Chapter 8 - Misers

As we walked toward the third circle, the suffocating heat of wrath gave way to an unbearable cold. The air was dense and oppressive, as if it carried the weight of all the riches these souls had accumulated in life. Beneath our feet, the ground was covered by an uneven layer of translucent, treacherous ice, reflecting, like distorted mirrors, the frozen expressions of greed eternally etched on the faces of the trapped souls.

Fire and ice intertwined in a spectacle of endless agony. The punishment of the avaricious unfolded in a relentless and terrifying manner. The sinners, whose lives were marked by their obsession with gold and power, were now enslaved by their own ambitions, condemned to a suffering as absolute as it was eternal.

There, in the river of fire winding through a desert of ash and pain, the flames incessantly consumed the flesh of the greedy. Their bodies, once arrogant and filled with desire, were now mutilated, burned until the flesh crumbled into ash and raw, exposed tissue. Their hands, always outstretched to hoard riches, were now bound in molten iron chains, forced to hold flaming stones as heavy and scorching as their very souls. The heat emanating from each stone was like the infernal fire, burning their skin and bones until nothing remained but pain and despair.

These wretched beings, in their insatiable hunger for power, were cast into an endless storm of flames and ashes that rained down from the sky. The fire was so intense it burned their eyes until they dissolved, and their screams were muffled by the force of fiery winds tearing at their throats, echoing into the infinite of the eternal night. Their faces were contorted in expressions of utter agony, their muscles stiff from the constant torture of being unable to escape their prison of fire and iron.

Every step they took was a struggle. They pushed with all their strength against massive boulders of gold and silver that had once been their greatest treasures, now turned into their curses. With each movement, the rocks grew heavier and heavier, crushing them under the weight of their own greed. The stones tore into their flesh, leaving trails of blood that mixed with the scorched earth. They were forced to drag these burdens for eternity, without relief, without rest. The stones, like ghosts of their earthly desires, never stopped moving, never stopped crushing, as the surrounding fire burned them until it was impossible to tell where flesh ended and infinite torment began.

In their insatiable pursuit, the avaricious were now trapped in that eternal torment, where the gold that once guided them had become the weight of their punishment. The fire that burned in their hearts now consumed their souls, devouring every trace of humanity until nothing remained but the eternal flame burning mercilessly.

Figures crawled across the ice, desperately clutching at gleaming coins that disintegrated into dust at their touch. Others dug frantically into the frozen ground with bloody nails, as if hoping to uncover buried treasure. But all they found were their own failures.

I stopped before one of these souls. He was a gaunt, hunched man, his twisted fingers clutching a pile of objects that seemed to be made of gold. His hollow, vacant eyes glowed with an animalistic obsession. He looked at me for a moment, as though I were another thing to possess, before returning to his futile hoarding.

"They're trapped in a cycle, incapable of understanding," I murmured, more to myself than to the figures accompanying me.

Wrath laughed. It was a sharp, almost cruel sound, but not devoid of irony. "Understand? They never understood anything. Not in life, not now. Their greed brought them here, and now it's all they are. Do you think they want salvation? They just want to have."

I glanced at Gluttony, who remained silent. Her expression seemed darker, as if she absorbed the suffering around us. When she finally spoke, her voice carried a weight that even Wrath respected.

"It's not just desire. It's a void so profound that it became their essence. They're not hoarding to possess. They're hoarding because it's all they know how to do."

One of the souls rose with difficulty, the ice cracking beneath her fragile feet. Her face was twisted, a blend of fury and pleading. She staggered toward me, her hands outstretched as if trying to grasp something invisible.

"Please!" Her voice was hoarse, a muffled scream. "I did so much! I hoarded so much! Why am I here? I deserve more!"

I stepped back, not out of fear, but out of disgust. There was something deeply unsettling about the hunger in her eyes. She didn't want redemption—only the illusion of possession once more.

"You'll never have enough, will you?" I asked, my tone as cold as the air around us. "You're here because you never understood that everything you hoarded was never truly yours. Not even your soul."

The soul hesitated, as though my words had pierced the veil of her obsession. But only for an instant. Then she screamed, a sound full of despair, before throwing herself back onto the ice, digging frantically.

Gluttony sighed. "There is no hope here. Only reflections of a hunger that will never be satisfied."

"Leave me here," Gluttony said, her voice now firmer. "They have nothing left. Not even hope."

"Why are you staying?"

Gluttony didn't answer.

Wrath smiled, her smile like that of a wolf—cynical and satisfied. "They'll never understand. But that's what makes Hell more interesting. That's why I love Hell. There's always a new form of human failure to admire."

As Wrath and I moved forward, I felt the weight of the circle intensify. Greed wasn't just the desire to possess—it was the fear of losing, the need to control the uncontrollable. Each step on the ice cracked beneath my feet, as if the ground could shatter at any moment, swallowing everything around it.

And then, in the distance, I saw a distinct figure. It stood motionless, in stark contrast to the chaos of the other souls. Its body was thin, almost skeletal, but its eyes burned with an intensity that chilled me more than the cold surrounding us.

Greed. The embodiment of the third circle.

As we approached, one thing became clear: it didn't need to speak to assert its presence. The emptiness around it said everything. And the truth I sought seemed closer—but also more terrifying.