A/N:The more and more that I read this, the weirder and weirder it seems to be. Please remember that this was an assignment for a college class and wasn't exactly intended to be posted here...that's the only excuse I can make for it. :)

Canto VII

At first, I could see nothing, just feel the intense heat. There were no lights, no sounds, just the feeling of burning. I could feel myself sweating from a combination of heat and nervousness.see the outline of people embraced within the flames.

I continued to walk further, toward what I could only describe as a torturous furnace enclosing around me.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me, beckoning me to follow. As I walked on, I could see light, though not from a sun or a moon. I saw the light of huge flames. As I walked on, my vision became clear enough that I could see my guide. I could also d within a dark, deathly cave, I looked at Danny questioningly. "Where are we?" I asked.

"The Sixth Circle," he said. "The circle reserved for those who have committed Heresy."

Danny waved over to two young men who had been standing at the edge of the fire. There skin was blackened by ashes and burned by the flames. They complied with my guide's request to come over and came over toward us.

"This is Turk and Virgil Malloy" Danny introduced, motioning to the correct person.

"Brothers?" I asked.

"Twins," Turk corrected. "I'm older."

"By two minutes," Virgil argued.

"Two minutes is a big deal."

"It is not."

"Is too."

"Shut up-"

The two continued their pointless fighting, the argument becoming increasingly intense.
"Are they always like this?" I asked.

"Yes," was the answer I received.

"So what did they do? You said that they were guilty of Heresy," I said, over the sounds of bickering behind me.

"It's an interesting story, actually," Danny began. "We were doing a job in Vegas."

"You mean you were robbing a place," I asked.

"Yeah. Anyway, we sent Virgil down to Mexico to tamper with the dice made there," he explained. "He saw how bad the working conditions there were and caused a revolt."

"A revolt?" I asked.

"We sent Turk down there to work things out, but he just made things worse."

"What happened?"

"We broke management!" Turk explained loudly.

"Yeah, those factory workers got their justice," Virgil said.

Danny interrupted them. "They got the factory owners to pay the workers an extra three dollars a week."

"That doesn't seem so bad," I said.

"No, but they still committed Heresy. They had an unorthodox idea of how things should be run; they got their punishment for it."

I looked at Turk and Virgil, who were still bickering, and felt sorry for them.

"We've gotta goes guys!" Danny yelled over the loud, harsh words of the two fighting brothers.

The two were quiet at once, giving their full attention to Danny. I realized for the first time how much respect everyone seemed to have for my guide.

"See you later, Danny," they said together.

Danny began to walk toward a turn in the cave, motioning for me to follow. As I did, the light from the flames began to disappear and everything around me turned dark once again, before everything went completely black.