system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When something goes past the event horizon, does it orbit into the black hole's singularity or does it follow a straight line path?
gpt
This question is somewhat hard to answer if you are unfamiliar with general relativity.

The theory of general relativity states, that gravity is not a force but the distortion of spacetime itself.

According to this theory, energy (to be technical: the stress-energy tensor) bends spacetime, thus changing its topology. Since mass is a form of energy, mass can bend spacetime.   
Free objects - those are objects who are  not influenced by a force - travel at a straight line through spacetime. Since spacetime is distorted around energy, the "straight" line through space may appear curved for an outside observer, thus creating the "illusion" that there is a gravitational force.

Consider the following example:  
The ISS is in orbit, so no "force" but gravity is acting on it. If we were to place an accelerometer inside the ISS, this accelerometer would indeed tell us, that the ISS is force free. It is in free fall around the planet. This free fall is a straight line, that happens to be curved back into itself by gravitational distortion of spacetime.


Since black holes (primarily) interact gravitationally with other objects, these objects will follow straight lines through spacetime that only appear to be curved to the outside observer.

Thus, the technical answer to your question is: objects follow a straight path.

However, you have to understand, that beyond the event horizon of a black hole, spacetime is so much distorted, that **all** paths lead towards the singularity.