The inferno

"Faster," I thought to myself. "I need to go faster!"
The bullies were chasing me and I had to get away from them.
"WE'LL KILL YOU!" Shouted Alex, the lead bully.
I turned onto a side street and dove behind a dumpster, hoping that they would run pass.
"Where are you?" Said one of them.
"I think he went off this way. C'mon!" Said another. They took off running past my hiding spot.
I stepped back out into the alley, except, it wasn't an alley, I was in a forest!
"Well Toto," I said out loud to myself, "we definitely are not in Kansas anymore."
I cautiously began wandering around, looking for the dumpster or any way to get back home but all I could see were trees. Nothing else just trees.
"Well hello there, boy," growled a deep, masculine voice from behind me. "How did you get here?"
I started to turn to the man that had spoken. "I'm not sure. I'm don't even know where I am." I finished my turn and came face-to-face, or rather face-to-nozzle, because as it turned out, it wasn't a man at all. It was a leopard.
I stepped back to try and get away from the beast but bumped into something else.
Keeping my eye on the leopard I carefully turned to find a lion growling at me.
I ran for the opening trying to get away from them. I knew that I wouldn't be able to out run them but I tried to use these few seconds to reflect on my adventurous life of doing nothing but watch TV and scroll through the internet, hoping that if I were to somehow survive this and get back home there would be more of that for me. I ran faster holding onto this hope.
Being myself, I tripped over my own feet and landed hard on the ground.
"Are you okay?" asked a sweet feminine voice.
Great. Some girl so me trip in the forest. "Yeah, yeah I'm fin-holy crap you're a wolf!"
She snared viciously at me and started closing in. The leopard and the lion close behind her.
They had encircled me. This was it. This would be the end. I would never get to watch Netflix again.
Thunk!
A rock hit the she-wolf and they all looked up towards the source of the stone.
"Scram you beasts!" A voice shouted. "This one is not yours. Get away from him."
The savage animals left me and a human hand reached down. I flinched and covered myself, excepting the worst.
"Hey easy there. I'm not going to hurt you," said the voice. "I've been tasked with finding you and getting you through this place."
I uncovered my face and looked up at him. He was still holding his hand out for me. I grabbed it and he lifted me up.
"Thanks." I said as I gained my footing. "Who are you?"
"I'm Virgil," his smooth voice said.
"Uh okay. So where am I and how do we get out?"
"You are about to find out where we are, come with me and we will get out. Sadly, we have to go through all the way to find the exit."
"What do you mean 'through all the way?'"
"You'll find out soon." He started walking off at a quick pace. I quickly followed after him.
Soon after we left we came to a wide opening field with people running from what looked like bees.
"Who are these people?" I asked Virgil.
"They are the ones that are neither good nor bad. They aren't in Heaven but they aren't in Hell either. They're just stuck in an in between place."
"Wait! Heaven, Hell? Am I dead?"
"No Dante, you are not dead. You just lost your way and are know in Hell. That is why I'm here to get you out." He started walking off towards the gate.
"What? This is Hell? Okay then swiggity swell, I'm in Hell. Alright. Cool then. I've always wanted to go to Hell. Top of the bucket list, you know, right after going to, oh I don't know, maybe Heaven." I said sarcastically. "Virgil! Virgil! Get back here. I'm going to kick you!" I started chasing after him.
"Well, here we are, Circle One. Let's go." He said when I stood next to him in front of the gate.
"Wait, Circle One? You mean to tell me that there are multiple circles in Hell?" I asked as we were walking in.
"Yup. There are nine concentric circles here in Hell. We will have to go through all of them to get out. We will see horrible things. We will be put through a lot. We will get through it though. We will survive. We will get out of this place.
"This first circle is also known as Limbo. This is where I belong. It is for all of the righteous pagans, who, like myself, died without Christ. You see, he was never able to be sacrificed for us so we are here. It is also the home for all the children who were never baptized.
"We don't have a whole lot of time to waste here so let's continue on our way." He grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind him as we went out of Circle One and into Circle Two.
"Okay, now we are in the circle of the carnal. These are those who are so passionate about something that they set aside all reason and do anything even for it, especially die for it. I had two friends who were in an affair and one was killed by his brother and the other committed suicide because they were so passionate for each other that they would do anything for the other. They are in here somewhere but I'm not sure where. Come on, we're wasting our time." He walked off.
We walked into Circle Three, the land of the gluttons as Virgil explained. It smelled putrid and was filthy. I was as anxious, if not even more anxious, than Virgil to get out of this place.
"Hey! Dante, is that you?" A voice shouted when we were almost out.
I turned around and saw a large person in the slime. I examined more closely and realized who it was. "Fat Bob? Is that you?"
"Yeah. It's been awhile. So how is it back home?"
"Everything is still pretty much the same. Not really anything new." Virgil grabbed me and started dragging me away. "Gotta bounce, nice talking to you."
Virgil guided me through several more circles were we watched the sinners suffering the sickening punishments. People were fighting each other, some were sunken in filth, some were in fiery tombs.
When we got to Circle Seven things got scary.
"This circle is for the violent," Virgil explained. "There are three rounds to it. Round one goes to the violent against their neighbors, round two is the violent against themselves, and round three is the violent against God, art, and nature. Stick close to me."
We reached round one. There was a big pool of red water, or at least I thought it was water until we got closer and saw that it was blood. A head started to rise from the blood but an arrow came soaring through the air and hit the sinner, forcing him to go back under the gruesome liquid.
I looked over to where the arrow had shot from and saw a group of centaurs holding onto their bows with strings partly drawn.
A sinner arose out of the water. Once again I recognized this man. It was Alex. The bully who had been chasing me before I wound up here in Hell.
"Dante!" he shouted out to me. "Dante, this is all you fault. I'm going to kill you once I get out of the place. I hate you. We all hate you. Everybody hates you. I'm going to be coming for you!"
"Virgil can we get out of this place?" I asked my companion.
"Yes we can. We just have to get through this pool." He replied.
"I don't think I can do that. It looks too deep. We'd drown if we tried. There has to be another way."
"Calm down." My guide said patiently. "We have a way."
He turned away from me and to the centaurs. "Nessus," he called out to them. "Can you assist us?"
The centaur who I'm assuming was Nessus approached us. "Sure," he said. "Climb on."
Virgil helped me onto the centaurs back and then climbed on behind me. Nessus set out walking through the pool of blood and dropped us safely on the other side.
"Thanks for the lift." Virgil said before taking my hand and running off.
"Round two, or the violent against themselves is where all the suicides go." He explained to me as we entered the forest. "Each of these trees and bushes are the souls of those who have died."
There was a loud screeching noise followed by a chomp and a cry of agony. I looked up and saw some kind of creature eating one of the trees like how I would eat broccoli. It started at the top and worked its way down. Blood dripped out of the puncture wounds like sap.
I looked at the trees sadly. And yet I was happy. After years of being bullied, after years of being beaten up, after years of being told that I was worthless, after years of struggling with suicide, I was still alive. I had gotten through my suicidal thoughts and was safe from this eternal torment. I was glad that I had never followed up with those thoughts or had never succeeded. But I was still sad that the forest was still so big and the punishment was so awfully, but I was still overjoyed by the fact that I wasn't one.
Virgil moved me through the rest of that round and the following bringing us to Circle Eight. That place was sickening and gave me bad feelings and I tried not to pay too much attention to the awful punishments of getting whipped and burning, and getting hacked to pieces. It was awful. Somehow I got through it without vomiting too much.
People always say the phrase 'Hell will freeze over first' when they are saying when something unlikely will happen to somebody. They are wrong. The center of Hell, Circle Nine, the circle where Lucifer himself is, was actually the coldest place I had ever been. The sinners were frozen up to their heads in ice. They could hardly bow their heads down.
There are two things that I hate more than anything else: 1) Alex. 2) being cold. So needless to say, this sucked.
We got to the center where there was a big figure with wings and three heads of different colors. Each chewing on a different sinner. Their bodies were too mangled to figure out who they belonged to, but whatever they had done, it must have been something really bad.
"C'mon," Virgil said. "We have to climb down Satan" He started walking towards this thing.
"Swiggity swucifer, that guy's Lucifer?" I asked. "He looks nothing like what I had imagined."
I followed after Virgil and climbed down the great evil.
After a while, we started to climb up instead of down. I was very confused as to why we were going back to Satan but then I saw the stars. We were now climbing up out of Hell.
We got out and we were right back in the alley were I had originally hid from the bullies.
I walked out of the alley with Virgil at my side. We crossed the moonlight street into the park and fell asleep on a bench under the stars.