THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (ereader that reads to you .txt) 📕

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