The Journey Through Darkness: The Light
Some time ago I had found myself drawn towards a rendition of my own Inferno if I were to reclaim myself. This was my tale.
It was in the darkness of my shadows I found myself wandering that of many time down a path I had long tread upon. I feared I had gone astray from the blessed road so golden and divine yet daunting for the path so wicked and twisted so easily formed before me. On the grounds of the my tattered soul now accustomed to corruption I turned to my lord and begged upon every breath for salvation. " Lord guide me out of this path I have chosen and lead me not into temptation but vastly away from evil!" ....My lord answered. Not in the way I had conceived.
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The Gate
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I awoke to the darkness of my walls. As many moons before I had come to this stupor within my sheets my very flesh cold as the clay in the earth. My very heart beat ill and disproportioned as my eyes with such a fire in them thrust back and forth darting along the inner interior that was my room of stay. I lay as such for quite some time in silence, the whisper of my breath only reminding me once more my fictitious fears had been only a nightmare I had so often wandered through past that which memory could tell. My mind began to journey ahead of me. This fear had come second in my heart and only turned me once more towards silent resolution. I began prayer at the foot of my bed until I could bear no more of the sickness in my heart and drew discourse from it. I took stay at my window. It had been only the silhouette of night there to greet me and no more. Where would my salvation lie? Suddenly as if to answer a bright light shined, oh what a holy light it was. It shined upon me. " Oh lord pray it be you that shows such mercy to me? This light, it is a blinding light that pierces my soul!" My feet had taken me out of my dwelling and out into the streets where none remained.
That light on me casting me in it's glow. I reached out in tears. I could not restrain myself, neigh, not from the grace. It was then however that this light had vanished and with it I felt a great weight fall upon me. A force far greater than a thousand boulders crush down upon me and force me to my knee's in anguish. The very earth below me had began to crack..then crumble away until all that remained around me was that of a pit leading into darkness and me a spectacle upon a slab of dark concrete. A faint gasp had creased from my lips as I too soon vanished within this darkness and plummeted into what seemed an endless night. I had not known the very essence of true darkness until I had fallen as far as any man would ever dare go. As I fell deeper so did the warmth that of flames until I could stand no more and cried out.
Just as the vocalization of my suffering had began had this ended. I found myself standing upon solid grounds enveloped within this dark prison I had yet to unveil. As timid as I had been withdrawn to I reached out in hope of resolve to my fearing inquiries to where I was and how I had come to remain there. A whisper grazed my ear and to me it said " Another one come upon fate. Soon enough judgment comes for you like all the rest." My shoulder was caressed by the feeling of cold death and soon whittled away to my side as if having shared the fate. " Who are you that speaks upon me?" I turned upon my left and soon right in a fury. " Face me gaze to gaze so that I may see the man that dare jeers me!" I was met with cruel laughter and felt a great force press against my chest and shove me thirteen steps back. The laughter had been dulled as if cut by a sharp knife. " The ground you tread your filthy feet upon moves. You...are not disembodied but are that of flesh that is yours with a heart that still beats. You dare mock me with your presence?" and me to him " What nonsense is this you speak of?"
I was once more moved with a great force that beat me down " Wretched soul that is mortal! Now is this place not your tomb! Go back the path you have wandered and return not until judgment has been set upon you!" A great light engulfed me once more. I was met with divine blindness my ears filled with a great howl both of pain and great madness. My prison was that of solid stone earth weathered and torn and that my tormenter was not that of man but of a wicked form. A darkened figure with a torso and limbs of a skeleton and the flesh that like a peeled fruit dyed the colors of a corpse. All hair had left this body and instead had been replaced with the thick horns of a bull cut and torn. The face of this vile creature was of man and serpent together in an unholy bond. I had contained my disgust as I watched this monstrosity writhe within the light as if being stabbed by many blades.
" Why this soul?!" it cried out " Why this one beyond all else?!" as the divine heavenly glow dimmed so did the writhing of the beast that lay there as if to rest. I found myself surrounded now by a great choir of flames great and small outlining a great path of earth and stone as red as blood. Wandered I did amongst this labyrinth, the echoes of my steps filling my ears time after another. Fear had taken hold of my footing and many a time I stumbled into the burning stone as I lost my way. Where had my divinity gone? I had questioned this a great deal of time I had spent in my fluster. I had lead a path long ago that went astray and found that perhaps that would have been much grander than the one I now had wandered then. As I had creased the last essence of thought my heart could carry the burdening weight of I had come to ponder a fearful question that had shook my very soul " What if I was already damned?" upon me a voice was set " That fate is yet decided." I spun to find the serpent had been little far behind me " How was I heard without bate of my tongue?" and he unto me " Down here all souls need not speak to have voice." I could not still my heart that now felt it would leave my body.
" Here is...?" " Damnation! Eternal punishment unto man for all deeds dark and foul!" with every word that passed upon my ear the flames arose higher, brighter they grew as if angered. With a broken voice I asked " Am I to belong here?" This questioned gave a look that of disgust on the face of the serpent " Etched against my very will you are not in accordance with the damned. Divinity has graced itself upon you. Even as I may be a soul purged from heaven I am no further from the wrathful justice of he who is the great one. My tongue be stilled for it would rather burn than mention such that is his name. I was once Alessandro Nuncio but rejected the knowledge of the lord and was cast out of the great realm of Paradiso and through the great fire of Inferno where I have shared my fate beyond time man would reason. The souls of the damned I lead through the fires of brim great and old to Minos himself their souls awaiting final say in their eternal torment." and I unto him " What of me oh serpent? What place do I now seek in such an abomination?" " Clarity!" his forked tongue writhed that like a worm from his scaly lips " Mortal, though your place belongs not here you of all else have been granted pass upon reason to view what man should lay no eye upon."
A great screen of crackling flames bewildered by an unseeable force ignited beyond and revealed such a sight. A massive door set in marble and carved by the stone bodies of both men and women in an orgy of anguish, lust and pain " Behold the gates of hell! Carved of the sin man has forged into an eternal bond for man and Satan till judgment day be upon earth!" " I have yet the clarity of understanding serpent! Why do I gaze upon such a door so fiendishly devised?" I was met with hesitation " Through torment you will find salvation through your eyes. The great one forbid any such knowledge further iterated. In time such understanding with mercy be spread upon you with I as your guide." I dare not believe in my heart such haste of word from a serpent of wickedness and deceit and once more my inner thoughts had spoken volumes to it. " Wretched mortal though I may be the creature of dishonesty your kind has grown to despise that light of god's very mercy surely was no veil of lie. Bound by oath I now have been slaved to see you guided down this path and not led astray." To trust in the serpent was a move most misleading as it had been for Adam and Eve yet vexed I was any other way.
" I agree oh serpent be it as it may I keep watch on you all the way!" An alliance was then formed from man and beast for however long it be as I would begin my journey of unholy descent for eternal salvation and redemption. I however found myself bare without cloth over my very flesh and immediately grew shameful of my revealed body. " Like all souls who entered these gates you show yourself bare to all your fate. You are a mortal and show not the future of your mistakes yet you will be treated all that the same." From the earth rose a robe just as crimson flowing as if alive and in bewilderment " Take it without haste. I wish to end such that is my disgrace soon." As I had begun into the robe I felt a wind leave by me and with it my strength was soon swept leaving me as if to swoon to the burning stone below. " Serpent of what material is this robe craft?" my words had lost all but some pitch in their vex " From the course of your veins the very blood that flows amongst your body. Be weary of it's care for while I may be a guide unto you I give none the safety of way. Your lament or salvation has grown near. Make haste I say! These gates have began!"
With a thundering shake that startled the very inner walls of this fiery prison so did the marble doors begin. Upon their full revealing echoed great moans vast and wide of pain and suffering. I turned toward my guide in silent unsure resolve only to be met with a great grin of many bent teeth that of crocodiles. So did we pass those doors that moaned of misery and torment for us to hear alone as I found that our journey would take down a twisted broken path into a great cloud of steam where none such mortal should ever dare have ventured.