No one believed the so-called "crackpots" anymore. Nobody listened these days when a farmer claimed to see a UFO, or a woman swore she spotted Elvis at the mall eating a corndog. The world was far more skeptical than ever before. Realistically, why shouldn't it have been? This was the age of Photoshop, forged documents, and forged documents about forged documents. Too many things could be easily faked today.

Of course just because things could be faked didn't mean they necessarily were. Some paranormal events really did happen from time to time. Tonight for example, out on a field in South Park, Colorado, the ground inexplicably opened up. Smoke and fire shot out into the night sky. Soon after, a young figure dressed in an all-black robe emerged from the gaping hole. It was Damien.

Now a teenager, Damien needed to do what most teens did: Get a job. Luckily, he had a powerful father. Satan pulled some strings and got his boy a temporary job as Death. The current Grim Reaper was getting on in years, and it was well-known throughout Hell that he was searching for a replacement. During the trial period, Damien was allowed to pick a location on earth and kill those he deemed worthy. If he did well, there was a good chance he would permanently land the job. Unfortunately, there were still rules associated with life and death. Damien couldn't simply kill people at random. There was no challenge in that. He first needed a good reason to send his victims to Hell. Otherwise the deaths wouldn't stick. God had spared a lot of condemned souls because of deaths occurring before nature had properly taken its course.

Although he hadn't been to South Park in years, Damien remembered the place well. What made the town stick out most in his mind were the townspeople. They were, for the most part, horrible sinners the last time he visited. Their intolerance was once so strong it allowed Satan to come to earth. A few years before that, the fools greedily bet money on Satan in a fight he had against Jesus Christ, the alleged Lord and Savior of the small town. Truly these people were the most deserving of Damien's visit.

As he left the field and walked through town, Damien pondered why he would kill people. He still hadn't figured out a good reason, but he knew if he got the job that he'd make a great Death. As Damien walked the streets, he stared into the windows of the houses he passed. In one home, a man was taking money out of a woman's purse. In the next, a woman was spanking her son. Finally, through the bedroom window of the last house on the block, Damien spotted a very attractive woman removing her clothes. Being a teenager, he had to stop and check this out. A black man stepped into the window frame, and the couple made their way to the bed. As the man began singing what sounded like a Barry White tune to his lover, the light bulb went off in Damien's head.

Everything he had just seen in those houses was a sin. Greed, anger, lust; all were considered unforgivably sinful in the eyes of God, along with a few other things. That's when Damien knew what he would do. He would kill his victims in the name of the seven deadly sins.

The man in the house would be his first victim.