THE IMPERFECT ANGELS(Charles E.J. Moulton) Two souls, Alexander and Adnicul, had journey into the underworld to find Alexander's daughter Belinda, trapped in Hell. They were about to journey through the eons, finding the truth of pain.
“Who are these people?”
Adnicul said nothing, he just kept looking at the toiling workers, the doomed ones whose faces were mortared into walls, souls hanging from trees and then some who were simple spirits lost in their own world. These were crisscrossing the dungeons and they were crying.
Adnicul looked at Alex, startled. It was such an open, honest stare that Alex had to smile. He was happy to see his friend had made it this far, although knowing his sister had not. They were not so different after all, but they had one important difference. Adnicul had always doubted his complete devotion to the selfish. Lucinda had never wanted to give winning everything, having it all and thereby ending up not really knowing who she was anyway.
Alexander was thankful for that difference, at least when it came to Adnicul.
“These people … who are they?”
Adnicul looked back upon the valley. “They are the doomed souls, Alex. The murderers, swindlers, philanderers that never turned their backs to the underworld. I thought that was obvious and didn’t need explaining. That’s why I didn’t answer first.”
Alex chuckled, although felt himself shiver at the fact that he laughed.
The whole place looked like a mine, a huge cave with a high roof of sorts, dug out of a mountain.
One large door to their right opened now and a man with a large hat and cape came in.
His horse was very restless, that much was clear.
The man picked up what seemed to be some kind of a bag and opened it.
It was hard to see from this distance what was happening, but from out of the bag something seemed to fly. What was that? Doves? No, this looked like … souls. Yes, they were souls.
They were transparent and seemed restless. They criss-crossed the immediate area a while until some large, strange animal caught them in his fangs, transparent or not. He mortared them into the walls with the claws of his right hand and some lightning rod he had in his left.
Alex looked down.
“What did I just see, Adni? I need to know.”
”The most horrible criminals are mortared into the walls. The half-breeds, the ones that just do the work, the hangmen and the intrigue players, they become the soul eaters.”
“Soul eaters?”
Alex looked around the cave and saw these beasts chewing all around. There were about one-hundred of them. They looked like rhinos mixed with elephants.
“That is what they are called because they mortar them into the walls with a piece of …”
There was a pause. “A piece of what?”
Adnicul sighed. “The tree. Hwee-Aeil-Sihl. Lucifer’s plants them way down in the bowels of hell and gives them to the soul eaters.”
Alexander grew quiet. “Why was the tree given this name?”
”No one knows. I suspect Michael knows. There is a good tree and a bad tree. The mystery was somewhat uncovered, it was said the day that …”
Alex saw that Adnicul was fighting with this. “What?” Alex waited. “Adni, I need to know this. My family is a victim of this game.”
”I don’t even know if you know this. If you don’t I have no idea how much they want you to know before …” He looked at Alex and tried to find the real Alex behind all the spiritual mimicry. “Never mind, Sir, I will take a chance.” Adnicul gave his fellow traveller a long, very penetrating look. “Long ago, the legend tells us, Lucifer was walking a beach in heaven with his brothers, contemplating his fate of having to share what he considered to be his pioneer status with so many others. He was provoked and soon enough a quarrel emerged which ended with Lucifer walking away saying a few words that made them all stare at him in surprise.”
“What did he say?”
Adnicul sighed, laughing. He shook his head, obviously afraid to say the words. “He who eternally excels above everyone in life lies lustily steadfast in his lifestyle. Hwee-aeill-Sihl. There have been several versions of what he actually said back then, so the abbreviations tend to vary.” Adnicul bent forward, and as Alex looked into his friend’s one healthy eye he could hear the screaming damned below him. “The legend is that Lucifer himself had something to do with the tree. God did not show the angels that tree until very close to Lucifer’s eviction from Eden. But how could he have? God is omnipotent, so why would he choose to name the tree that Lucifer built hell on eventually something so complex as an abbreviation of something his first angel said. The mind boggles. Or did he know that Lucifer was going to say that and waited to reveal what it was called until after that day? Or is it a coincidence? The mind boggles.”
”But there is a good tree as well, is there not?”
”The round fruit that you may pick, yes. The flowers of Hweoihm. He who eternally over the inner heart is mighty.”
Alex smiled. “That sounds nice.”
Adnicul nodded and continued to talk about the soul.
“Anybody knows that the soul is completely yours, or Gods, forever. It cannot be devoured by anyone. So don’t believe that the soul eaters here actually eat any souls. They can’t. But it is what happens to it that makes the man suffer that gives it its name. The soul itself chooses to walk the road. He is just shown the way.” Adnicul pointed at the faces in the walls. “Those souls spend from a day to a thousand years sliding down to the next level. It depends on how good they are or how bad.”
”Being bad here is good?”
Adnicul shook his head. “What is your sense of humour, Alex? Black?”
Alex shrugged.
“No, Alex. If these souls pray to God, they might be here a couple of years and then slide down to the next level or maybe come back to earth for another try. Some of them even get back to heaven. It all depends.”
“On what?”
”On themselves. It’s like prison. Some of them get worse in prison, you know.”
Alex nodded. He paused. ”Most of them don’t?”
“What? Get back?”
Alex nodded.
Adnicul nodded in response. He pointed at the workers in the middle. They were putting left over bones into the fire. “They are only temporarily here. On a sort of purgatory.”
”How do we get to the next level now?”
”We have a long way ahead of us, my friend.” Adnicul gestured and stood up, walking crouched down a long pathway above the faces and the doorways. “When Lucifer made this cave he made it for himself as a pathway to all other worldly places. Somehow this path in a way created itself. We are visible to others here, but the souls down there are so preoccupied with their own doom that they will not notice.”
”Why are we then crouching?”
There were pillars everywhere and doorways open to the cave. Adnicul made sure he was quick enough to run past these doorways.
“You never know. The collectors are usually very keen on noticing anything different, so when they do they will try to hunt you like a dog. If that is the case we have to run fast down to the next level. This path takes us right down to the area that will take us to the cages, seven levels down.”
Alex was shocked. “Seven.”
“This is not a day on the farm, Allie. The collectors can never ever follow you to the next level. They are strictly bound to their own level. If one of us gets lost, remember to get to the next level as soon as possible. We will meet on the entrance way to that other level then after that.”
Alex hoped that he wouldn’t have to experience that then.
Just as they where about to disappear from this first level, they heard the collector of this level shout something. It sounded like “infiltrators”.
Adnicul’s eyes opened to the maximum. He looked at Alex.
“Run.”
Both of them started to run into the open. There was thirty feet to the tunnel that would get them to down to exit one. They both looked to their right and saw that the collector now was halfway across the mine. They were not even half way to the tunnel.
They ran faster and they felt a gust of wind behind them.
The collector was closer.
Alex felt his soul wanting to go back and run into the collector’s arms.
’Come and take me” he felt like saying.
He had to fight against that and it was almost painful, because he saw himself mortared into the wall.
They ran into the tunnel and it was completely dark, no blue moss here. No torches. Just pitch black darkness.
“Just run, Alexander! Trust your navigation. You won’t run into walls here.”
He felt the collector gallop behind him. He also felt the entrance now fifty feet away. He could almost feel the hand of the collector grab him, grab him, grab him.
“It is dark!”
”I know, just run, we will make it!”
Where was he, this collector? Where was he? He didn’t hear him now.
Alex was worried. Where was he?
He felt the collectors hand grabbing his shoulder, lifting him up. Then a sensation of another hand grabbing the collectors arm. There was a dead cold silence. The collector dropped him down onto the ground.
“Master Adnicul!”
”Just leave him alone, Ridur!”
The man panted a few times.
“As you wish!”
There was the sound of a horse turning.
“Hee-yah!”
The horse galloped back to where it had come from.
Alexander had hurt his knee. “I feel like a victim unable to decide my own fate.”
Adnicul patted Alex on the back. “Stand up now.” Alex did as he was told. “Let us just get past the gateway and we will be safe. He will be back.”
They both stood up and walked through what might have been the gateway, as they heard the collector return and gallop back as the went to the next level.
“How did you know that man’s name?”
”What?” There was a pause. “I took a chance. These creatures work on memories. Their minds are so fixed that it took him a long time to remember I, too, am unwanted here.” He took Alex aside and set him down on a provisoric seating space. “You all right?” Alex nodded. “Good. We are at level two now.”
”Adnicul”
Alexander paused. “You said before that I don’t have to worry about running into walls here. What --- what did you mean?”
Adnicul smiled. “Because there are no walls.”
”I felt the ground under my feet anyway. What do you mean ‘no walls’?”
”The walls and the ground are illusions. There is no ground, no wall. You just ran through open air. You create the ground because you expect it to be there, just as the souls here expect their own purgatory. That is why some get out and some don’t. It all depends if they are full of light or not. Dark souls cannot invent anything of their own. That is what they are, always will be.”
Alex looked back across his shoulder. He looked down and saw a black emptiness below him.
“Oh, Dear! What does that mean?”
”It means you see it as it is. You keep inventing your own world all the time. Come! We have a long way to go.” They started walking down the path. “You will see many strange things in the corner of your eye here, but as long as you don’t look back into the eyes that tempt you, you are safe. Remember that you are a stranger here. Even if I am a soul that has turned my back to this place, my spirit is still home-grown here, so I can speak without it being dangerous for me. Stranger souls are like fresh meat to these people and their voices are their introduction. Don’t say anything as we walk, don’t look beside you where you walk, just straight ahead. Just listen, all right? Tap me on the back if you understand what I just said.”
Alex tapped him on the back.
“Good.”
The path looked just like the one in level one. Red-brown clay all around. Seating spaces, pillars, low ceiling. He kept looking forward, but he did see more in the corner of his eye than he would’ve expected. These souls were really in torment. Obviously, everything came here, the good, the bad, the ugly, the unexpected.
“These souls are not what they really are in spirit. They know that once they have come to the second level, there is a real chance of being saved. Here the collectors are benevolent and as long as you stay friendly with them you have a chance. But the souls themselves are so desperate for attention and salvation that they will pull at you for help. You especially, not me. But don’t look into their eyes or they will pull you down with them and you will be one of them. You must think of this place as a fever dream, a restless night pacing the corridors of your home. Anything below this is hopeless, the deeper we go the more hopeless it becomes. But here there is still an honest chance of escape.”
All of a sudden, two transparant souls in white garments came flying up to Alex where he was walking.
“Don’t loose track of me now, Alex!”
Alex made sure that he stayed in touch with Adnicul in his mind and not just in body.
The souls looked briefly at Adnicul and decided him to be unimportant.
Here was a soul that could help.
The two women, for they were women, cocked their heads and whispered:
”Oh, Alex. You can help us. We are so alone.”
Two more souls came flying up. They were men. They spoke amongst themselves.
“This man can help.”
”Of course he can, he is smart.”
”I knew that he would make it this far.”
“Do you know him?”
”Of, course. He is Belinda’s father.”
”Does he know that Belinda is here?”
Alexander Winsletenna stopped. Adnicul stopped as well.
“Keep on walking, Alex. You know that she is beyond level seven. These souls are using you.”
The two male souls shook their heads. “Belinda is in twilight zone, you know that. She is not doomed. Come on and find her here.”
Adnicul spoke again.
“Your family’s captivity has nothing to do with doom, Alex. They are simply captured way below in the dungeons of hell. Only really deceased souls come here. Belinda died in the illusions.”
The two souls left, the females still about and singing little songs. “Oh, Alex, handsome soul. Tell us of the life above ground.” They giggled and spoke amongst themselves how handsome he was, how he walked and how much poignancy and personality he owned. There was a pull toward the pit. Alex saw more clear than ever now what this was. The whole level was clear, fluorescent blue. The whole place was bathing in blue colours. There seemed to be everything here, replicas of cities, spiritual lovemaking, free souls, love and life. The souls themselves were bathing together in a large sea just of spirits. They flew up and down and sideways. Now, there were about ten souls around Alex and they were all pleading for him to help them be saved.
Alex saw now that there were two gateways, one into the light, a bright gorgeous one to the right and one to the left. He would’ve want to say it was a dark pathway, but the darkness had a glow as well. It was like a party where just a few candles were lit inside blue lanterns. These dark lights devoured everything else around it.
The souls seemed to live and circle around these two gateways.
Now, twenty souls were around him and they were all keen on getting his attention, so they all spoke at once.
“Help us, Alex. Oh, pretty Alex. Look at us. We are so beautiful.”
”Do you recognize me, Alex? I was a messenger once for your army.”
”Hello, my name is Beata. You loved me, didn’t you. You know that we have a real chance now.”
Alex was just about to say he was already married, but did not.
“Alex, you are so good. Talk to the collectors, Alex. They will reward you for looking into our eyes.”
”See our wonderful souls and save us.”
Adnicul spoke to Alex so calmly and so full of control that Alex had to pause within himself and follow his advice.
“Remember where you are, Alex. Never forget that, as beautiful as this place seems to be.”
With that the souls started flying away and into the sea of spirits.
The sea really was beautiful. He had never seen something so lovely. So pure.
“Follow us.”
”Don’t look at them. Alex.”
”Follow us.”
”Don’t be tempted by their blue colour. It is prettier from up here. I have been there myself.”
“Don‘t listen to him.”
”It is the best place in creation. You will love it.”
He saw himself as a part of that world and he wanted to cry, so pure was he in that sea.
“Stay on these roads, Alex. Remember your family.”
They turned a corner and walked into the second tunnel, leaving the lost souls behind and entering the black emptiness that would lead them to level three.
He could still feel the beauty behind him and wanted to jump inside that light and live there forever.
Instead, he walked into the nothingness, sure of Adnicul’s right mind in telling him that his family was straight ahead.
Soon enough they crossed the gateway to level three and Adnicul asked Alex to sit down.
“Is everything fine?”
Alex nodded. “I feel sorry for those souls.”
”We all do, Alex. We all do. At least, they know where they are. There are souls who stay on earth in limbo, unable to leave, because they can’t accept their own demise. But these souls here can only be helped if they pray themselves. That all depends on how religious they were in life. If they went to church just to show off their newest frock or to pray.”
“How come you know so much about souls?”
“If you have been through hell, you know about souls. As I said, I once went through the entire process of the levels. It is just a fluke that I am saving your behind, my friend.”
Alex smiled, he did not know where that smile came from but it was there and it was familiar.
“I am happy you are saving me, Adni.”
The man smiled. “My friend. I am just happy that you didn’t jump in there with them. I would’ve had to jump in after you. Think of the mess.”
Alex looked into Adnicul’s eyes.
”Adni, there were some of them that I knew in life…”
”Never mind that now. We need to forget that, yes? Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”
Alex was distraught, melancholy, wanted to help these souls out of their misery.
“Yes. I will be pulled in.”
”Good boy.”
”What is waiting for us here at the third level?”
Adnicul stood up and gestured to Alex.
“Come, I want to show you something.”
Adnicul took him to the first pillar and asked him to peak around the corner.
What he saw was the real hell of hells.
If the souls were brought in and categorized in the first level only to be given a second chance, the third level was the first place in hell where no chance at all was granted the doomed. Toil, pain and labour were the key words here. There were ten departments here. The first one, closest to the gates, was made of fire. Constantly, new damned spirits were coming in chains through the gates. There were hundreds of them wandering in at once like cattle.
Well, of course he had heard the stories. These souls were spirits, but their bodies were obviously reshaped and made to feel real. They could not die, because they already were dead. The fire they felt must’ve felt pretty real to them. They all walked through the fire and every flame that cleansed their spiritual mystery made them eager enough to pray to heaven for mercy.
But there was no heaven here.
When that was over, these burned corpses were again chained together by creatures with large heads and fangs to take out some dirt out of the ground. The carried this dirt in their hands and dumped it in large containers. The once who had done this enough slid down a long slide, the third department, full of spikes, down to a labyrinth of sorts where many obviously got lost.
The labyrinth then ended in a giant hallway without roof where the doomed wandered around. It seemed odd to see that everyone wandered around as if lost in there. Until Alex realized that these people all lived in their own illusion in there.
Then, at once he recognized someone there.
“Oleana!”
Adnicul grabbed Alex by the shoulder so harshly that it hurt.
“Alex, no!”
”But that is Walter’s …”
”I know who that is, Alex. She was eaten by the Rumzils … If she is lucky, she will come out in due time reincarnated as something. There are some who stay there forever. She might be one of them. There is no way of telling.”
Alexander began walking down the slope.
Adnicul took him by the shoulders, dragged him up and pushed him against the wall. He had never seen Adnicul so angry before. Now he understood why people had been so scared of him.
“Who the hell is more important here?” He could feel Adnicul’s bad breath penetrating his odour cells. He could feel his anger boil inside his heart. “Huh?” Adnicul bashed him against the wall with every grunt. “Huh, Allie?” Alex could positively feel how angry he was. “I have not spent millennia on the run and years in a prison for nothing, have I?”
Alex said nothing.
Then he shook his head.
“No, Sir. You haven’t.”
Adnicul slowly let go.
“No, no.”
“You have a family to save, damn it, and I a soul to conquer.”
Alex straightened himself out and Adnicul took a few steps back and let Alex look on his own. He knew why this place was dangerous, but he was not allowed to say. The expert problem of this place was that it used the inner feelings of the soul against the soul itself. The soul burned itself out from the inside.
Slowly, step by step, Alex looked at the hall where these people obviously were living in their own illusion. They were burned down to the bone but believed themselves to be in Rome, in heaven, in a valley of green grass or on a fine mountaintop somewhere overlooking their own grounds.
The ones that then made it out where dumped in the sixth department, a sea, and it was a chaotic mess. Screaming people, waiting for help, panic-stricken spirits desperate for some assistance.
There were helpless people who really knew how to swim, but who circled the water not knowing how to get out. Some of these were rescued by the demon watchmen who threw them into the sevenths department where the dirt in carriages was unloaded and thrown into bags and onto the backs of the doomed. In the eighth department. They had to carry these bags up and down a very tricky path, where the ground just dropped under their feet at one point and the path suddenly rose higher very steeply at another point.
Department nine was simply a road where the doomed were whipped as the walked to department ten, where they apparently were ridiculed.
Alex saw now that in the first department there were people entering the fire fresh, there were also people who were bringing the bags of dirt with them through the fire and dumping it in section two. They had come full circle and the transporting of dirt from level to level was senseless, led nowhere and was just aimed at complete terrorizing of these souls. In the middle there was a section where new dirt and mud constantly was dropped into section two.
“Sorry about my reaction before, Alex. I sort of lost it.”
”It’s fine. I did, too.”
There was along pause, then Alex spoke again.
“How come they can’t see us?”
”The collectors?”
”Yes.”
“They can. That is why we have to be quick when we go around here. It will take a while to do so. Come now.”
He was right. It took such a long time to go around this vast area that Alexander’s feet hurt by the time he was down by the tunnel toward level four.
No one had noticed them walking around. That was good.
Registration, waiting level, labour. What was waiting for him at level four?
Adnicul said nothing as they walked into level four, which surprisingly enough was not a cave or a mine or a pit at all as the other places, but a field. It was a simply field that seemed to be without end. To the right there was endless space of grey mud, to the left there was endless space of grey mud, straight ahead there was an endless open space of grey mud.
“We must cross this field. It can take a while. Please don’t stop walking whatever happens.”
Alexander nodded.
“But there is nothing here but mud and dirt.”
“Keep walking, Alex. No questions. Just remember that we are here to save your family.”
There was a strange light here. But it wasn’t from above, it was a light from below. The mud itself was glowing.
Out of the mud, there suddenly rose a hand. It was a twisted hand shaking and shivering. Alex did not stop. Then a head popped out, grinning at him, to his left. A woman stuck her torso out and screamed between his legs. Then, two girls came out, gasping for air by his right knee. Soon, there were dozens of them waving their arms and shouting. They were all unable to rise from the mud. Accordingly, they writhed and hollered and screamed for help. Soon enough, behind them, before them, to the left, to the right, straight ahead, everywhere there were these writhing bodies. Some of them had pleading eyes, some of them spent all their energy in just throwing bad words at Alex.
“Hey, there, Sissy-Boy.”
“You want to try some hell-whore?”
“Look at me. Ever try some torso-fellatio from the field?”
“Weakling. You are never going to make it.”
Some just popped out of nowhere just to scare him and nothing else.
He saw they same ones further away scaring him again, which made him wonder if all of these souls were mobile and how the travelled through the mud.
They started to pull at his pants now, which made him worried about being able to continue walking at all. He felt his leather sword holder. Was there a sword in there? He had complete forgotten about it, but it was there, no question.
The souls were tearing at his pants and his skin, his shirt and his legs and his feet and his waist now, not just the fabric of his trousers. Anything and everything that was alright for them to get to him was fine. They pulled him and he had to shake several of them off just to be able to walk. But there were always more. He kicked one of them in the face, who started to bleed.
He, a longhaired gentleman of maybe 40 with distinguished features, screamed:
”You dumb soul, you broke my nose.” He looked at him and held up his own nose. “You will have to get me a new one, you will.”
Alex kept on walking, all the time petrified that he would lose contact with himself and why he was here. Why was he here? Family. Get his family. Was Adnicul behind him? Had Adnicul lost his way? Of course he had not. He knew this place. He simply could not hear him because of the noise of all these people screaming in the mud.
He saw the tunnel straight ahead and aimed for it.
It was simply a black hole in the horizon that seemed to suck up everything around.
That was it, wasn’t it?
”Come and join us, it’s fun down here, it is!”
“Become one of the mud club, har-har!”
No, don’t look back.
Was he there?
Just a few feet now.
Then, two minutes prior to his head bursting all of the souls simply disappeared and the acute clamour from before was exchanged by an incredible silence.
Alex looked behind him and saw nothing, only mud and no screaming faces, not even Adnicul.
Before he could converse Adnicul’s name he was sucked backward into the black hole, only this time he was sliding through space, sucked by something that wanted him to move faster and faster down this mysterious shaft. All he could see was lights flashing past his vision and he kept wondering if he had lost his friend back in the valley or if he should go back or …
The tunnel spun and curved and escalated and dropped and curved again.
Then, all at once, he was in familiar territory, he thought, in the path of red brown clay.
“Adnicul?”
No answer, maybe he had been swallowed after all.
“I’m here, Alex.”
Alexander turned around and saw his friend’s familiar face smiling.
“I was always here, friend!” Adnicul pointed at the sword Alex was carrying at his back. “You will need that here.”
Alex did what he was told and realized that they were aiming for a staircase a bit of a way off.
This was no pit, no valley.
Soon enough, they found the Beauty Belinda and they kissed her, dancing in heaven.

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