The Vestibule

Dimness visible, the eve of Good Friday,
Welcome to the world where it’s just a dark wood
And a mountain assailed by the beasts.
Evade you cannot, and the straight way
You are unable to find.

Salvation would have no promise for the prospective,
Face it; you consciously fell into a deep place.
Thus the sun will remain silent.
“Enter and abandon hope,” says the inscription,
Where in Hell, you little lost one, owe something dearly.

Behold, the Uncommitted souls,
For they have accomplished nothing for either deeds.
Mixed along with the outcasts,
They had taken neither side whatsoever,
For they are not in Hell, nor out of it.

A banner, pursue a banner as you souls reside on the shore,
As you are eternally punished as you realized,
Before the maggots drink the blood and tears.
Onto the ferry, you lost one,
And sweep through Acheron and to Hell.

The sailing came to conclusion, and multiple rooms are shown.
Though the rooms are concentric,
It is what we find a gradual increase in wickedness,
And at the centre of the earth it climaxes,
It is where the dark figure is held in bondage.

Here he is waist deep in ice,
Weeping his tears he beats his wings,
As if trying to elude the central zone.
But for the ultimate treachery that was set and done,
The impotent, ignorant, and hateful beast is forever imprisoned.

Down his ragged fur we go,
And through the centre of the earth we escape through.
You may think you would return to the dark wood,
But in the other hemisphere that we have emerged into,
It is just a site beneath a sky studded with stars.