Circle Eight: The Thieves

While trying to get to the next area of Hell, Virgil and I encountered treacherous terrain. I head him say some fearful and uneasy words: "Climb here, but first test it to see if it will hold your weight". I didn't want to consider what would happen if I were to fall again. I gently tested each patch of rock before I adventured too bravely. If I didn't have the knowledge that this bank wasn't too steep, I would have turned back. I would have turned back immediately. I thought my heart would beat through my flesh as my lungs heaved. Virgil's words, asking me how I expected to climb a more virtuous height later if I couldn't get up this one, encouraged me as well. I lied a bit and told him that I was strong and felt steady here. I attempted to slow my breath. This caused more heat in my chest but I tried for the sake of my guide.

Finally my body was poised to look into the next ditch. My eyes took in coils upon coils of serpents. Their masses terrified me. I didn't want to think about them climbing all over me, traveling into my cloak, running over my skin with their rough scales. My horror could never match that of the men running from these snakes down in the ditch. They were nude and didn't have a hope of escape. Snakes coiled around their arms and ankles. This bound them and made their bodies vulnerable to whatever other serpents wanted to do to their immobile, struggling bodies.Each sinner seemed to be covered in knots.

One sinner ran up a large boulder. A snake slid after him and flew up, its fangs landing in the man's shoulder. The second the teeth entered the man's shoulder, he transformed into a pile of ash. I expected to see the serpent making his way through the ash, but instead, the dust rose and resumed the shape of the sinner. The entire process reminded me of the death and rebirth of the Phoenix. This poor man has the look of his face of someone who had just been slapped into sobriety.

Not only were these creatures regenerating from ash, they were also undergoing another metamorphosis. When you read this, I urge you to understand that it is true. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. As I looked to the ground, I watched a lizard come toward me, scuttling around bodies and serpents, and attach itself to a sinner's front.

The lizard's teeth sunk into the face of the sinner, its claws sunk their way into his forehead and shoulder, hind feet met thighs, and the tail coiled between the legs of the sinner. It couldn't have held on any tighter. They became one as if they were gradients of a sunset converging with one another. The final product was neither man nor beast. Endless and painful transformation was the end result for all of these thieves. No feature was safe from transformation of flesh to scales.