An Alternate Circle of Hell (Based off of Dante's The Inferno)
It was dark, but that was to be expected when on a journey through Hell. Nothing could calm me, for I had already seen many of the souls damned to eternal punishments in the first few circles of the dark abyss.
I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there for the life of me, walking through Hell alongside my deceased mother, dressed in lovely white robes. She was just as I remembered her, much to my relief: beautiful, gentle, and youthful, even in her older age. As if the reunion hadn’t been heart-wrenching enough, she’d beckoned me to follow her, and there we were. I could have fallen asleep, and it may have all been a dream. If it was, I blame my English teacher for making us read Dante's The Inferno.
Dream or not, it was as vivid as if it had been real life. I could feel the bitter cold only getting colder as we walked on. It was very hard to see, but soon we were introduced to a few lights down below us. The lights formed a swerving line downward from near where we were, and my guide pointed out a staircase between the rows. I could only guess that it was a new circle of Hell for me to see. Cautiously, I took the first step of many down the stairs. My mother followed closely behind, reassuring me that she would stay by me the whole way. I wasn’t sure if I should have been comforted by it or cry.
Creak... creak... creak... The wooden stairs groaned beneath my feet as I walked down, holding onto the railing next to me so tightly that my knuckle was paler than a sheet. Only at one point did I stop, turning to glance down at the ground far below. I’d been curious as to how far down I had yet to go. Thankfully, I’m not afraid of heights, and there wasn’t much farther to go. I resumed the descent down, shaky feet meeting the sturdy ground as I walked off of the last step.
The land around me was barren and full of nothing. The air was still, and not a single wind blew. I swallowed thickly, looking around. Any trees found were dead, and the other plants and grasses seem to have long since died, rotting away for eternity in the Land of Eternal Suffering. To my left, I saw a building; it didn’t seem big, and my curiosity got the better of me. I walked over warily and made sure my guide was close at hand. The door was ornately decorated, unlike the rest of the setting. The building was painted a golden color, and the door had designs on it as if the building was owned by a rich family from back home. The doorknob was reflective, almost as if it were made of mirror glass. I scowled at my own reflection, covering it with my hand.
Then I turned the knob, opening the door.
I was greeted by pained cries and screams, which I feel like I should have expected at the time. I, too, screamed, upon seeing the tortured souls locked in a building that was at least a hundred times bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. My mother ushered me inside and shut the door so that the damned wouldn’t escape, placing an arm around my shaking shoulders to try and comfort me. I tried to close my eyes, shut out the horrible sight before me, but I couldn’t. Something forced my eyes to remain open, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Before me were hundreds upon thousands of souls, all of them wailing and screaming as they looked around. The room made up entirely of mirrors, the lights on the ceiling dim to keep from causing a reflection. The walls, the floor, the ceiling... All of them were made up of mirrors, yet they did not break no matter what anyone did to them. I saw souls pounding at the walls and kicking at the ground, but all was in vain. That wasn’t why I screamed when I first entered the room though, as much as I hate mirrors.
The souls were all naked, just like the other circles I had encountered, but none of the souls I’d seen before looked quite like this. Their bodies were horribly distorted; their faces were twisted and turned in multiple angles. No one soul looked like another, for every single soul was warped in different ways. One man had one leg longer than the other, his torso twisted a full three-sixty, and his face was upside-down on a head turned sideways. Another man looked as if he was squished together with another, looking disgustingly rugged and wide. They all did, however, have one thing in common: none of them had eyelids.
My heart ached for them, and I wept. Ashamed, I placed my hands over my eyes to hide my tears. A gentle hand found its way onto my shoulder, calming me. “Emma,” my guide said to me, using my nickname from when I was a child, “these are the souls who took too much pride in their appearance while they were alive. Because of their sin, they must suffer in this way.”
I swallowed thickly, trying to comprehend it all. “You mean like vanity?” I asked.
My guide nodded. “Exactly. Everywhere they look is another mirror, another angle in which to see their reflection.”
I pressed my lips together in a fine line, holding my tongue from what I could have said next. Negative as it was, my complaints would never match up the suffering around me. The souls around me had reveled in their appearance, obsessing over how nice they looked and showing off through flashy make-up and clothing... Now they were nothing but beaten down, twisted and distorted nobodies, hidden away in a building no sane person would dare enter knowingly and willingly.
How much time passed after that, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the sight before me. I was never a fan of the superficial, yet I pitied them in their most horrid state. Perhaps it was just my good nature. Still, I knew I had to leave this place and move on to the next ring, the next circle. Petrified and stiff as a board, I let my mother take my hand and lead me out, letting out a string of comforting words as if they would loosen my body. We continued on, heading to even darker and colder parts of the deep, dark abyss.
A feeling in my gut told me that this was not the worst of the kinds of torture one could find in Hell, and I dreaded going to the next circle. If this was a dream, I wasn’t going to wake up any time soon.
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