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Lindsay Nelson
Western Humanities
Mauk – 007
Inferno Paper
Mini Inferno: High School
Now that I am in college, I look back on high school and see the sins of those 4
measly years. As I was pondering on those years, my best friend, Alex came to me in a
vision and requested of me to go on a short journey with her to see the effects of those
high school sins. I wasn’t sure if the vision was real, so I called Alex and explained to
her what I saw. She responded positively and continued on to tell me where we were
going. Alex explained to me that after people die they face a judgment day and on that
day they are looked at by how they acted and performed in high school. Those who
committed the terrible sins of high school were sent to hell and those who did not were
taken into heaven. I was intrigued by this and proceeded to ask Alex many questions
about the sins, but she would not answer me. My best friend told me that I would just
have to see for myself. So she took me there.
To get to the inferno, Alex and I made a trip to our former high school. When we
arrived at Bearden everything was normal. Classes were in session and the school was
exactly the same as when we left it a year ago. I was confused as to how we were going
to travel to the underworld through our high school, but I trusted Alex, just as she told me
to do. We walked to the very back of the school, to a janitor’s closet. Alex explained to
me that this was our pathway into hell. We walked into the small room and shut the door
behind us, we closed our eyes and within seconds we were standing on muddy soil
staring, over a river, into the gates of hell. On top of the gate was a sign that read
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“Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.” Alex explained to me that the sign meant
once one was put into hell there was no hope of them getting out.
On the banks of the river were souls, young and old, that were just walking
around. I questioned Alex about these souls and she told me that they are the souls that
are waiting to be transported over the river to the gates of hell. Because the boat only
held about 5 people, it took a good amount of time to get across the river once one
arrived in hell. I noticed, to my left, another sign that had the name of the river on it. It
was called The River of Childhood. It is supposed to remind those who are taken across
it, to the gates of hell, of their childhood years where sin was non-existent and life was
care-free. Just then a small boat arrived to pick us up. Alex explained to the guide, who
had a strange resemblance to the tooth fairy, why we were here and about our journey.
The tooth fairy look-a-like was hesitant at first but let us in the boat and paddled us to the
gates.
Inside the gates were young souls. They looked like normal humans living
normal lives; they were playing, talking, walking and just enjoying each other’s
company. It seemed that they had no punishment. I asked about these souls and Alex
explained that they were the souls who died before ever reaching high school. I asked
why they weren’t in heaven and she responded that some of them are waiting to get into
heaven and others were horrible when they were young, they disrespected their parents
and everyone else for that matter so they will remain here, right inside the gates of hell
for all eternity. They have no punishment other than the fact of never being able to get
into heaven. Alex told me that this was the first circle of nine that we would see.
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Upon leaving that first circle, we came to the second. Souls who had
continuously lied to their friends, family, teachers, and peers in high school reside here.
This circle is the one with the most souls in number. I saw many people that I recognized
from my parents’ high school year books and even a few that I went to high school with.
They were walking around what looked like a high school track. Every time they passed
the demon, who was sitting at one end of the track, right in the middle of the curve, he cut
their tongues off. I was confused as to how their tongues were cut off every single time
they passed the demon, but Alex explained that as they walk around the track their
tongues slowly grow back, they finish growing right before they reach the demon, just to
be cut off again. These souls can never speak because they never have a full tongue.
This circle worried me, because like most people, I have lied. Alex told me not to worry
because the people who are put into this circle are the ones that lied about everything,
lying was just second nature to them and they never felt guilty about it; some probably
even believed their own lies, knowing that what they said wasn’t true.
After cutting through the middle of the track to depart from the second circle, we
were immediately in the third circle. I was shocked at what I witnessed in this circle.
Souls were running around screaming with their hands over their ears, some were sitting
and crying, and others were even pulling their hair out or inflicting pain on themselves in
other ways. It hurt my heart to see these souls and caused me to become very disgusted.
Alex told me that these souls are the ones that started rumors in high school to hurt
others. Their punishment, for all eternity, is to have terrible voices in their heads, at all
times, saying mean and hateful things to them. There were quite a few souls in this circle
as well. I did recognize one girl. Her name is Kelsey, she started a rumor about me our
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sophomore year in high school, that I was sleeping with her best guy friend. This rumor
was definitely not true because I didn’t even know her friend, but people did believe the
rumor and it caused many people to judge me. When Kelsey recognized me she tried to
apologize, but the voices wouldn’t let her. Seeing her and what the voices do to her made
my stomach flip and I felt as though I was going to be sick. Alex quickly got us out of
that circle and we moved into circle number four.
As we entered into the fourth circle the temperature dropped considerably. As I
looked around I saw demons sitting on the banks of a rather large lake. The lake had to
be almost freezing because the room was so cold. Next, I noticed bodies kicking and
moving around, almost seizure-like. The demons were dunking the head of each soul
down into the water and would hold it there are about a minute. They would pull the
head out for a few seconds and dunk it again. This process happened over and over to
each soul, and will continue to happen for all eternity. The sin for this horrible
punishment is under age binge drinking. The souls in this circle are the ones that
convinced an older person to buy them alcohol, or they stole it from their parents, and
would drink to get absolutely drunk. Many of the souls that reside in this circle were
killed by alcohol, either by driving drunk or just doing something stupid because their
inhibitions were lowered by the alcohol. Being in this circle broke my heart, but not
because of the punishment they are receiving but because of the irresponsible decisions
these souls made while they were alive.
Circle number five of the inferno is a very dark place. The souls that are
sentenced to this circle walk around carrying something in their arms. It looked very
heavy. Alex explained to me that these souls are the ones who purposely hurt a team
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mate or an opposing player, in a sport, to better themselves. They are sentenced to carry
around a forty pound boulder around the small room for all eternity and can not sit down
or put down the boulder. Another part of the punishment is that the souls are constantly
weak; their bodies can barely hold the boulder. Because they were so strong in high
school, and they used that strength to hurt another, they are punished by having weak and
brittle bones. I did not recognize anyone in this circle, but a few souls tried to reach out
to me for help. Alex had previously warned me that as we went further into hell, the
more souls will try to get help. I did not respond to those souls, I just kept moving into
the sixth circle.
The sixth circle is the most disturbing for me personally. The sin one commits to
be placed in the sixth circle of hell is pre-martial sex. There are more people in this circle
than one would think. God created a man and a women to enjoy intercourse after
marriage, but those teens who enjoyed this pleasure before getting married are sent
straight here after they die. Alex described the punishments of this circle to me before
we entered so that I would be aware of what was happening. She explained that the girls
in this circle are constantly in a state of labor. They have contraction after contraction,
but never give birth to a baby. The pain is always there. The men with this sin have a
weight tied around their neck that hits them in their reproductive organs every time they
move, and they must be constantly moving or a demon will take an even heavier weight
and hit them with it. I could not stay in this circle very long, I felt as though I was going
to faint. I can not even wrap my mind around what those souls are feeling and how
intense the pain is. Alex quickly moved us through the sixth circle and into the first
pocket of the seventh circle.
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Before entering the seventh circle, we were stopped the head demon of this circle.
He was not going to let us pass, but Alex pulled him aside and had a short discussion
explaining to him our journey; after hearing this he let us pass into the seventh circle
while telling us that each pocket of the this circle contained souls that had committed acts
of stealing. As we approached the first pocket we could feel heat, and that heat became
hotter and hotter as we got closer. Once in the first pocket we saw souls performing
manual labor for, what looked like, rebuilding a school. Alex explained to me that these
souls are ones that stole things from their schools, such as books, supplies, chemicals and
so on. Their punishment is to rebuild a torn down school. They can only use their hands
and once the school is finally finished, a demon comes and knocks it down. So the souls
are constantly building and repairing a broken school. To make matters even worse, the
temperature is a constant 120 degrees. I thought I recognized a few souls in this circle,
but it was extremely hard to make faces out because of all the dirt and sweat on their
bodies. As we left the first pocket and journeyed into the second, the temperature
dropped back down to a comfortable 70 degrees. Once in the second pocket of the
seventh circle, I could hear lots of screams. Just then, a soul went running by me as fast
as he could, following him at his feet was a wild wolf. I looked at Alex with question
and she made clear to me that the souls in this circle had stolen objects or money from
their closest friends while in high school; their punishment in this pocket is to forever be
chased and eaten by wild animals. The catch is that they never die, no matter how many
times they have been eaten by an animal. The mere thought of being eaten over and over
again made my body ache for these souls.
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As Alex and I moved further down the spiral of hell, I began to realize how easy it
is to sin and how easy it would have been to commit many of the sins that I had already
seen in hell. I suddenly became incredibly thankful for my family and friends who
helped me though high school and guided me down the right path. By the time I had
finished my current thoughts, we were in the third and final pocket of the seventh circle.
Here there were souls getting fire balls catapulted at them, but demons were not the ones
using the catapults, or so I thought, but Alex corrected me and told me that those were
actually demons using the catapults, they had just transformed themselves into family
members of the souls. The sin that these souls committed was stealing from a family
member. Which ever family member they stole from is the family member that is hitting
them with fire balls. This punishment does psychological damage as well as physical
damage to the souls. Surprisingly, there were not as many souls in this pocket as there
were in the other two.
Alex and I then left the seventh circle and moved into the eighth circle of hell.
She explained to me, as we were walking, that the eighth circle also has pockets within it.
There are eight different pockets in this circle, but they all involve in sin of cheating. As
we were walking towards the first pocket, Alex explained that a few of the pockets are
combined into one, the sins are different but the punishments are the same. The first
pocket contained souls that had cheated their way through a high school election;
elections such as homecoming, student government, and everything in between. When
we entered the pocket all I saw were feet dangling above my head, I looked up to see
bodies hanging, but they were not dead. Alex described that every hour, on the hour; the
bodies get dipped into a boiling pot of oil. So their skin is burnt and they are hanging by
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their necks, but they never die. Moving into the second pocket, I learned that the second
and third pockets of the eighth circle are combined. There are two different sins, but the
punishment is the same. The first sin is cheating on a test or an assignment and the
second is paying someone to take your test or write a paper for you. The punishment
these souls were sentenced to is absolutely horrible, they are constantly have their eyes
burnt out of their heads, but their eyes come back every so often, just to be burnt again.
The mere screams of these souls caused me to cringe. The fourth pocket was even worse
than the third, but not physically. The sin for the fourth pocket is ones who cheated on a
boyfriend or girlfriend while in high school. The punishment for this sin is that the souls
have an image playing in their heads at all times of the one they love with another person.
I noticed that many of these souls looked to be going insane. They were sitting on the
ground rocking back and fourth screaming their love’s name. Others were getting angry
and violent. To me, punishments such as this are the worst kind of all.
On our way to the fifth pocket of the eighth circle, Alex informed me that we
didn’t have much more time so we would have to speed things up a bit. We quickly
moved through the last three pockets of the eighth circle so that we could spend a little
more time in the ninth circle. The fifth pocket consisted of souls who had cheated
someone else out of something they deserved. Souls such as these cheated their peers,
their team mates and even their friends out of positions or statuses that were not rightfully
theirs. The punishment for these souls is to be whipped by demons every time they walk
within a certain distance to one, and there were demons all over the room, so the souls
were whipped almost non-stop. The sixth pocket was a strange room. In this room there
were many boxes scattered throughout. Alex explained to me in these boxes resided one
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soul and that the box was only big enough to fit one person. The walls of these boxes
will electrocute anything that touches them, so these souls, who have committed the sin
of cheating someone out of money, are forced to stand completely upright and still for all
of eternity. As we moved into the seventh pocket, I heard waves crashing. It was almost
a peaceful sound, but after I entered the pocket I realized quickly that it was not peaceful
at all. The souls in this pocket committed the act of cheating their parents. Doing things
such as making them believe things that aren’t true, or being two-faced and acting like a
totally different person to them; their parents didn’t even know their own child. These
souls are forever drowning in a sea of saltwater, but never dying. The salt burns their
skin and they are permanently suffocating. I could hear muffled cries for help coming
from under the water, but I just kept moving. The eighth and final pocket of the eighth
circle of hell is a very warm room and these souls probably face more pain from guilt
than from their actual punishment. The sin these souls committed was cheating
themselves, and they are to walk on hot coals with broken glass and nails laid all across
them.
After finally leaving the eighth circle, I told Alex that I wasn’t sure if I could
make it through the ninth circle, but being the best friend and inspiration she is, she urged
me to continue and told me to just trust in her and in the good Lord above to get me
though this last circle. “There is hope and brighter days ahead,” she said. I hesitated at
first, but decided to trust, so we moved forward into the ninth circle of the inferno. In
this circle there are four pockets, the last pocket being the worst sin of all. All the sins in
this circle involve acts of disrespect. The first pocket we entered contained souls who
had disrespected their teachers in high school. These souls did not just show disrespect
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for one teacher, but disrespected almost all of their high school teachers. The souls in
this pocket were chained to old school desks, so they couldn’t move, and were forced to
listen to, and watch, a demon run his extremely long finger nails across a chalk board
non-stop. The awful sound of this pocket gave me an instant head ache. We quickly
traveled out of that pocket and into the second one. There was a lot of blood in this next
pocket. It was all over the walls and the ground. There was a lot of fighting going on in
this pocket as well. The souls that were placed here are the ones that showed disrespect
to their peers. They are forever to be beaten up by demons who have transformed
themselves into bullies. Because of the blood on each soul’s face, I could not recognize
any of them, so Alex and I continued on.
Approaching the third pocket of the ninth circle, I heard horrible screams and
cries. Alex explained that this pocket was made up of souls that had disrespected their
best friends. As we entered the pocket I witnessed souls being stabbed repeatedly in the
back by demons. Alex went into greater detail explaining that because these souls
“stabbed their best friends in the back” during their high school years, that punishment is
being repaid to them now in hell. I was relieved after we left the third pocket that there
was only one more pocket to go, but I was surly not prepared for what I was about to see.
Upon entering the last pocket of the ninth circle, and the final phase of hell, I became
very dizzy and the heat coming from the pocket was almost unbearable. Alex told me
that we could not stay but a few seconds in this last pocket. Only a few select souls
resided in this pocket. These are the souls that showed great disrespect to their parents.
Their punishment: to be tortured by the devil himself. From what I gathered, the devil
was “cooking” these souls, by breathing fire on them constantly, but never eating them.
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These souls were so burnt that they were not recognizable. I could hardly tell they even
had a body because it was so distorted and deformed from the heat and flames. I am glad
we could only stay for a few short seconds, because after about five seconds in that room,
I was sick and ready to get back to my home.
Alex guided me through a cave that led to the earth and to our home. After
leaving hell I was scared to death about where I would end up, but looking back on my
high school career, I was a good kid. I respected my teachers, was a good student and a
good friend. I realized that I very well might be sentenced to hell on my judgment day,
but after seeing what I just saw, I pray to Jesus that I lived out His will while I was in
high school. Having journeyed to the underworld and back taught me so much that I will
be able to pass onto younger generations and I feel confident that is the sole reason I was
chosen to travel into the inferno.