As we approached the very heart of Hell,
The air grew colder, biting to the bone,
A chill that carried whispers from the fell.
A silence deep, save for the wings alone,
Their beating echoed through the frozen air,
As if a shadowed truth was being sown.
This was the Ninth, where treachery laid bare,
The place where all betrayal took its root,
A wasteland cold, where truth became despair.
Virgil spoke low, his voice a mournful flute,
"This is the realm where treachery is shown,
Where media becomes a mind astute.
No fallen angel sits on icy throne,
But rather here, the twisted human mind,
A force that warps reality, full-blown."
And as we neared, the landscape redefined,
A monstrous figure frozen in the ice,
A form where every darkness was confined.
No Satan here, with horns or forked device,
But something worse, a multi-faced dread,
A beast that bore our darkest human vice.
This joint mind of mankind, darkly bred,
Manifest in the digital age's core,
A consciousness of lies, its hunger fed.
Three faces loomed, each one a mask of war,
The central visage, red with burning hate,
The rage that seeks control and nothing more.
This was the face of anger, of the fate
Of those who use their words to spread the flame,
Who twist the truth to fuel a fractured state.
To right, a face of yellow, seeking fame,
Distorted by a need for empty praise,
The vanity that craves a hollow name.
This face was born of algorithms' maze,
Of souls who sold their truth for fleeting gain,
Their self-worth drowned in endless, aimless gaze.
And to the left, the darkest of the train,
A void as black as night, its eyes a scream,
The face of ignorance, devoid of pain.
This was the willful blindness, so extreme,
Of those who spurned the facts, embraced the lies,
Preferring falsehoods to reality's beam.
I stood in sorrow, gazing at the prize
Of all our folly, this monstrosity,
And wondered how we'd let this darkness rise.
"How did we birth this grim monstrosity?"
I asked, my voice a whisper frail with grief,
"Turned what was light into atrocity?"
Virgil, with eyes as heavy as a thief
Caught in the act, spoke truths that weighed like lead,
"It happened slow, like night's encroaching brief.
Each soul obsessed with self, its own voice fed,
Stopped listening to the world, to truth's demand,
And drank the lies that falsehood's merchants spread.
The net became a mirror, close at hand,
Reflecting not the truth, but wishes spun,
And so this mind was born, this twisted band."
The creature's wings, once strong beneath the sun,
Now tattered, beat in vain against the cold,
Each futile flap a death knell just begun.
Its eyes, six orbs of sorrow, darkly rolled,
Weeping tears of blood and bitter pus,
Each tear a truth denied, a falsehood told.
And as they fell, the ice would shudder, thus
Entrapping more the souls beneath its spell,
While on its throne, the creature gazed at us.
This is the end of treachery's dark well,
A world where truth is twisted in the mire,
Where freedom's light is dimmed by lies we tell.
But still, the path leads on, though dire,
For truth must rise, despite the frozen pyre.
--
As we approached the very heart of Hell,
The air grew colder with each fateful stride,
A chill that seemed to ring a deathly knell.
The silence broke with wings that flapped and sighed,
A rhythm harsh upon the icy wind,
And sent a shiver deep, though courage tried.
This was the Ninth, where treachery would find
Its place, where truth itself was most betrayed,
Where trust, once pure, lay cold and undermined.
And in the center of this frozen shade,
A monstrous figure loomed within the ice,
A vision of all lies that man had made.
Virgil spoke low, his voice a dark advice,
"These traitors here, who spread the world's deceit,
Have twisted minds with words as cold as vice."
As we drew closer, I could see the feat
Of treachery made flesh—three mouths agape,
With writhing figures crushed beneath their feet.
These were the ones whose lies in shadows crept,
Who broke the trust that binds the world in truth,
Who twisted souls in webs of lies they wept.
The central mouth, the most vicious in ruth,
Held one whose face was everyone and none,
A form of all mankind's corrupted youth.
A vision of our worst, where dark is spun,
And every twisted thought has taken form,
This creature gnawed on souls its lies had won.
The figure's face, with fury as its norm,
Embodied greed, and hatred, envy's reign,
A mirror to the internet's cruel storm.
But it was not alone; on either side,
Two more mouths chewed on souls who had betrayed—
One who in vanity and lies had thrived.
The right mouth held a leader's face, displayed
In twisted pride, who used deceitful power,
To spread division in the world he swayed.
Virgil, with voice that rang a solemn hour,
Spoke with disgust, "This one has fed on lies,
Exploiting all for gain, his soul grown sour."
The left mouth, dark as void, without disguise,
Held those who spread delusion, in denial,
Of truth, preferring comforts to the wise.
These faces were blank, lost in their trial,
For truth denied and lies embraced in fear,
They dragged the world through darkness all the while.
A sorrow deep as Hell's own heart was near,
As I beheld these twisted souls in pain,
Their bodies locked in ice, forever seared.
Virgil and I stood silent in the rain
Of all humanity's most foul deceit,
The darkness of our minds made manifest in vain.
The monster towered, born from endless heat,
Of lies, of hate, of every digital sin,
A symbol of the net's corrupt defeat.
Virgil, with calm, now placed his hand on mine,
"We must leave here, Durante. There is more
To see, to learn, to understand in time."
I nodded, though my heart felt like a sore,
"How do we leave?" I asked, my voice unsure,
Of how we'd escape this place of gore.
"We climb," he said, his tone of purpose pure,
He pointed to the twisted form ahead,
A mass of wires and screens, and tech impure.
Without a word, Virgil began to tread,
Up the creature's bulk, with steady hand,
I followed close, my heart a knot of dread.
We climbed, the surface jagged, icy, grand,
The wires pulsed green, a sickly, eerie glow,
Through which the internet's corruption ran.
Faces twisted in torment, pain and woe,
Glimpsed in the dark as we climbed ever high,
Past souls consumed by what they didn't know.
"The heart of this foul beast, where all lies lie,"
Virgil called out, his voice both firm and clear,
"Is where we cross, through this, the darkest sky."
The climb was hard, the cold like blades of fear,
But turning back was not an option now,
Through nightmare's core we'd find our passage near.
The atmosphere grew dense, as if to bow
The weight of all malevolence to bear,
Yet we climbed on, though dread upon my brow.
At last, we reached the heart where darkness's snare,
Was tightest, where the monster's evil bled,
Its power thrummed, a malevolent stare.
Virgil paused, turned, and with a voice that led,
He said, "This is the point of no return,
Beyond this lies the climb to light instead."
I steeled myself, with courage yet to burn,
"Let's do it," said I, ready for the test,
Through darkness thick, we passed, as if to learn.
We moved through, the air a fetid pest,
The sense of evil thick as mortal sin,
But soon we'd reach the place of final rest.
Then, suddenly, the pull of gravity's din
Shifted, and we felt the pull above,
No longer falling to the depths within.
We climbed, each step a testament of love,
A fight against the darkness that we'd braved,
As hope returned, descending from above.
At last, we reached the top, our souls saved,
The surface close, with light beginning to gleam,
Where earth and sky and stars so purely paved.
"We've made it," I said, in awe of the scene,
A world above, with beauty so divine,
That all our trials now seemed a distant dream.
Virgil smiled, his eyes a steady shine,
"We've left the darkness, but our quest remains,
There's more to learn, more wisdom yet to find."
We stood, and breathed, as dawn began to reign,
The stars above, a testament of light,
And felt the hope that healed our deepest pains.
Our journey's end would come, but not this night.