by A. L. Mengel
For the war was taking place in the place – or, as many have argued, in the space, or dimension outside of the reality that these humans had once been accustomed to.
There eventually were these humans which would involve themselves – the souls of the formerly living that would be cast into a dark, burning sea; in an ocean of sorrow, burning with flames of despair and torment.
There was much turmoil and a constant veil of sadness; there was an eternal fire that burned in the sea of souls; the flames covered the water and burned, seemingly without a source, but strong and commanding, a leash of insanity, pulling on the crying, filled with despair, sadness and loss.
In a sea filled with faces, desperate souls looking upwards with unseeing eyes, limbs reached upwards from icy waters in search of air, but finding none. Wide eyes saw nothing, bleeding ears heard nothing, and skin, which was pasty white and covered with ulcers felt nothing.
The bodies did not feel the frigidness, nor the chill of the waters.
Their numbness was benign.
Their black fingertips, rotted with gangrene, some to the point where fingernails had fallen off and skin cracked and bled, did not feel the cold, nor the pain that would have normally been associated with failing skin.
The waters of the sea were always frigid, always writhing with bodies, always agitated and screaming.
And the war waged on, for what seems like years, but there was no sense of time. There was no eternity; no hourglass with sand tipping from one globe to the other; no sun, no clocks or anything indicating that the war should stop.
Just a red sky painted with black clouds.
And on the shores of the sea, the rocks were assaulting, rising through the sands like pointed mountains, which dug into the unprotected feet of those who stood on the sand, waiting to be banished into the sea.
And it was the monstrous demon who stood on the edge of the shoreline that cast the evil sinners into the sea, to be swallowed by thrashing limbs and screaming. He held a pointed spire, shooting flames into the sky, a sky from which only drops of blood would fall.
“Do not pass here!” The demon raised a muscular arm, pointing his spire towards the sky. A small group of people huddled together on the beach, not far from the demon; they all looked in horror over towards the waterline, saw the angry sea and the white foam crests of the waves, revealing the thrashing limbs and arms climbing and grabbing and pulling.
But despite the order of Hades, despite that the new arrivals at the shore of the sea that was very consistent and steady, the war waged on. And during that war, there was a focus, and that was one particular demon.
It was a demon who looked that of a man who knelt on the shore, his head hung low, his arms in shackles. He was not monstrous, muscular nor did he have wings or horns.
He was a man who had long, dark hair, twisted locks that hung down from his shoulders. He was dragged from a group of towering rocks towards an altar in the center of the sea, which stood in the center of the waters upon giant boulders that rose upwards towards the swirling, angry clouds.
He was dragged along the sand by two muscular men, his feet bloodied, broken and limp.
Coming Soon from Parchman’s Press
