a class assignment; re-writing the layers of Dante's inferno |
There is a place, a horrible place that no one would dare speak of. It lay beneath the holy earth as if it may be hiding. But in truth, it is we who hide from it, though we are all infected with the evil curse; the oceans of red blood that lie beneath our skin, not much different from that of the magma just below this thin layer of crust we stand on. It is Hell. When you first arrive in Hell, you are met by Dias, a white demon who appears more human than any other demon one would ever see, though much taller. His skin and hair are as white as the purist snow and his eyes are like that of shiny golden rings. His appearance doesn’t matter much, though, once he’s finished gauging out your eyes with his long, black fingernails. The eyes are removed to remind you of how you have lost sight of God in coming to such a dark place. After that, Dias consumes your eyes and leads you to your place in the vestibule. The walls and ceilings of the vestibule are made of volcanic rock, and through large holes in the ceiling, the red reptilian eyes of Bugg-Shash look down on you, each nearly ten feet across. While you wait for Bugg-Shash to judge your soul, you are placed in a ring, a bottom-less hole of lava. Depending on how many of the sins you committed, how severe they are, and which ones you are truly sorry for, the time it takes to judge your soul could seem like eons. As your soul is being judged, you are slowly sinking into the lava, burning away your existence. When the lava overcomes your eye-sockets, it is as if you never existed in the world and all memory of you is erased from time. Next come the nine layers of punishment. The first layer of Hell is reserved for the non-believers, the atheists. They know not or care not to give the world’s burdens to any of the gods. Therefore, they shall carry a heavy burden themselves. They are doomed to pull a shrapnel-filled chariot made of lead for all eternity. They are watched over by Tyr. The second layer is the hunting ground of Thieves. Because thieves choose to use their hands to do wrong, their hands are cut off by Kain. Their hands will forever roam the plane, and the Thieves, without eyes, must chase them for eternity. The third layer is only a mirrored image of the River of Life, the Nile River. It is to keep the hands of Thieves from escaping into the forth layer. The forth layer is a coliseum where the Dark Knights reside. They are the good soldiers who turned to chaos or simply turned tail and ran in the middle of battle. Regardless, the Dark Night didn’t complete his mission to protect his brothers and defend his country. Therefore, his debt will be forever repaid on the battlefield. The Dark Knight does not deserve the honor of carrying a sword, so Haphaestus cuts off their arms, decks them in armor and they will forever fight each other using only their sense of hearing and the pointy helmets on their heads. The fifth layer is reserved for the Users and Possessors. In life, they repeatedly manipulated and lied to others to obtain whatever it was they desired. Their sins are not to be taken lightly, and therefore they are to suffer by becoming that which they toyed with on earth. Their veins are pulled through their skin, and are to be their strings. Kartikay is the one who plays with these marionettes. The sixth layer of Hell is where the Seducers are kept. They found their way into peoples’ hearts, made their way into their bed, and left before the sun could rise. They indulged too much in the gift that lovers share, and now they are cursed to hunger and thirst for eternity. They are bound by barbed wire to steaks that go deep into the clay of a desert. It rains once a day, and when a raindrop comes near the Seducer’s face, it becomes a grain of sand. Maat sees to it that the Seducers do not get buried from the rains. The garden of the seventh layer is where the Killers are punished. They stole the lives of others and the evil diffused into their victim’s families and began killing them too. Roses mean remember, so the entirety of the seventh layer is filled with white rose bushes adorned in thorns as long as a finger. Isidore binds the Killers and ties them to the reigns of a huge black horse with bright red eyes and a horn on its head named Diomedes. Once Isidore has attached the new souls, Diomedes runs wild through the rose bushes, dragging the Killers through endless fields of thorns. The eighth layer of hell is a barren stretch of land where it is never truly day time. The Suicidal are kept here, those who mutilated themselves, those who attempted suicide too many times, and those who succeeded. All of them receive the same punishment because they defaced their own sanctuary, and for their crime, they are damned to heal, to metastasize to the point of being immobilized. They appear as huge blobs of flesh with faces. During the day, there is a solar eclipse of immense proportions, which burns the Suicidal’ skin for twelve hours. Then night falls, and for twelve hours, the skin itches and festers as it heals, only to be destroyed again when the sun returns. The moon herself, Selene, watches over them. The final layer of Hell is a grove of apple trees. Hanging up-side-down from the trees are the Rapists. They plant their seed of evil and it grows up to bear fruit of fear and hate. So they hang in the trees and as each apple falls, the Rapists are cut until nothing is left. They, like those who are difficult to judge, are erased from time. Agnes sits atop the central tree and sings to Demeter for more apples to grow. |