Okay, I wrote this as an essay for my AP European History class. We were reading Dante's Inferno and had to create our own hell. I decided to make a hell and place some of the characters of Alice in it. Please note that this hell is my own, so the nine layers are ones that I made, not Dante's.
Hmmm, let me check…. Yep, I'm still alive, and nope, I'm not a guy, so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I do not own Alice in Wonderland, or Dante's Inferno.
Enjoy your trip to Hell!
-o-o-o-
There once was a young girl. The girl was walking along a street when she saw a small white rabbit. The rabbit was a very peculiar rabbit as he was wearing a waistcoat and a pocket watch. He was staring at the watch muttering to himself nonsense things that no one, save maybe a certain mad hatter, could understand. When the girl got closer, he stopped his muttering and glared up at her.
"It's not very polite to keep people waiting, you know." The White Rabbit glared at her, tapping his foot impatiently and looking down at his watch again. "Now we're late! We're late for a very important date!"
"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Rabbit." The girl mumbled, surprised, not by the fact that the rabbit was speaking, but by the fact they were late. "If I had known that we had a prior engagement, I would have been here sooner."
The rabbit sighed. "There's no use apologizing, Girl. It's too late now. We're just gonna have to take the short way down to Hell."
Before she could ponder what his words meant, the rabbit drew a strange object from his pocket. It looked like four rings melted together in a strange Y formation. As soon as the rings touched the ground, a gaping wound opened up in the earth revealing a swirling vortex full of mortal and divine misery. Before the girl could back away from the pit of suffering, the White Rabbit had pushed her forward with him jumping in close behind her.
She tumbled head over heal for what seemed like forever. She could not see the White Rabbit, though he could see her. The only thing that the girl could see was the thousands of human faces in the walls, screaming in agony. They were trapped in the ice that the hole was made of. A hole, the girl quickly realized, that led to the palace of suffering. Hell. The girl began to scream with them.
When she finally reached the bottom of the pit, the girl crumpled in a sobbing heap on the floor. She stayed that way, her little blue dress that was once so pristine, now full of mud, until the white rabbit landed delicately on his feet, holding a little umbrella over his head. He put the umbrella away, and calmly walked over to the girl. He then grabbed the girl by her long, blonde hair and dragged her sobbing head up.
The girl screamed in protest and started clawing at the rabbit. When she reached his face with her hands, the White Rabbit slapped her. She stopped her crying immediately and went limp in his hands, staring at him with defiant eyes. The White Rabbit laughed.
"See, this is why I like you, Girl." The rabbit laughed. "You've got a fight in you. Don't prove me wrong by falling apart when you've just seen the first level of Hell."
"That was the first level?" The girl asked, her voice still shaky. "What did those poor people do?"
"They are the abusers of money. In life, they did not share their wealth with those who needed it, so in death they must freeze."
"T-t-that's right," stuttered a small figure at the base of the hole. The girl went closer to him and saw a little man who was blue all over. The only part of his body that was sticking out of the ice was his head. The large crown with the ruby hearts that used to sit upon it was now gone. He looked at the girl and with hollow eyes, not even attempting to hide his suffering. "I didn't give my money to help the poor people who were suffering the freezing weather, so now I must feel the aching cold that they experienced in the winter. I never meant to punish the poor! I thought that everyone was safe and warm! If I could go back I would give everything away to help those in need."
The king started to ramble on about what he would do to escape his punishment. The White Rabbit looked at his watch again and grabbed the girl by the arm. He dragged her away from the ice hole and they began going down a steep hill.
"I thought that ice was the last circle of Hell," the girl asked, holding her arms tight around her to try to escape the cold.
"That idiot Dante screwed everything up," The rabbit grumbled as he picked up the pace. "He didn't appreciate the thought we put into Hell, so he went and made up his own!"
The girl thought about his words for a while. She was startled out of her reverie when she abruptly ran into the White Rabbit. "Welcome to the next level of Hell." The rabbit said as he started walking again. "The second circle is for the abusers of truth. They lied for their own personal gain, so now they must follow the endless path of lies that they told." As the rabbit finished an emancipated purple cat came up to them. The normal smile that graced his face was gone, one of the many casualties of Hell.
"This path goes through swamps, and fire, and pits full of stakes, and thorns, and all sorts of vile things," the cat grumbled as he pranced by. "So I misled a person every now and then, so what? It was fun! Why should I have to suffer, stupid people should have been able to figure everything out on their own…" They cat was soon too far away for them to hear anymore.
They walked on to the third circle where the abusers of justice were held. The White Rabbit explained that this is where the people who escaped punishment in life are punished in death for slipping through the system. He led them straight to a rather peculiar looking man. He had crazy, white hair and a rather large nose. He was lying on the ground with his head resting on a block. His large top hat was covering his face as he was humming a little tune to himself.
"Well hello, Dearie," The man smiled with an insane grin. "Come to visit a crazy old man in hell have you? I never should have run when the Queen announced my beheading. What I did was wrong. I murdered time! Now I'm facing the punishment I escaped in life." A Knave of Hearts was coming with a large axe in his hand and the old hatter's eyes grew bright in fear. He turned back to the girl. "Now, you should go, Dearie. You don't want to see my hat go flying now do you?"
The White Rabbit shook his head in pity, grabbed her arm again and started moving down the path again. They weren't very far when they heard the thud of metal on wood and the eccentric laugh of a man dying for the thousandth time.
The soon made it to the fourth level of Hell. The girl was affronted with sight of millions of people shaking, sweating, and vomiting. There were screams and groans filling the air as the girl practically ran to escape the sight of the people lying naked on the ground in various states of dress.
The White Rabbit stopped her just as she was almost clear of the field of bodies.
"This is the place for the abusers of the body," The White Rabbit said with a firm grip on her arm. "They filled their bodies with fat, drugs, and alcohol so now they must suffer the symptoms of withdrawal for all eternity."
He brought her close to the withered body of a large, blue caterpillar huddled beneath a mushroom. The bug was shaking so hard that he was on the point of having a seizure. He kept trying to pick himself up to take a bite from the mushroom, but he was too weak to do so. He tried to speak to the girl, but could not find the energy to do so.
The White Rabbit, satisfied with the looks of horror on the girl's face let go of her arm so that she ran straight into the next circle of Hell.
The girl quickly ran into a cliff. Chained onto the cliff were thousands of people: some limp, others screaming in pain and terror. She walked up to the cliff and saw the body of a small dormouse, asleep, enjoying the respite from the pain he normally felt.
"Excuse me, Mr. Dormouse," the girl said, poking the small body. "I seem to be lost. Could you tell me which level I'm in now?"
"This is the fifth circle," the dormouse replied, now awake and looking around in fear. "This is for the abusers of the mind. We wallowed our lives away in ignorance and did not attempt to improve our knowledge. Since we did not use our brains in life, crows come and pick our brains clean every day, because we don't think we need our minds. Oh, no! Here he comes!"
The dormouse began to scream in terror when a large black shadow descended upon them. When the girl looked up and saw a large crow, she ran before she had to experience the sight of a skull being opened and emptied of its insides.
She ran right into the White Rabbit. Who grabbed her by the ear and started dragging her down the path once again. They stopped when they reached, of all things, a kitchen.
Tied to two seats at the kitchen table were two identical, fat men. Their bodies showed a variety of scars and they were grinning identical evil smiles.
"This is the sixth circle. Here are the abusers of family. They destroyed their homes, so now they are destroyed by their homes. These two are twins who liked to play games with each other. Now they are here. Their tongues were the first things cut out, so they can't speak to you, but they have always thought that this was just another fun game."
As the rabbit finished, the twins' grins grew even bigger. The girl looked like she was about to throw up, so the rabbit led her away as the clang of knives filled the room.
They exited the kitchen into a scorching hot, desolate wasteland. People were spread throughout the desert, some burning, others nothing but blackened skeletons in various states of regeneration. The rabbit brought the girl to the skeleton of a rather large bird. The girl watched with a gruesome fascination as tissue was forming on the bones of the long extinct avian creature.
"The seventh circle is for the abusers of the world. These are the people who destroyed the earth with no thought to the consequences. They are stuck here to experience what future generations will face because of their carelessness. This one for example" The rabbit paused to kick the bones of the bird, knocking off some of the regenerated tissue as he did. "Went around burning down whatever he could fine, so now he burns too."
This time the girl really did throw up. The White Rabbit waited for her to finish before guiding her to the next level.
The girl was relieved when the unbearable heat let up, only to be replaced by the smell of animal feces, blood, the screams of humans, and the growls of dogs.
"This is the eighth circle: the place for the abusers of the innocent. All those who tortured the innocent: children, animals, and the helpless, are tortured here by those that they tormented."
They stopped when they reached the edge of one of the many pits that littered the ground. The girl peeked over the edge, smoothing out her hands on her not-so-clean-anymore apron. She saw a rather large woman with black hair being ripped apart by wild dogs. The woman was wearing a tattered red dress with hearts printed all over it. She had a wild look in her eyes and was screaming as the dogs tore into her.
"I won't stand for this! Do you know who I am? I am the Queen! I have killed people for lesser things. Stop this! Stop this, this instant! Off with your heads!" Her screams were cut off as one of the dogs ripped through her neck and the head of the deranged queen went flying into the air.
The girl ran before the head hit the ground, the rabbit close behind her. She came into a large cavern with a beautiful icy lake filling the entire room. The girl tip-toed in her little black Mary Jane's to the edge of the lake, only to jump back as soon as she saw what lay at the bottom. It was a monstrous demon struggling to reach the surface, but was kept at the bottom by the chain that was wrapped around his leg and bolted to the lake floor.
"That's Lucifer," The White Rabbit calmly remarked when he saw the look on the girl's face. "This is the last level of Hell: The ninth circle. This is the place for the abusers of love. Lucifer abused the love of God, so he must drown in the love that he rejected. Look in the lake again, and see who else belongs in there."
The girl slowly walked back to the lake and peered into the previously clear water. Looking back at the girl was her reflection. The mirror girl had a devious smile fixed on her face. She reached out from the lake, grasped the girl's dress and dragged her deep into the lake until a chain wrapped itself around her ankle and the girl was trapped in the frigid waters of Hell. Somehow the girl could still hear the voice of the White Rabbit from somewhere far above.
"You shunned the love of your family, preferring to escape into fantasy lands," The rabbit said. "Your family wasted away their lives waiting for you to come back to them, but you never did. So now you will forever be trapped within the affection that you pushed away. Enjoy your time in Hell….Alice."
-o-o-o-
Love it? Hate it? Want me to burn in my own hell? I know this is a one-shot, but I still like reviews!