A little preamble: I was playing a legacy, and a few generations in, when the town had largely emptied out, I was checking for new neighbors in Map View. I found that the game had somehow moved the Grim Reaper into Cypress Terrace. Thinking this was too good an opportunity to resist, I selected his household (which was labeled "Gamboa") to play, and messed around with him for a few Sim days. That was going to be the end of it, but then my husband kept coming home from work and asking me how Mr. Gamboa was doing, and I started to think maybe there was a story there.
So here's the story:
Chapter 1: The House at Cypress TerraceHe had always liked the house at Cypress Terrace. He looked forward to visiting it more than any other house in Willow Creek, though naturally none of its residents looked forward to his visits. So when the time came to reap the last of the house's occupants, he just stayed. He couldn't say exactly why he chose that particular moment, or that particular house, except that he knew that the time had come for a change, and if anyone had a talent for knowing when the time had come, it was him.
The family name attached to the house at that time was Gamboa, and having no name himself to speak of, he adopted it as his own. Of course, he had been known by many names in his time, but as he was hoping to establish himself as a valued member of the community Mr. Gamboa seemed more suitably non-threatening than any of them.
In the interests of increasing his likability, he thought perhaps a change of wardrobe was in order, but he found all of the many dressers and mirrors in his new abode to be equally inaccessible to him. He was, however, able to change into a predetermined set of outfits, though he wasn't sure how well they suited him.
Never mind, he told himself. He would simply have to get by on the strength of his personality. Upon intense self-examination, however, he found he didn't seem to posses much of a personality at all. His only trait to speak of was his High Metabolism, which was rather absurdly useless, given the fact that he had no need to eat. He also had no need to sleep, or bathe, or use the toilet. All rather convenient, but it did leave him with a lot of time on his hands.
His only clue as to how to fill the coming hours was his need for fun and social interaction, and his aspiration to become a Bodybuilder, so he headed to the local gym.
He was delighted to find that he earned points from making progress toward his goal. With those points, he found it was possible to buy rewards, including personality traits. This, he thought, was the key to achieving his desires. If he possessed no personality naturally, he would just have to buy one.
Working out left him fatigued fairly quickly, however, so he headed home to test out one of his house's many bathtubs, and plan his next steps.
While splashing in the bubbles, it occurred to him that he could select another aspiration to work on concurrently with bodybuilding while he waited for his body to recover.
Cypress Terrace boasted a lovely garden space with a number of planter boxes just waiting to be filled, and given his already well-known love of flowers, the Gardening aspiration seemed to be a natural choice.
He thought with pleasure as he tended his new garden how much he had always enjoyed Death Flowers, and if he honed his skill enough, he would be able to grow his own, and never again have to depend on others to offer them to him. The thought pleased him immensely.
A less pleasing thought was the anticipation of the bills that would arrive in a few days time. Cypress Terrace was a large house with many expensive furnishings, so he could expect its upkeep to be rather costly. Mr. Gamboa had started out with a bit of cash to get him going, but it would not last forever. He had no need of the beds or bathroom and kitchen appliances in the house, and so he could sell those, but even that would not sustain him in the long term, especially as he didn't seem to be aging at all.
Mr. Gamboa decided he would need to get a job.
