, who wore a bunch of makeup to hide her natural beauty—all of it had washed off in the water—and had had many boyfriends whom she stole from other girls because she was jealous of them. Gluttony was the son of a fairly chubby family, who mostly relied on McDonald's for food and often ate so much he got a stomachache. Wrath was the son of two alcoholics, who had anger issues and was going to an anger management class before he woke up here. And Pride was the son of a businessman, who was very proud of his status as the most popular boy in school, dating the most popular girl.

And I was the daughter of a widower, who slacked off on all her chores and rarely left the house, except to go to school, and yet always procrastinated her assignments until the day before they were due.

Pride cut into the hog, and announced, "The pork is ready."

Gluttony rubbed his hands together.

Greed helped Pride cut the hog into pieces. Gluttony got the first piece, and immediately started chowing down on it.

"Mm, this is good," he said with chewed up pork stuffed into his cheek.

"Remember, we're here to get over our sins," Pride cautioned.

Suddenly, Gluttony began to choke. He dropped to his knees, holding his throat.

"Omg, does anyone know the heimlich?" Lust asked, panic concrete in her voice.

Everyone looked at each other, but no one moved. Tears were streaming down Gluttony's face, and he was turning purple. Then he collapsed. A thump was heard, and I saw Lust lying on the ground. She must have passed out.

"Gluttony?"

Greed felt for a pulse, but shook his head. "Dead."