The nine levels of my hell.
(( i had to do this for an english essay about travling though my nine levels of hell. just like Dante's inferno. and The millenium earl is my guide. yay.))
The second I felt my foot touch the ground I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked around to find nothing but grass as far as I could see. I could feel the coldness of the air seep into my clothes and I quickly put my arms around myself as both protection against the cold and the comfort of my growing anxiety. The sky was painted red and the stars shined brightly only second best to the full yellow moon that hung high in the sky. What am I doing here?
“Good evening, my dear. ♥ ”
I immediately jumped at the sound of a jolly voice that came out of thin air behind me. I quickly turned around and saw a rather large person, almost kind of balloony in body shape. He had short-ish arms and ears that stuck out the side of his head like a bunny. He had a top hat on; black with a bow wrapped around its base and had a large, unnatural grin. His perfectly round glasses reflected the light that came from the moon and suddenly I felt as if I was looking at the devil himself. No matter how cartoonish this man looked, I could feel the vast murderous intent behind his fanged smile.
“Let me introduce myself, I am the Millennium Earl. ♥” He said in a sickeningly pleasant voice, bowing slightly. “I have been informed that you are in need of a tour guide through the nine levels of hell. ♥”
It then dawned on me: Is this my punishment? Is this my punishment for living my life the way I do? Did it really come this far as to have this devil standing in front of me? I quickly took another look around me. There was nothing but dark horizon and the light of the moon illuminating the space around me. It was almost surreal.
I refocused my attention to the Millennium Earl and nodded, feeling very close to tears. He chortled as he held out his arm for her to take.
“Shall we get started then? ♥” He asked. Instead of taking his arm, being quite afraid to touch him, I simply started walking in the direction he was facing, but stopped when I heard him speak again.
“You cannot walk to the place we are going. ♥” And he laughed again, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a light purple umbrella adorned with a small pumpkin head on the end. He extended the umbrella out for her to grab onto. But I still hesitated. Then he looked over his glasses directly at me, and his cold golden eyes made my blood run cold. “Since you are so reluctant as to even grasp my arm, you may hold onto this. ♥”
Not wanting to try his patience any longer, I quickly lifted my hand and let my fingers fall upon the pumpkin head. Instantly I knew we were no longer in the flat green pasture we were in a moment before.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
He happily floated away from me with the cheesy grin still plastered to his face, “This, m’dear, would be Level One of Hell. ♥”
My eyes widened as a wave of millions of voices hit me all at once, making me cover my ears so as to preserve my hearing. I quickly looked around, taking in the surrounding area and its inhabitants and nearly fainted at the sight.
The ground was covered in blood from the millions of complainers whose hands had been nailed to the floor so as to prohibit them from covering their ears as they jabbered away, all of the noise echoing off the surrounding walls of the blank room causing their ears to bleed.
She was surprised at the height of intensity that this level of hell was bringing to her psyche and wondered what exactly was in store for her later down the road. She looked back at the Earl, ears ringing, as he seemed unaffected by the constant resonance that never seemed to stop. And to prove my point further he blissfully threw out his hand in a peace sign, throwing me off balance for a second.
He touched to the ground next to me and it instantly became silent once again. I fell to my knees, my body weighing like lead, as my head spun around and around again.
“This level of Hell is the where the constant complainers are found. These sinners always made it out that they should’ve been cared for the most over others that needed it more. ♥” He clapped his hands together in glee. “Shall we move on? Or would you like to stay longer? ♥”
As he finished his sentence the voices started seeping back into my senses. I quickly scrambled to my feet and grasped the end of the umbrella, the scenery changing yet again.
“And this is Level 2! It’s full of uptight people. We don’t like ‘em. ♥”
“Oh.” I looked straight ahead to see many people scrubbing the walls and the floors with a fire in their eyes only seen in crazily uptight people. They were following the terribly uptight germaphobes who were scrubbing their skin off, causing blood to splatter all over the clean floors, making the others scrub with more ferocity. “Yeah, me either.” I grabbed for the umbrella as I was overcome with disgust.
“Moving on! ♥” He smiled. “To Level 3 we go! ♥”
In the blink of an eye we had already passed through 4 levels of Hell: Close-minded people, moochers, hypocrites, and cowards. And now we find ourselves in Level 7.
The Earl has seemingly disappeared and the kitchen I am now standing in seems oddly familiar. I looked around and instantly knew it was my kitchen. What was I doing back here? And why does the air have such a sinister feel to it? Suddenly my head was yanked back as someone pulled my hair, flinging me to the ground. My adrenaline started pumping as I hastily tried to get up and face the other person in the room.
As I turned around I felt as though I had just looked in the mirror. My other self was clutching a frying pan in her right hand.
“You stupid, stupid child, you have done nothing but ruin my life! He left me because of you. I wish you were never born!!!” The frying pan came down at me with impressive speed and I instinctively cringed towards the floor, waiting for the pain. A familiar amused laugh interrupted my traumatic scene. I looked up to where my other self had been only moments before and saw the Earl staring down at me, the frying pan gone.
“What just happened?” I asked, shaken.
The Earl smiled, “You’ve just experienced the ‘Bad Parent.’ ♥”
“The what?” My eyes widened.
“Level 7, the Bad Parent. This place is like your own little personalized Hell where you take the place of you child. Quite effective, ne? ♥” He started floating across the now blank room away from me.
“Child? But I’ve never even had a child before!”
He shrugged, “Hell works in mysterious ways. Who knows, ‘something wicked this way comes.’ ♥”
I quickly caught up with him and grabbed a hold of the umbrella hanging from his hand. He grinned a wicked grin as if it gave him joy to see me so distressed, “Eager to leave now, are we? ♥”
The scene changed again as we appeared in what looked like a factory, only instead of factory lines it was a string of people sitting in single file hacking at the back of their neighbor with a knife.
“Can you guess what this level is? Besides 8, of course. ♥” He asked, laughing at his lame joke.
I didn’t even need a second guess, this was the Hell made for backstabbers, obviously. The literal sense in Hell was almost laughable. I lifted my hand to my face and sighed exasperatedly, “Can we just finish the tour?”
“As you wish, m’dear. ♥”
Before I could put my hand out for the pumpkin umbrella the Earl’s hand rested on my shoulder and we disappeared.
Okay, do we finally get to go home now? Is it done?
I opened my eyes and looked around a courtroom that looked like it came right out of the Pheonix Wright video game.
“This is Level 9 of Hell, the level for the accusers. These people have all falsely accused others for horrible crimes and condemned them to suffer a punishment they didn’t deserve. ♥”
I gripped the sides of my chair as I realized I was the one in the prosecution chair. Anticipation quickly rose in my chest as I looked around to see my friends and family pointing at me and yelling, “GUILTY! GULTY!”
I looked up at the judge to see the Earl with a sinister look on his face, his golden eyes sparkling mischievously as he shrugged, “The evidence all points to you. You’ve been accused of a sin. All that needs to be decided is what Level you are to be condemned to. Now…we shall leave it to your public. ♥”
The voices rose almost to the same volume as the complainers in Level 1 in a jumble of words.
“HYPOCRITE!!!”
“COWARD!!!”
“PARASITE!!!”
“BACKSTABBER!!!”
“COMPLAINER!!!”
Tears started flowing down my face, “No! I didn’t do anything! I swear!”
There was an overwhelming shout of everyone yelling in unison, “LIAR!!!”
A loud bang silenced the crowd as the Earl brought the gavel down upon the stand. “That one wasn’t even a Level! ♥” he chuckled darkly as his glasses reflected my tear-stained face. “Goodbye, m’dear. Your tour is finally over. ♥”
Everything went dark.
“-is she okay?!” a voice said, uncertain.
“She’ll be fine. We’ve resuscitated her and she has a steady pulse again. Please give her some room. The girl’s just been hit by a car, for Gawd’s sake!” another voice said.
My eyes fluttered open and felt the pain shoot all over my body. But never the less I sat up slightly and slowly looked around. People were surrounding me, chattering. I heard a few gasps as I sat up holding my head. Suddenly everything stood still and was silent. I sat there, confused, until I heard a familiar chuckle overhead. I looked up to see the silhouette of a round figure with a top hat floating towards the full harvest moon hanging onto an umbrella with his other hand in the form of a peace sign.
I smiled and thought to myself, ‘At first I didn’t think I needed to change. But after that, who wouldn’t?’ And I waved goodbye.
The second I felt my foot touch the ground I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked around to find nothing but grass as far as I could see. I could feel the coldness of the air seep into my clothes and I quickly put my arms around myself as both protection against the cold and the comfort of my growing anxiety. The sky was painted red and the stars shined brightly only second best to the full yellow moon that hung high in the sky. What am I doing here?
“Good evening, my dear. ♥ ”
I immediately jumped at the sound of a jolly voice that came out of thin air behind me. I quickly turned around and saw a rather large person, almost kind of balloony in body shape. He had short-ish arms and ears that stuck out the side of his head like a bunny. He had a top hat on; black with a bow wrapped around its base and had a large, unnatural grin. His perfectly round glasses reflected the light that came from the moon and suddenly I felt as if I was looking at the devil himself. No matter how cartoonish this man looked, I could feel the vast murderous intent behind his fanged smile.
“Let me introduce myself, I am the Millennium Earl. ♥” He said in a sickeningly pleasant voice, bowing slightly. “I have been informed that you are in need of a tour guide through the nine levels of hell. ♥”
It then dawned on me: Is this my punishment? Is this my punishment for living my life the way I do? Did it really come this far as to have this devil standing in front of me? I quickly took another look around me. There was nothing but dark horizon and the light of the moon illuminating the space around me. It was almost surreal.
I refocused my attention to the Millennium Earl and nodded, feeling very close to tears. He chortled as he held out his arm for her to take.
“Shall we get started then? ♥” He asked. Instead of taking his arm, being quite afraid to touch him, I simply started walking in the direction he was facing, but stopped when I heard him speak again.
“You cannot walk to the place we are going. ♥” And he laughed again, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a light purple umbrella adorned with a small pumpkin head on the end. He extended the umbrella out for her to grab onto. But I still hesitated. Then he looked over his glasses directly at me, and his cold golden eyes made my blood run cold. “Since you are so reluctant as to even grasp my arm, you may hold onto this. ♥”
Not wanting to try his patience any longer, I quickly lifted my hand and let my fingers fall upon the pumpkin head. Instantly I knew we were no longer in the flat green pasture we were in a moment before.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
He happily floated away from me with the cheesy grin still plastered to his face, “This, m’dear, would be Level One of Hell. ♥”
My eyes widened as a wave of millions of voices hit me all at once, making me cover my ears so as to preserve my hearing. I quickly looked around, taking in the surrounding area and its inhabitants and nearly fainted at the sight.
The ground was covered in blood from the millions of complainers whose hands had been nailed to the floor so as to prohibit them from covering their ears as they jabbered away, all of the noise echoing off the surrounding walls of the blank room causing their ears to bleed.
She was surprised at the height of intensity that this level of hell was bringing to her psyche and wondered what exactly was in store for her later down the road. She looked back at the Earl, ears ringing, as he seemed unaffected by the constant resonance that never seemed to stop. And to prove my point further he blissfully threw out his hand in a peace sign, throwing me off balance for a second.
He touched to the ground next to me and it instantly became silent once again. I fell to my knees, my body weighing like lead, as my head spun around and around again.
“This level of Hell is the where the constant complainers are found. These sinners always made it out that they should’ve been cared for the most over others that needed it more. ♥” He clapped his hands together in glee. “Shall we move on? Or would you like to stay longer? ♥”
As he finished his sentence the voices started seeping back into my senses. I quickly scrambled to my feet and grasped the end of the umbrella, the scenery changing yet again.
“And this is Level 2! It’s full of uptight people. We don’t like ‘em. ♥”
“Oh.” I looked straight ahead to see many people scrubbing the walls and the floors with a fire in their eyes only seen in crazily uptight people. They were following the terribly uptight germaphobes who were scrubbing their skin off, causing blood to splatter all over the clean floors, making the others scrub with more ferocity. “Yeah, me either.” I grabbed for the umbrella as I was overcome with disgust.
“Moving on! ♥” He smiled. “To Level 3 we go! ♥”
In the blink of an eye we had already passed through 4 levels of Hell: Close-minded people, moochers, hypocrites, and cowards. And now we find ourselves in Level 7.
The Earl has seemingly disappeared and the kitchen I am now standing in seems oddly familiar. I looked around and instantly knew it was my kitchen. What was I doing back here? And why does the air have such a sinister feel to it? Suddenly my head was yanked back as someone pulled my hair, flinging me to the ground. My adrenaline started pumping as I hastily tried to get up and face the other person in the room.
As I turned around I felt as though I had just looked in the mirror. My other self was clutching a frying pan in her right hand.
“You stupid, stupid child, you have done nothing but ruin my life! He left me because of you. I wish you were never born!!!” The frying pan came down at me with impressive speed and I instinctively cringed towards the floor, waiting for the pain. A familiar amused laugh interrupted my traumatic scene. I looked up to where my other self had been only moments before and saw the Earl staring down at me, the frying pan gone.
“What just happened?” I asked, shaken.
The Earl smiled, “You’ve just experienced the ‘Bad Parent.’ ♥”
“The what?” My eyes widened.
“Level 7, the Bad Parent. This place is like your own little personalized Hell where you take the place of you child. Quite effective, ne? ♥” He started floating across the now blank room away from me.
“Child? But I’ve never even had a child before!”
He shrugged, “Hell works in mysterious ways. Who knows, ‘something wicked this way comes.’ ♥”
I quickly caught up with him and grabbed a hold of the umbrella hanging from his hand. He grinned a wicked grin as if it gave him joy to see me so distressed, “Eager to leave now, are we? ♥”
The scene changed again as we appeared in what looked like a factory, only instead of factory lines it was a string of people sitting in single file hacking at the back of their neighbor with a knife.
“Can you guess what this level is? Besides 8, of course. ♥” He asked, laughing at his lame joke.
I didn’t even need a second guess, this was the Hell made for backstabbers, obviously. The literal sense in Hell was almost laughable. I lifted my hand to my face and sighed exasperatedly, “Can we just finish the tour?”
“As you wish, m’dear. ♥”
Before I could put my hand out for the pumpkin umbrella the Earl’s hand rested on my shoulder and we disappeared.
Okay, do we finally get to go home now? Is it done?
I opened my eyes and looked around a courtroom that looked like it came right out of the Pheonix Wright video game.
“This is Level 9 of Hell, the level for the accusers. These people have all falsely accused others for horrible crimes and condemned them to suffer a punishment they didn’t deserve. ♥”
I gripped the sides of my chair as I realized I was the one in the prosecution chair. Anticipation quickly rose in my chest as I looked around to see my friends and family pointing at me and yelling, “GUILTY! GULTY!”
I looked up at the judge to see the Earl with a sinister look on his face, his golden eyes sparkling mischievously as he shrugged, “The evidence all points to you. You’ve been accused of a sin. All that needs to be decided is what Level you are to be condemned to. Now…we shall leave it to your public. ♥”
The voices rose almost to the same volume as the complainers in Level 1 in a jumble of words.
“HYPOCRITE!!!”
“COWARD!!!”
“PARASITE!!!”
“BACKSTABBER!!!”
“COMPLAINER!!!”
Tears started flowing down my face, “No! I didn’t do anything! I swear!”
There was an overwhelming shout of everyone yelling in unison, “LIAR!!!”
A loud bang silenced the crowd as the Earl brought the gavel down upon the stand. “That one wasn’t even a Level! ♥” he chuckled darkly as his glasses reflected my tear-stained face. “Goodbye, m’dear. Your tour is finally over. ♥”
Everything went dark.
“-is she okay?!” a voice said, uncertain.
“She’ll be fine. We’ve resuscitated her and she has a steady pulse again. Please give her some room. The girl’s just been hit by a car, for Gawd’s sake!” another voice said.
My eyes fluttered open and felt the pain shoot all over my body. But never the less I sat up slightly and slowly looked around. People were surrounding me, chattering. I heard a few gasps as I sat up holding my head. Suddenly everything stood still and was silent. I sat there, confused, until I heard a familiar chuckle overhead. I looked up to see the silhouette of a round figure with a top hat floating towards the full harvest moon hanging onto an umbrella with his other hand in the form of a peace sign.
I smiled and thought to myself, ‘At first I didn’t think I needed to change. But after that, who wouldn’t?’ And I waved goodbye.