Part 5

Circle Seven of Hell is by far the most violent and brutal, it’s a place that haunted Dexter’s mind to an extreme after his vision. It left such a deep trauma that much of his experience there was buried, forgotten in the haze of horror. I had to carefully piece together the fragments of his story to understand just what he had endured. The violence he witnessed there mirrored Dante’s own journey into the Seventh Circle of The Inferno.

In Dante’s vision, the Seventh Circle was reserved for those who committed the gravest acts of violence—against others, against themselves, against God, and against nature. It was a place where the consequences of brutality were laid bare. Dexter saw this too. The souls here were submerged in a boiling river of blood, their torment mirroring the violence they inflicted on earth. Those who had brought war and destruction, like Attila the Hun and Alexander the Great, were trapped at the very depths of this lake, completely submerged, boiling and suffering without end.

This place was also home to those who harmed themselves. In Dante’s journey, the souls of the suicides were turned into twisted trees, their bodies no longer human, bleeding sap whenever a branch was broken or torn by the harpies that circled above. The agony of self-destruction had transformed them into creatures of torment. For me, this strikes close to home. How many times have we been consumed by our own inner darkness, only to be reminded that such despair can lead to eternal ruin?

The vividness of these scenes, both in Dante’s text and Dexter’s recounting, makes it hard to dismiss. I’ve come to believe that Dante’s descriptions could not have been mere imagination—how could one man alone have conceived of such horrors in such detail? These are not the thoughts of a mortal mind; they are the recollections of someone who has seen the reality of Hell. As Dante wrote, “At the bottom of this circle, I saw the bloodstained souls of the violent, their boiling anguish the eternal cost of the harm they caused.”

Dexter’s journey through Circle Seven reflects this truth. He witnessed those who unleashed destruction on the world, driven by greed, wrath, and cruelty. Yet, there was no glory or pride in their suffering—only shame, despair, and endless torment. The Minotaur, a symbol of chaotic violence, guarded the entrance to this level, representing the wildness and disorder of unchecked aggression. It roamed among the condemned, its presence a reminder of the monstrous consequences of their choices.

There is no redemption here—only pain. The souls in this circle are beyond rescue, trapped in the consequences of their earthly actions. And just like Dante’s guide Virgil explained, the deeper one descends into Hell, the more intense the suffering becomes. Dexter saw this firsthand. Circle Seven was only the beginning of the violent torments; Circle Eight would take him even deeper into the realm of fraud and deception.

For those reading this, I urge you to think twice about the choices you make in life. Every sin, every act of harm, has consequences that we can scarcely imagine. If these visions of Hell are true, and I believe they are, then we must confront the reality of where our souls may end up if we continue down the path of violence, hate, or despair.

Join me here again next Wednesday as we continue this journey into Hell’s depths and dissect these eternal truths together. The descent grows darker, but there is hope for those willing to turn away from sin and cling to the light of salvation. The truth of Hell should make us all think twice about how we live—and whether we are ready for what awaits us on the other side.

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