The Damned Holies (The Fallen Wars 1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

-Aimee, Hell-

“The Damned Holies.” I laughed to myself at the nickname the newspaper had given the angels back when I was held captive. Humans can be pretty creative. It had started appearing many times in the newspapers over the years.

“You still think that’s funny?” Lucien asked, nudging me with his foot from the opposite end of the couch.

I sighed and laid the newspaper on the coffee table, looking at Lucien.

“Uh oh. I know this look. Something serious.”

“I’ve kind of been procrastinating this, ever since I got here. It’s a curiosity thing, I suppose, but I would just like to know…”

“What is it?”

“What is Hell? What does it really look like? Who gets sent here?”

“I was wondering when you would ask.” He sat up and pulled me closer to him. “Have you ever read Dante’s Inferno?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Good, that will make it so much easier to explain. The descriptions in that book were pretty accurate.”

“But when I first got here, what was that?”

“Before you’re judged on your sins and sent to one of the levels of Hell, you see whatever you want to see. Well, not what you want to see, no one wants to be in Hell, but what you as an individual think Hell looks like.”

“Well, it certainly made a point to me.”

“Want to see it as I explain? Visual images always help.”

“Umm…”

“I hope let anything happen to you, I swear.” He laced his fingers through mine and our home was gone. It was replaced with rolling grassy hills and a cloudy sky. “The first circle, what Dante called Limbo.”

It was peaceful here, no eternal torment, but there was a taste in the air. It was something faint, something wasn’t quite right here. Sadness, I suppose. People wandered here and there, whole and unharmed. Some of them conversed with each other, different languages not barriers. A castle loomed in the distance, home to more souls.

“The unbaptized and virtuous non-Christians?”

“Yes. They do not suffer here.”

“I’m glad; they don’t deserve to suffer.”

“Socrates, Homer, Julius Caesar, and Aristotle are here, in this ring.”

“Where?”

“The castle. Their debates are quite interesting. Their souls deserved to be immortal. They still had so much to contribute to the world.”

“I’m sure they are. Maybe I could listen sometime?”

“If you’d like… Onto the next circle?”

We were in the middle of a hurricane. My hair whipped around me viciously, but Lucien and I were not moved by the strong winds. He yelled into my ear, “The second circle, Lust.”

Souls were blowing violently back and forth by strong winds, preventing them from finding peace and rest.

“The strong winds symbolize the restlessness of a soul who was led by the desire for fleshly pleasures. Sex, in other words.” Lucien pointed out souls as they whipped around us. “Tristan. Helen of Troy. Cleopatra.”

“What’s that noise? Not the wind but something else…”

“The wails?”

“Yes?”