Tyler Hamilton

THE PILGRIMAGE

      Manifestations of nightmares linger in the shadows. Shadows wane back and forth as the wind shifts directions. Directions of these ghosts grease these collapsed concrete hallways. Hallways that were once littered with directionless men. Men drag gurneys from one room to another. Another room made vacant by the touch of Death. Death smiles at the passing bodies that squeak down the hallways and past the next pilgrim; the Pilgrim passes across the threshold and into the shattered staircase winding down. Down further the pilgrim will make his journey into the choking chambers that breathe up from those circles that flames consume. Consume and damnation is the bromide of these tortures that none can abandon. Abandon all hope is written, faded and worn, into the archway's cracked face. Face the path that took the Poet down into the sins of the past.

      Past, Present, and Future lurk at every embankment that encloses tighter with each rung of the downward spiral. Spiral into the core of the universe that brings this Pilgrim to the bottom of what conceals destiny.

      Destiny, he utters with sharp distaste as he steps underneath the archway and hears the first wail of the souls that have been filtered past and destined for their plots by the tail of Minos. Minos has long been the monster that has ushered the damned to their ill-fated tortures plotted by God in His omniscient determination. Determination lacks for the Pilgrim who must trudge into the depths of Hades to see the resolution that will free him from his plight.

      Plight and ruin cascades from one staircase to another. Another soul falls into the rim that their sin has cast them into. Into the hole they fall�into the chains, or the flames, or the hands of another soul to tear at their bones only to be reincarnated into their tomb to begin the torture again. Again the Pilgrim trembles. Trembles quake the embankments of dirt sending dust and rocks falling from the circles above, occasionally casting a damned soul to the circles below and into the waiting hands of those angry souls that will chew his hide from his bones. Bones litter the floors of every level where the damned have fallen.

      Fallen, the Pilgrim says as he eyes the scattered ruins of bodies. Fallen and then to be damned to one torture and to be accidently tossed into another by some random quake; how alike and unlike fate that is here. Here where you are condemned by the plan God made for you. You are unlike the others, however; because you chose differently you were no longer part of the plan, but a heretic. Heretic despite the bromide of God having a reason for us all, the true colors come out when you choose to live your own life.

      Life is the reason, says the Shade caught lingering against the embankment at the bottom of Hell. Hell is the reason we are here. Here what you see before is not the tribulations for the evil for being evil, but for man choosing to be man. Man is the sum of what he chooses and that which he chooses becomes the sum of his character here below.

      Below, the Pilgrim said as he looked at the frozen lake that shimmered in the shade. Shade, the Pilgrim began, this Hell that I did not think exists stands here before me from circle to circle to this frozen floor that freezes every fiber of my being. Being as man, and as a man who chooses to live, why has God destined me to fail here before you, a faceless thing, instead of walking through that last archway there and towards the staircase to the next stage of this journey?

      Journey, Pilgrim, the Shade turned in question. Question that which you do not understand, I see. See, what you perceive around you is neither of God's creation, nor is it some destiny that was chosen for you. You, Pilgrim, built this hell yourself. Yourself… that is the nightmare that lends itself to these mangled manifestations.