Well, I don’t want to get into it deeply here, but before Jesus’ death, the waiting places for where believers and unbelievers were being kept were not Heaven and Hell, but “abrahams’ bosom” and “hades”. Abraham’s bosom isn’t heaven because Christ’s sacrifice was not yet made, and those believers’ were not yet pure, the price had not yet been paid (they were ‘on Christ’s credit’ at this point, the best way to describe it).
Anyway, hell appears to be a temporary holding place, for it gets thrown into the lake of fire along with death. The metaphor here is confusing if it really is a physical lake or if it’s symbolic. I tend to think it’s symbolic as a form of final, eternal judgment and banishment, and separation from God and His people.
The other thing to note is that hell is described a bunch of different ways. “A place of outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The fire cannot be a physical fire, there is no light in a place of outer darkness. There is no physical thing such as invisible fire. We aren’t talking about radiation on some non-visible spectrum. They will not be in a cosmic microwave. They will be alone. They will have no sustenance, no water, no mercy, no forgiveness.
I was commenting on having no water - doesn’t sound like a place of physical comfort. There are some books on hell where some claim they went to for a bit only to be returned here. Bottom line - it ain’t pretty for a few minutes - forget about eternity. And, yes, you are alone - so much for some being flippant w/’at least my friends will be there’.